I run easy-rsa on a linux box. Just manually generate CSR’s and sign them via SSH.
And simply trust the CA cert in windows, linux and whatever extra places (normally firefox cert store).
Post the crl.pem to /var/www/html/ and let NGINX use that.
For most things public like plex or whatever i just use letsencrypt. Easy-rsa is really just for internal stuff like my NAS, VPN etc.
I do similar. For laptops and docks, especially if they change setups it can be a pita (though you just need to copy files around).
Also the DE monitor config (ie that you use to login) is logically different to a users x config. So you gotta copy that over to make sure the primary monitor etc is right.
There are quality docks that work on displaylink. The dell D6000 is one example and we issue them out freely at work.
Most third party off brand docks will have higher failure rates. We see that with some anker docks that were usb-c+pd we use/had to source during the great supply chain snafu during covid. They worked in a pinch but aren’t reliable like a Lenovo or Dell dock. That’s less a displaylink thing and more a cheap dock thing.
DisplayLink compresses everything over usb. If you plan to do anything color sensitive (ie photo editing) or latency sensitivite (ie: games) it’s a bad idea sine it’s all cpu compression.
That said. They are great for multi monitor general usage (ie soreadhseets and shit) or for systems with graphic card limitations on multi display output (ie low end macs on m1/m2)
Yeah it mostly seems reactionary nonsense.
Like you ca. swim at the top of a pool in a tractor coolant tank. Water is very cool at diffusing radioactivity (if that’s the right term, it’s probably not).
Heck we have legit crashed nuclear subs at the bottom of the ocean, and places we have just straight dumped waste much more potent than this water.
MS goes out of their way to make shit harder than it needs to be.
For example. The store, they have a store for business where you can simply whitelist known apps buts it’s a PITA to setup AND they have been threatening to decom it for ages
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-store/microsoft-store-for-business-overview
Want to add safety/security features like secuirty keys. Well if you do it on a non domain joined machine you can just sign into a m365 account to enable a passkey or yuibijey as a second factor.
Want to do that in a business environment. Congrats now you have to deploy a windows CA and issue user certificates to tie to this. Even if you are signing the machine into m365 with ADAL.
They go out of their way to add complexity and failure points.
Tthe problem is now if you have the store disabled basic shit, like the ability to open .heic files is broken or use stuff people want like sticky notes is broken.
We turn off most of what we can’t but having the store enabled causes all sorts of stuff.
Also windows 11 has ads baked in even with the store disabled. Plug in a Logitech mouse, get a pop up for their software. Open the picture viewer and get an ad to install some video editor that isn’t clear whether it’s a Ms product or not.
No to mention basic things like copy paste and edit are now weird icons because I guess they think most users are illiterate.
Most of the 11 UI changes are not for the better. Having to beta test it for work is frustrating and I run an IT shop.
Not as uncommon as you would think. What normally do then is use the 6 month releases until the next LTS
I have been using this hub. Works fine in Linux and windows.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0871ZHCKK?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title
I also use this usb dongle for my Xbox controller. It works fine in Linux. I really should try playing a few games on Linux.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0785SFKYF?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title
I can see arch or others being great for learning the inner workings of a distro or even more advanced inner workings or something great for tinkererers. But for those that see the OS as a tool to do things, yeah, I don’t see a value in it. But not everyone has the same priorities.
It’s Ubuntu, but includes proprietary drivers by default if detected. Also the menu is very similar to windows.
It’s got a slightly different store and update app, which also allows you select automatic updates or not etc. it’s a bit friendlier than Ubuntu tbh.
At the same time it can be wonky in its own right. For example I put it on my kids laptop. And rfkill kept disabling the wifi based on a bios setting allowing the wifi to be disabled if a nic was connected and during wake-up from s3 sleep the system would briefly falsely detect a nic and kill wifi.
Disabling the setting in bios was all that was needed. But searching the issue, even for me, led to a LOT of bad advice and threads on their forums.
The arch wiki is pretty on point for general information about specifics and can often translate across distros.
But like one of the OPs said, a lot of the folks tend to be a bit gate keepy/defensive or very much fanboys of specific distros.
So it would have been that much easier for Ubuntu to be first to market and open source the snap server software…
But they didn’t. And alternative solutions had to be created.
Snaps are technically foss but the server thst hosts them are proprietary to Ubuntu, when flatpak is perfectly reasonable. It’s a bit of a pattern of things they do, finding solutions to things they weren’t really problems (cough netplan cough)
Can help with all of them. But check out opnsense.
I just got one for my wife.
Their stock was low so I got the German model+a US keyboard and did the swap.
There were a lot of screws, took about 45 minutes, just put some music on and went to town. Their documentation is top notch.
Really pretty awesome.
I am pretty sure certain apps want xfs. One I can think of is veeam who leverage their block cloning feature for some of their stuff.
If you use something like btrfs you can use a single partition and just use sub volumes to achieve similar. Though it’s definately more complex.
Copy them to the box. Sign them. Copy the cert file off the box back to the requester.