Thread for Linus Tech Tips Video Suggestions

[Matts Tech News]

Hi Team. 

I was not able to find the correct category for this post. Sorry in advance. 

With virtulisation being the golden standard for power reduction these days, Id love to see Linus tech tips replicate something like this. (I have in my home) 

While not the best of idea/s for a business or enterprise, I live in small apartment so power consumption, cost reductions and space saving is always at the forefront of my mind. 

Here at my home, I run a home pc that basically does everything using a hypervisor for my own home datacentre 

It runs 

1. A hypervisor from a USB
2. Pfsesne firewall - VM - + VLANS 

3. True NAS - VM
4. Windows 11 RDP - VM 
5. Plex Server 

6. Ubuntu Desktop

7. Antvirus Server Software - Bitdefender Server 

8. Windows 2012 server for WSUS 

9. Windows 2012 server - Local DNS caching= DNSSEC 

10. Squid Proxy + Local Internet caching

11. Web Hosting Server - cPanel

 

Why? Well just because I can and its fun, 

It would be great to ask the question. How many different (helpful) services and resources can you in VMs with your own home datacentre using a single machine on a budget limited to 64Gb RAM 12 Core Machine.  Tech Tips Video 

Edited January 9, 2023 by WkdPaul
cleanup

[WkdPaul]

@Matts Tech News your thread was merged to the appropriate thread.

[TheRealzestChampion]

I would love to see a video on creating a self hosted bitwarden server through Linux. Since the LastPass hack I've been trying to switch to a self-hosted password manager and have been running into issue after issue trying to configure it. It would be so helpful to have a great LTT video on the subject

[JavaSteam]

On 3/26/2019 at 11:55 AM, NinJake said:

My most comfortable setup is standing but it might not be for you! (see where this can be a problem?)

Which would suggest the best options for an adjustable height desk… Preferably one that could be adjusted remotely be either a cell phone or computer (profiles?)

[Sgt. Stinger]

Can you please make a followup video for the Samsung QD-OLED TVs, since I read online that firmware updates have lowered max brightness and worsened both HDR and SDR performance for them.

 

This seems like a classic bait and switch, and you guys recommended those TVs to your viewers on the release performance, and now it is substantially worse, they have been measured to be 400 nits lower brightness after the firmware updates.

[digdug18]

I’ve got a crap load of older hardware, mostly used, some NOS, that I need to move. Thought I’d give you guys some of it if you’d want it. My girlfriends father used to build computers, so I’m parting computers out to get his widow some money, she’s 68 and still working. 
 

This system is a i7-2600 something, a Asus P8P67 Pro MB, and Asus GTX 650 Ti in a full tower Corsair case. Not sure on the case, but it’s got the largest fan in it that I’ve ever seen, looks about 8” across. 

 

possible idea would be to throw a 4090 in it and see how bottle necked it is, or how a processor that old really stacks up against the newer lower end processors? Does a i3 12th gen truly blow it out of the water, or are we talking a 20 frame difference? 
 

if you guys don’t want anything, I’ll most likely turn it all into an untaid server or something for the pron stash. 

[JaretWrintmore]

An offline at home locally run Alexa/ google home server system.

[jamie.three]

Is a faster SSD a waste for gamers (2023): (A bit like the "is more RAM a waste for gamers?" but for SSDs)

Comparing (3?) different tiers of NVME SSDs (an possibly DRAM vs DRAMless) in real world tests:

 

(1) one of the many SSDs that can hit the maxiumim PCIe Gen3 speeds (3500MB/s read, 3000MB/s write) such as the WD SN570, Kingston NV2 or crucial P3 (these are usually some of the cheapest SSDs you can buy, making anything slower obsolete)

(2) a middle of the road PCIe Gen4 SSD such as the crucial P3 plus or WD SN770

(3) a top of the line SSD possibly Gen5 if they are out yet, otherwise something like a crucial p5 plus, WD SN850x or samsung 990pro. This could also be the only one with DRAM (in the case of the crucial p5 plus vs P3 plus vs P3) which would be another interesting thing to test at the same time

 

quite a few manufacturers have SSDs that fall into all three tiers (e.g. crucial or western digital) so it might be a good idea to stick to 1 manufacturer for all 3 to get a like for like comparison, and that manufacturer might be willing to sponsor the video since any outcome promotes their SSDs (and all marketing is good marketing so all 3 SSDs will probably benifit)

 

there are a few different ways you could test the performance:

- "blind test" with some LTT employees trying to work out which of 2 otherwise identical PCs has the faster SSD in it (obviously without the help of any synthetic benchmarks)

- windows boot time (from pressing the power button to loading youtube could be a good test because if the SSD is slower then the system often takes a while to open a program if you have just booted the PC while the SSD loads all of the background applications)

- Game launch times (it would be interesting to see if there is any difference)

- Game download+install times with a restricted download speed in order to make it as consistent as possible (i expect that there would be very little diference since the SSD is usually faster than the download speed and steam downloads and installs at the same time rather than waiting for the download to finish before installing)

-possibly try a game that can use texture streaming (with a GPU with only just enough VRAM?) to see if there is an improvement in fps, particularly in 1% and 0.1% lows

 

There are a lot of people who stand by the PCIE gen3 SSD being fast enough, saying you wont notice anything faster, and also a lot of people who continue to pay almost double for much faster SSDs so it would be very interesting to find out if we are really past the point where faster SSDs are pointless for the average user, or if we should be considering those faster SSDs after all.

 

You did make a video covering this exact topic 2 years ago (here) which concluded that there was no noticable difference between SATA, NVME and gen4 NVME, but i think that a remake would make a lot of sense, and the situation has changed a bit, since the faster pcie gen3 SSDs are now actually cheaper than SATA SSDs, and the top of the line has also improved significantly. DRAM-less SSDs have also become more common than SSDs with DRAM

In that video it was also mentioned that DRAMless SSDs are a lot slower however that is potentially no longer the case now that DRAMless SSDs can cache the SSD map to system memory (rather than the CPU having to acess the nand flash for the SSD map, resulting in lower speeds and higher wear) now resulting in some of the fastest SSDs like the SN850x being DRAMless

[Andreeeew]

https://www.yourcorps.co.nz/corps-core
 

dude look at what this guy from Invercargill NZ is doing! 
 

custom chassis and screen and the profit goes to his charitable endeavours! One pc goes to a kid in need/funds your corps (bringing kids together to play pc games and help out with mental health issues) 

 

please have a gander this guy is a top fella and has a heart of gold!

[Guest]

Crappy design ideas:

Find a bunch of products with straight up "why? This was a terrible decision" from big companies and tell companies to just do things good

Like this stupid mouse I saw on Amazon from Razer

Spoiler

 

[StacyS]

Do I ever have a video suggestion for you! I live in a solar powered off grid community that is outside of typical internet service options (as well as cell signal).

 

Last year Starlink was installed on the property. There are currently seven houses over a distance of about half a kilometre linking together people who work online, do graphic design, and web design. There are so many challenges to making the internet here stable I can't even begin to list them. It would be crazy good and interesting content. There are solar systems to consider, weather and geographic location, alternatively built homes, and loads of coaxial cable that needs to be laid. I want to challenge Linus and team to put in place a reliable, stable, and lossless internet connection in our entirely off grid community, because I don't believe it can be done.

 

Also, there are goats and chickens. You know, in case you aren't already sold on coming here.

[vlatkooo]

Recently, I've been made aware of Nokia tvs. From what i can gather, they are made in India by Flipkart, which also manufacture Motorola tvs, both under brand license. They manufacture models in 32", 43", 55" and 65", among others, with 55" and 65" models having a Quantum Dot filter.  I've been a loyal Nokia mobile phone buyer for years, from the original Nokia 3310 to today where I have a Nokia G10. I even liked the Windows mobile Nokias, my Lumia 930 still works. They have all proved to be extremely rugged and reliable, even if the weren't the best of the best in terms of performances. My video idea is a review of these Nokia tvs, in terms of performance, but also as a test whether or not brand loyalty is worth it.  https://www.mynokia.com/smart-tvs/

[KaiserRuben]

Hi Guys, 

I would like to suggest a video talking about business practices in the consumer printer industry, in particular: HP. This somewhat is related to the right to repair movement.

I recently bought a used printer for my floor (I live in a student dorm). This printer is a HP DeskJet 2633. I wanted to configure it, change language, connect it with our wifi and so on. Let me describe this process step by step: (I am describing it for my model, the experience seems to be similar for all HP DeskJets)

1. The printer can not be setup without using additional software (if you want to use wifi), so I downloaded the HP Smart App to my phone (following the instructions), but my phone didn't find the printer. (I am also wondering how this should have worked, the printer has no bluetooth and is not yet connected to the Wifi...)
2. Since this did not work, I downloaded the HP Smart App to my MacBook (I also tried Windows BTW, same results) and connected to the printer via USB. This time, the printer showed up and I was able to start the configuration process. However, I could not complete it, because the pre-owner set a password locking important settings like the wifi [6].
3. Now comes the to me outrageous part: At this point I was pretty frustrated, but I thought: "No worries, I will just factory reset the printer." But there is no public way to factory reset HPs DeskJet printers! It does not even mention it in the instructions. There are plenty of posts in the forum that explain that the user either cannot be helped [1] or only helped via PM [2,3].
4. I couldn't believe this, so I wanted to reach out to HP Support. They offer two options (in Germany): A chatbot, which is good to solve simple problems but not at all helpful for my problem. The second option is phone support, which is only available if you pay 24,99 Euros [4].

So bottom line, there is no way for me to use my printer with wifi, making it realistically quite useless. But why was this password set in the first place? I could  not find much about that, but it seems like the printer gets connected automatically to you HP Account (which you must create if you would like to use HP Smart, so extended: when you would like to use all functions of your printer). This seems to lock it. 
Why does HP do that? This is speculation but since the margin with the actual hardware is not so big, they seem to not wanting you to buy used hardware, instead, you should just get a new printer. 
This practice makes second hand HP printers very unattractive, it seems easier to just trash the old one and buy a new one.

 

Of course, I also described this to the HP forum, hoping to get a PM... [5]

I would really appreciate if you could point this practice out to your audience and leverage your reach to get HP to comment on this. Also, in case they hold on to this, recommend alternatives to your audience. I personally use an Espon ET-2750 and it just works (atypical for a printer, I know).

At the end, to side notes: Firstly, HPs software and website suck. Not only since a short time but they have sucked forever. They are slow, buggy and inconsistent. This amount of sucking is not negligence, but it shows how less they care about consumers. Secondly, I don't think an account (or an external app) should be mandatory to use your printers full functionality (I mean you payed for it!).

 

If you have questions about this, feel free to reach out!

 

[1] https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Operating-System-and-Recovery/Forgot-lost-entry-password/m-p/7486175

[2] https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Printing-Errors-or-Lights-Stuck-Print-Jobs/How-to-reset-EWS-password/m-p/7630375

[3] https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/LaserJet-Printing/I-need-to-factory-reset-my-printer-that-has-admin-password/m-p/6883297

[4] https://www.best2serve.com/de-de/support_landing/support?utm_source=hp.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=hptps_customer-care&utm_content=out-of-warranty-contact-options
[5] https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Printer-Setup-Software-Drivers/Factory-Reset-DeskJet-2633-because-of-lost-printer-password/m-p/8590680#M275074

[6] Screenshot below. Sorry guys, it's in german, I could find where to change the language of the HP Smart App. It says: Log in to the HP DeskJet 2600 series. A custom password has been set for your printer. Enter the password to access the printer's web interface.

 

[KaiserRuben]

3 minutes ago, KaiserRuben said:

Hi Guys, 

I would like to suggest a video talking about business practices in the consumer printer industry, in particular: HP. This somewhat is related to the right to repair movement.

I recently bought a used printer for my floor (I live in a student dorm). This printer is a HP DeskJet 2633. I wanted to configure it, change language, connect it with our wifi and so on. Let me describe this process step by step: (I am describing it for my model, the experience seems to be similar for all HP DeskJets)

1. The printer can not be setup without using additional software (if you want to use wifi), so I downloaded the HP Smart App to my phone (following the instructions), but my phone didn't find the printer. (I am also wondering how this should have worked, the printer has no bluetooth and is not yet connected to the Wifi...)
2. Since this did not work, I downloaded the HP Smart App to my MacBook (I also tried Windows BTW, same results) and connected to the printer via USB. This time, the printer showed up and I was able to start the configuration process. However, I could not complete it, because the pre-owner set a password locking important settings like the wifi [6].
3. Now comes the to me outrageous part: At this point I was pretty frustrated, but I thought: "No worries, I will just factory reset the printer." But there is no public way to factory reset HPs DeskJet printers! It does not even mention it in the instructions. There are plenty of posts in the forum that explain that the user either cannot be helped [1] or only helped via PM [2,3].
4. I couldn't believe this, so I wanted to reach out to HP Support. They offer two options (in Germany): A chatbot, which is good to solve simple problems but not at all helpful for my problem. The second option is phone support, which is only available if you pay 24,99 Euros [4].

So bottom line, there is no way for me to use my printer with wifi, making it realistically quite useless. But why was this password set in the first place? I could  not find much about that, but it seems like the printer gets connected automatically to you HP Account (which you must create if you would like to use HP Smart, so extended: when you would like to use all functions of your printer). This seems to lock it. 
Why does HP do that? This is speculation but since the margin with the actual hardware is not so big, they seem to not wanting you to buy used hardware, instead, you should just get a new printer. 
This practice makes second hand HP printers very unattractive, it seems easier to just trash the old one and buy a new one.

 

Of course, I also described this to the HP forum, hoping to get a PM... [5]

I would really appreciate if you could point this practice out to your audience and leverage your reach to get HP to comment on this. Also, in case they hold on to this, recommend alternatives to your audience. I personally use an Espon ET-2750 and it just works (atypical for a printer, I know).

At the end, to side notes: Firstly, HPs software and website suck. Not only since a short time but they have sucked forever. They are slow, buggy and inconsistent. This amount of sucking is not negligence, but it shows how less they care about consumers. Secondly, I don't think an account (or an external app) should be mandatory to use your printers full functionality (I mean you payed for it!).

 

If you have questions about this, feel free to reach out!

 

[1] https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Operating-System-and-Recovery/Forgot-lost-entry-password/m-p/7486175

[2] https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Printing-Errors-or-Lights-Stuck-Print-Jobs/How-to-reset-EWS-password/m-p/7630375

[3] https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/LaserJet-Printing/I-need-to-factory-reset-my-printer-that-has-admin-password/m-p/6883297

[4] https://www.best2serve.com/de-de/support_landing/support?utm_source=hp.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=hptps_customer-care&utm_content=out-of-warranty-contact-options
[5] https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Printer-Setup-Software-Drivers/Factory-Reset-DeskJet-2633-because-of-lost-printer-password/m-p/8590680#M275074

[6] Screenshot below. Sorry guys, its in german, I could find where to change the language of the HP Smart App. It says: Log in to HP DeskJet 2600 series. A user-defined password has been set for your password has been set for your printer. Enter the password to access the printer's web interface.

 

I think, this would become a very interesting, funny, potentially ranty, well performing LTT video that also does something good.

[Radium_Angel]

1 hour ago, KaiserRuben said:

HPs software and website suck

HP sucks overall. But you bring up a good video point, use LTT for good for a change and highlight some of the multitude of issues users have with crap products (HP in particular)

[Radium_Angel]

But back on topic, how about a video (or series) on the forgotten but not gone world of BBSes?

[Wes Fullerton]

HI 

This is actually a WAN show topic suggestion.

The Mighty Jingles on Floatplane.

Suggest you watch his Monday Jan 9th video.

Its about Youtube, copy write sticks and Sony.

Would love to hear your take on it.

Thanks Wes

 

[ygilbert81]

Video idea: Please review the IODD drives. These are SSD enclosures that allow you to carry tons of ISO, Live machines, OS installers. The device allows for boot mounting like a CD to allow to boot and install. This is a must for Tech or troubleshooting. It might even be a device that Linus would carry in his tech emergency bag.

 

https://www.iodd.shop/all-products

[Alcide2023]

LTT has done content on chairs before - mainly gaming chairs and occasional ergo chairs. I think you should look at 24/7 rated chairs - chairs rated to be used in rotating shift environments (Emergency Services Dispatchers for example), for years on end - these often start at $1,500 and can cost almost $10,000.

I never thought I would pay so much for a chair, but I came across KAB chairs at work and it's just so much better - manged to snap up a refurbished model and save some money.

 

I don't think I'd ever go back to a gaming chair; I think I'll be using 24/7 rated chairs forever now.

 

 

[Guest]

For one of your videos don't do a Segway like you normally do just be like

 

"Okay now here's an ad. No Segway. Watch it." 

[Kevinchus]

Anthony could show this: 
She developed everything from scratch and now she is self funding his own prodction. 
 

 

[Legnog]

i'd love to see a video about properly getting ready to sell old electronics and price them fairly

[LoveToMix]

Acorn To Arabella Collaboration.

 

Hey Team.  This is a really cool (OK - that is just my opinion) Canadian channel (yes I'm targeting your nationalistic pride here: what? you would rather a US channel? shame) - building a boat from Acorn to Completion (boat is called Arabella)

 

They release 1 video a week, and are 6 months from launch.  They're about to get the tech side installed.  similar to what you've done with a boat already but more from scratch

 

Ideally you can help them by improving their video production, if they can get out two video's per week for the same effort - or add shorts - or anything to boost their YouTube income for the run to the boat launch - also, as a dedicated tech viewer - I love their content so maybe there is some unknown cross over between viewers and both channels get a boost.

 

 

Hanging out for the WAN show today

 

[FreakyTurkey]

All right... hear me out...

 

An April fools video where you pick the best video game console to use in the hospital.

 

Gotta consider IV lines, hospital bed positioning, oxygen finger reader, blood pressure cuffs, etc.

[Ando1701]

do you guys think you’ll ever make a video about magic lantern for cannon cameras I’d love to see Brandon’s take on it and maybe shine some light on it to show how to get he most out of your aging cameras that are still totally capable especially since it allows raw recording on many of the supported cameras I really think this community needs more attention https://www.magiclantern.fm theres even a module that lets you run archanoid lol