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[1490.02 --> 1496.04] in the works right now. Just in this last week, we got the backend set up for own tracks to record
[1496.04 --> 1498.98] where I'm actually going to be at. And that's a pretty neat deal, Alex.
[1499.22 --> 1500.98] How are you doing that? Is that on Linode or something?
[1500.98 --> 1504.22] Oh yeah, of course. Naturally.
[1504.74 --> 1512.20] Yeah, of course. Yeah. Yeah. In fact, we just decided to do a dedicated lower end Linode because
[1512.20 --> 1515.68] what we want to do is put a little website on there that has the details and stuff. And then
[1515.68 --> 1520.36] own tracks itself is kind of like in multiple components. And so the recorder is a Docker
[1520.36 --> 1525.32] image that you can deploy. And that's like a lightweight backend that stores the location
[1525.32 --> 1530.96] data. And you can publish your location information to it in two different ways, either over
[1530.98 --> 1537.34] HTTP or over MQTT. And then the recorder, as the name implies, records the information
[1537.34 --> 1543.12] and then makes your location data available, which is all completely under your control
[1543.12 --> 1549.28] via a various set of APIs, some of which can integrate directly into home assistant. So
[1549.28 --> 1554.06] you can actually use own tracks to provide home assistant with your real time location, which
[1554.06 --> 1559.20] is a fantastic way to control automations. And one way that we use this, not with own tracks
[1559.20 --> 1565.18] today, but soon is when no one is at home. If some of the lights, which always happens,
[1565.30 --> 1571.46] get left on, which never fails to get left on, then if no one's home and it's, and a certain
[1571.46 --> 1576.10] amount of time has passed, the lights just automatically turn off. And that's just a simple way to use
[1576.10 --> 1582.28] the automations. Or in the winter, if we're approaching and it's cold, the heating turns on.
[1582.52 --> 1585.34] Really simple stuff, that stuff that we just don't want to even have to think about.
[1585.34 --> 1591.76] And, but the key is getting your location into home assistant and own tracks can essentially
[1591.76 --> 1598.24] be that source of information. I'm using it for a live embedded map on a webpage. So that way you
[1598.24 --> 1602.84] guys can find me and we can meet up and I'll be running the own tracks client, which publishes
[1602.84 --> 1605.40] that information to the recorder on my pixel.
[1605.86 --> 1608.20] That's so cool. And it uses MQTT to do that.
[1608.44 --> 1612.80] Yeah, isn't it? It's clever. It seems like it actually a great use of it because you could see
[1612.80 --> 1617.40] how, when you have maybe a loss of connectivity, it could queue up. And then when you connect,
[1617.44 --> 1622.28] it can just transmit the bits that were queued while you had no signal. It's, it's really smart.
[1622.66 --> 1628.18] Perfect. It's exactly what it was designed for. Now my favorite robot vacuum firmware,
[1628.32 --> 1632.98] ValiTudo, had a big release last month and I finally got around to updating it and installing
[1632.98 --> 1637.76] it this week. I'm a glutton for punishment, aren't I? There's lots of stuff breaking and I still
[1637.76 --> 1641.12] go ahead and install these updates. And guess what?
[1641.36 --> 1641.52] What?
[1642.72 --> 1643.72] Did it break?
[1644.28 --> 1649.78] Well, I mean, no, the updates went fine, but there'd been some changes to how the,
[1649.78 --> 1656.38] the vacuums get communicated with from Home Assistant. They've deprecated the vacuum.send
[1656.38 --> 1661.76] command, which was what I used to say, hey robot, go, you know, hoover the bedroom or something.
[1661.76 --> 1670.68] Um, and they've deprecated it for an MQTT publish command. So we're both using MQTT here in wildly
[1670.68 --> 1674.44] different use cases, but I just think that's so cool how it's the same technology.
[1675.00 --> 1680.24] It is pretty neat. And I, just as a side note, I, I hate it when stuff like that gets deprecated.
[1680.24 --> 1685.56] Like I think, I think the whole Z-Wave stack that I'm using in Home Assistant has been deprecated
[1685.56 --> 1690.86] and I just don't want to reset up my Z-Wave network. And I don't know what that migration process
[1690.86 --> 1694.84] is like, and I just don't want to deal with it. And that kind of goes back to your topic earlier.
[1694.84 --> 1700.46] It's like, it's working. It's just, I don't, I don't want to break it. I don't want to have to
[1700.46 --> 1705.24] do anything with it because it's just so part of my infrastructure. Now it no longer feels like a
[1705.24 --> 1709.94] separate system. It feels like it is part of my home and I don't like messing with that stuff
[1709.94 --> 1716.48] anymore. And equally, because it is part of the house, the uptime needs to be as close to a hundred
[1716.48 --> 1721.70] percent as possible. Yeah. And then you have to balance that off against applying updates because
[1721.70 --> 1725.96] it's part of your house. You don't want to not update it for 10 years. I mean, some people would
[1725.96 --> 1731.14] just say if it's working, leave it, but I keep it up to date because I feel like I want to be
[1731.14 --> 1735.46] compatible with future technology and future functionality. I mentioned to you earlier,
[1735.46 --> 1740.12] I was like, maybe I should rebuild the whole setup and I should base it on virtualization because the
[1740.12 --> 1745.46] safety that a virtual machine gives me, that's that snapshot capability. And that, that holistic
[1745.46 --> 1750.26] restoring of a system or, or taking a copy of it and setting it on a shelf and saying,
[1750.38 --> 1756.70] this is known good. That is so appealing to me. And it feels like it gives me a safety net to what,
[1757.18 --> 1761.32] what seems like a risky proposition to keep updating all of these systems all the time.
[1761.84 --> 1765.76] That's where I keep thinking, maybe I got to rethink the way I'm doing stuff. And that's where I,
[1765.88 --> 1769.40] that's where I go down the rabbit hole and go, oh, it's too much. Not right now.
[1769.40 --> 1772.58] Do you use a hypervisor at all for, for anything?
[1772.58 --> 1777.44] No, right now the system's built around these Raspberry Pis. There's not a lot of overhead
[1777.44 --> 1783.94] there. So I'm just running containers on Ubuntu LTS on Pi 4, but I would be willing to replace,
[1784.14 --> 1790.66] you know, the two or three Raspberry Pis it takes to do this with one fairly low energy x86 machine.
[1790.66 --> 1795.10] And then I'd have sort of my, my, you know, my, my choice of virtualizers at that point.
[1795.10 --> 1800.32] Well, good news for you. Proxmox have just had a big release. Version seven was released on the 6th of
[1800.32 --> 1807.30] July, 2021, and it's based on Debian bullseye number 11. I'm sure most of you know this bit
[1807.30 --> 1811.76] of trivia, but, uh, those of you coming to the Denver meetup might want to pay attention.
[1812.10 --> 1814.24] I might've given a question away there. Damn it.
[1815.28 --> 1818.70] I love it. No, that's good. That's good. Cause if they're a listener,
[1818.82 --> 1820.98] they get a heads up and no one else will know.
[1821.18 --> 1827.16] Free trivia question coming your way. Which kids movie does Debian name its releases after?
[1827.16 --> 1831.44] Maybe you'll know, maybe you won't. Uh, it's just the sort of thing you'll have to come to the
[1831.44 --> 1836.28] meetup and find out about. All right. Now what else is included in this release? They've got a bunch
[1836.28 --> 1844.78] of new versions of stuff. So ZFS is now 2.04, uh, QEMU has been bumped to version six and the,
[1844.78 --> 1850.78] there's a new kernel 5.11. So it's, it's really good to see that Proxmox are pushing the envelope
[1850.78 --> 1856.34] here and updating lots of their core systems. The reason I say that in particular is because Debian has a
[1856.34 --> 1861.38] bit of a reputation for being a bit old and crusty. And you look at the versions of some of these
[1861.38 --> 1867.46] packages and they're not that far off what is shipping in Arch, right? I mean, a 5.11 kernel
[1867.46 --> 1871.48] is older than what's in Arch, but it's newer than what's in most LTS distros right now.
[1871.82 --> 1876.58] And they've rolled out more recent ButterFS support, which I think is kind of a big deal.
[1876.64 --> 1881.76] It's nice to see essentially ButterFS and ZFS get near parity support in Proxmox.
[1881.76 --> 1886.28] It absolutely is. And I think this, this comes back to a point that, uh, I hear quite frequently
[1886.28 --> 1892.62] on Linux Unplugged actually, is that we need to start taking ButterFS seriously and, uh, stop just
[1892.62 --> 1897.56] treating it as a bit of a joke because, you know, Facebook and all these other massive companies
[1897.56 --> 1904.24] that have things at significant scale are putting a lot of, uh, blood, sweat and tears into the ButterFS
[1904.24 --> 1910.18] subsystems. And it does seem to be cropping up in more and more places. And, you know, for me,
[1910.18 --> 1917.02] I'm actually starting to use Proxmox as my default distro, you know, for, for server OSs because
[1917.02 --> 1926.32] it has ZFS baked in. So I don't need to futz about with DKMS or an AUR package to install a custom
[1926.32 --> 1931.66] kernel. I don't have to worry about the licensing. It's just taken care of. I mean, the same is true
[1931.66 --> 1938.74] of Ubuntu, but the thing that Proxmox gives me most out of all of this other stuff is a really slick
[1938.74 --> 1945.40] web UI to manage virtual machines and LXC containers. Great point. And I think that is
[1945.40 --> 1951.64] something that you and I probably underplay. I think for a lot of new users, that's like the
[1951.64 --> 1957.78] biggest deal, right? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I, I completely agree on your points about ButterFS
[1957.78 --> 1963.80] too. I think the thing that you have to remember is what ButterFS offers is a file system that does
[1963.80 --> 1969.64] copy on write transparent compression. It can offer encryption. It can offer SSD trim support
[1969.64 --> 1975.50] and it's extremely low memory. So it works really good. Say like in a Raspberry Pi situation
[1975.50 --> 1981.72] or in a laptop with a single SSD. Those are some use cases where ZFS is, is really not a great choice
[1981.72 --> 1989.70] there. And, and I, I really love the combination of the two. I think it makes for a really reliable home
[1989.70 --> 1996.18] server. And the way I use it now is ButterFS is on the root file system. So the system can boot
[1996.18 --> 2002.20] regardless of what's going on with ZFS. If, if your DKMS module fails to build for some weird reason,
[2002.20 --> 2008.38] which has happened to me, your system still boots because the core system, the file system is ButterFS.
[2008.76 --> 2013.78] And then your really large datasets with your multiple disks that are in some sort of RAID configuration,