I keep my copilot subscription intact because it's nice having access to remote LLMs at times, especially when debugging issues around my local setup. Otherwise I've been able to offload nearly everything to my local models.

I've been using Strata with Qwen 3.8 Flash Next and have been pretty happy with the results

I used the github copilot tui (since that was what my subscription was through) and told it what the devices were and what I was trying to accomplish. From there it was a mixture of different things to figure out how the protocols worked, like running the apps in wine and having it log and capture data as I changed settings, or have it flip bits and I would report to it what changed. If it discovers a component in the device is something off-the-shelf, have it find reference material from the component manufacturer.

As you figure out how a particular protocol works you have it document it until you have everything you need to build your own CLI to interface with the device. At that point you have a pretty good idea of how the device works and it's capabilities and you can build out whatever features you want around it.

Oh I do pay for a subscription, just blew through my budget.

I have since moved to using mainly local models for everything. Running AI was why I was doing this PC build in the first place, just didn't have it fully configured and I am wildly impatient when I get new stuff lol

I recently upgraded my PC and bought a case with a segmented display. Required a windows driver to work. I also bought a CPU liquid cooler with a display on it. Also required a windows app.

I threw about 30 bucks in tokens and now I have linux ports for both and with every added every feature I could come up with.

Now any weird or obscure piece of hardware I have that has been defunct for lack of software support has been getting the same treatment.

Resource management comes in many different flavors. Most computers allow you to use every resource it has at its disposal to accomplish a task (rendering graphics, processing workloads, gaming, etc), and that would really suck to have your system just decide it should nuke that process. It doesn't really know what you prioritize, so Instead it runs and compromises the best it can until the dam breaks. But gaming is a little less of a gray area, its nearly always the main focus of the user, so its easy to draw a line there.

There are systems that are far more opinionated about resource usage that will reign in processes. Like iOS is a good example (The divide is usually desktop and mobile OSs). It prioritizes UI, battery life, and animation fluidity over any process and will kill anything that threatens it.

There are applications out there you can use to limit resource usage per app, so you can limit the resources of bloated browser engines that masquerade as native apps.

Yeah, I have that set up too and searching on that is very quick and responsive. I still end up just using Plexamp because I like the automatic playlists and radios. I’m sure there are ways to add those into navidrome, but haven’t explored it very far

My library is roughly 40TB in size. I think the main issue is just the shear amount of files to parse when it comes to my music library.

I did add a meilisearch and that did help a lot, but still slow enough to find it cumbersome

I have it set up right along Plex but find it nearly unusable because the search is atrociously slow. Like 1+ min to query my library. The day that gets fixed is the day I’ll start using it.

I definitely feel that! I bought it knowing that I will have to do all my own maintenance and repairs, which is terrifying but doable. I had to promise myself that if it ever gets wrecked, I’ll have to restore it at any cost, because there simply aren’t that many left out there.

I needed a new vehicle this year and knew I wanted a small truck to help with my forever ongoing home renovation needs. A Ranger was definitely what I was targeting before ultimately falling in love with an 88 Jeep Comanche long bed. Perfect size truck that looks Comically small when parked next to any modern day truck

I've not experienced that. I usually rely on a single offline playlist on shuffle whenever I do lose internet, but that has been the status quo for me for some time

I use Plexamp and the smart playlists are pretty great on that.