More importantly, delete uTorrent YESTERDAY, it’s no good anymore since about 2009. The replacement is qBittorrent!

Hmm. I think I have the old portable apps version of uTorrent 3.5 on the PC and the Pi (which does all the naughty things) does indeed run qBittorent.

What’s up with uTorrent?

I blame Jensen’s leather jacket. It’s clearly way too powerful.

EDIT: There’s…a 3rd mistress now? Giggity.

OVER 9000!

I appreciate you, LewdLemon. Enjoy this DBZ earworm, sent with love.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nB5FTZkfXDs

Maybe make it your Matrix / XMPP ring tone or something for maximum suffering.

Sit down. Let me pour you a drink. Then let us lament the curse of the normie together.

Beratna, tell me…is DeltaChat meeting their needs? Is it easier for you? I have one more migration in me, but i’m tired, beratna. I just walked in to find my youngest watching Netflix (gasp!) instead of the carefully curated media server.

Like a lot of us, I solved an interesting technical problem without accounting for the messy end user problem.

Fortunately, this one can be solved with a little uTorrent and some post-hoc market research and buy in (chocolate).

You’re saying Deltachat gets you more of that then XMPP and Conversations, I’m willing to listen.

Same same but no VPS here. I use Tailscale to reach the self hosted XMPP instance, which is containerized. Clients can only reach the XMPP server (directly when on LAN, as white listed devices on Tailscale when not).

It works. The bottleneck is Tailscale, weird issues with Android VPN automation switch over (something about my wife’s Samsung phone really does not like Tailscale. She’s also worried it increases battery drainage when left on) and the fact that using Tailscale instead of VPS is not the moral victory I had hoped for. There’s headscale I suppose, but then I have to deal with self signed certs and…then, and then and then…

It never ends. Problems never end.

I console myself with the fact I’ve made an E2E private family chat service that works without a public-facing server, yet remains accessible outside home with a click of a button. That’s a win.

The problem is that I want it to work as smoothly as a commercial chat service on a shoe string budget, on a Raspberry pi sipping 2W. That and the fact that I’m bloody minded enough to work on it until it does, beyond the point of sanity.

Man… I’ve been seriously side eyeing deltachat… but I’ve only just finished setting up XMPP after kicking matrix to the curb, via a brief segue thru IRC.

I just…can’t again. The pain…it burns!

Knowing my luck, deltachat is amazing.

It’s uneven but it’s good. Same vibes as OG Half Life. I won’t spoil it.

Agent under fire. A man of culture.

And here I am playing Hulk Ultimate Destruction and SMS like it’s 2005 all over again.

No school like old school. 🤜

Heh. You like the good shit.

Played Geist?

It’s GameCube (so you’ll have to emulate it) but it’s 4 player. Dolphin might even let you play it online.

You can find in the dwelling of mr Vimm.

Tried Sauerbraten? Warfork? Red Eclipse 2?

I really liked I am your Beast but I don’t think that’s multiplayer.

XMPP hosted via Raspberry Pi.

The setup is:

• Prosody provides the XMPP server.
• Converse.js provides web client / PWA.
• Conversations for Android clients
• Coturn provides TURN services for calls and NAT traversal.
• Tailscale provides remote access without exposing the XMPP server directly to the public internet.

(nb: also configured Message Archive Management (MAM) for chat history, private multi-user chat rooms (MUC), HTTP File Upload for media, and Jingle signalling for audio/video calls).

The server is designed to be accessible over our LAN. When away from home, family members connect through Tailscale (I really should just use Android actions and geofencing to auto launch Tailscale, but on my kids devices, I just leave Tailscale enabled. I don’t think it hits the battery too hard). Tailscale can only connect to XMPP and we keep our XMPP to family only, with me manually adding devices to Tailscale as I need to.

As for why? Because I get joy from hosting my own shit, having control over it, having it work when other stuff falls over. My stuff falls over too, but I know WHY and HOW to fix it, and that’s how I prefer it. I want to get to the point that if the internet dies tomorrow, I shrug my shoulder and barely notice.

My goal is to replace all cloud based services we use and I’m about 85% of the way there. I have a much larger goal too…but that’s a story for a different time.

PS: I’m mildly irritated about Tailscale use, so I’m looking at getting off that teat as well eventually for a self hosted solution. There are some issues with Headscale and I don’t want to punch holes in firewall if I can avoid it. Still thinking on it.

PPS: Meshtastic, Reticulum etc all seem super cool…but until there’s interoperability simple enough for normies…good luck getting buy in. I struggle to convince the fam to use XMPP (weird issues with android clients, Tailscale drop outs etc).

deleted by creator

Yeah, KaiOS is dead.

Here is what I have - there must be a local version https://opelmobile.com.au/product/touch-flip/

It’s Android 8.1. I installed a different launcher, small browser (SmartCookieWeb) and a few other essentials (banking app, QR reader etc). If you don’t mind the flip factor (the T9 keyboard is a dream on this one…and with TT9 Whistle, I have the best of all worlds)

EDIT: Found it https://sunbeamwireless.com/product/sunbeam-f1-orchid

US version is more locked down but jailbreak guides avail https://furbreeze.github.io/2025/01/23/sunbeam-f1-root.html

Yeah, that was my feeling on it too. Cute, but too itty bitty. I already have an android flip phone if I want that form factor.

It sounds like the Cubots would be ideal for you…IF you can find evidence of CFW unlocking your regional bands.

Sorry dude. Chin up - they nuked 3G here entirely. Which means none of the good, old phones work at all. I have a Nokia N95 that’s awesome but I can’t do squat with it as a phone any more.

I got mine off Aliexpress, fwiw.

https://www.aliexpress.com/w/wholesale-duoqin-f22-pro-phone.html

The phone itself is awesome. The T9 keyboard is ass (the membrane they used is just not good). I got mine in 2022 iirc. I cycle between my Samsung A20 (yes, it still works well, 9 yrs in) and the local equivalent of the TCL flip (android 8.1 based).

I actually just installed this on it and it’s blazing fast STT now -

https://github.com/maxmilneaus/tt9-whistle

Edit to add: I have the F21 (the smaller one, candybar). The F22 is about the same height and an iphone, except halfish of the width.

Hmm. I think the issue with all these phones is that the modems can support those bands just fine but they’re generally tuned for Asian and European markets. Predominantly because those sorts of phones sell en mass there, maybe.

For example, I have a duoquin F22 pro (think modern Nokia). I know that folks over on XDA have flashed CFW to region unlock them for US.

You might be able to find what you want (the Cubots sound like a near match) quite cheaply but you’ll have to check XDA for CFWs first. Quite a few of these phones ship with unlocked bootloaders and AOSP by default so they are pretty easy to tinker with.

Else… How do you feel about the JellyStar?

https://www.unihertz.com/products/jelly-star

Ah, sorry. My bad.

I’ve been considering this one myself but it’s a bit funky

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTmbxHQRSZ4

Dunno what your bands are there but the spec sheet has B1, B3, B5, B7, B8, B20, B28, B34, B38, B39, B40 and B41.

Might be more US friendly version? If not, I know the folks over on XDA forum tend to flash custom firmware with these.

Hey you might like this while you wait

https://cubot.net/phones/smartphones/pocket3-specs/88?l=en-us

About $250 on eBay etc

Why should I give a flying fuck? I have 3 lenovo tiny boxes, a Rpi4 4gb I got pre 2020, a stack of old laptops and phones, a compute stick and 4 tablets. And if I want to tinker (and I do), ESP32 + CYD is hard to beat.

The Pi 5 does nothing for me that I can’t do faster or cheaper (or both) elsewhere. I could literally spend $20 on a WYSE thinclient to get something that’s 3-4x the pi while being comparable in power draw.

No…if I want a shiny, I’ll get a FPGA or a Commodore 77. If I want to thinker, I’ll get ESP32s. And if I want low power always on compute…well, I’m good thanks.

Yes, very much so.

Take a look at my comment here.

PS: you might also be interested in this

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apertus_(LLM)

That should be well within reach of a local LLM.

If you’ve got a discrete GPU with sufficient VRAM, something like Ornith running on PolyStrata could be worth a shot. Try a Q3 size.

https://huggingface.co/bartowski/Ornith-1.5-35B-A3B-GGUF

https://github.com/VecSzn/PolyStrata

Hell, Tiny Ling 3 might be able to do it. Try a Q6.

https://huggingface.co/bartowski/Ling-3.0-tiny-GGUF

Another good option is Qwen3.5-9B. I’d try a Q4 or Q5.

Whichever model you choose, I’d also suggest a few MCP servers to give it access to reliable information rather than rely entirely on its internal knowledge.

• Microsoft Learn MCP: Official PowerShell, Windows and network documentation. Will help with your scripting stuff.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/training/support/mcp

• Exa MCP: Web search for current technical information, Home Assistant documentation and code examples.

https://github.com/exa-labs/exa-mcp-server

• Filesystem MCP: Allows the model to examine your existing scripts and configuration files rather than guess what you’ve got.

https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/servers/tree/main/src/filesystem

If you’re actually running Home Assistant, its official MCP server is worth a look too.

https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/mcp_server/

I’d start with Microsoft Learn and Exa, then add the others as needed. You’ll need an MCP-capable client (which pretty much all of them are now - eg: llama.cpp web ui, OpenWebUI, Light Local Chat etc), and I’d keep file access read-only initially.

I’d personally use McProxy instead of adding MCPs singularly, but I fear I’m already over loading you with information.

EDIT: The PolyStrata recommendation assumes you have a discrete GPU with sufficient VRAM (unclear if you do?). If not, disregard Ornith and try Tiny Ling 3 Q6 or Qwen3.5-9B with ik_llama.cpp instead.

https://github.com/ikawrakow/ik_llama.cpp

Either way, both smaller models should be capable of the tasks you’ve described, particularly with access to the right documentation. Just verify any network or firewall changes before applying them.