The melm Wiki

This page is read only. You can view the source, but not change it. Ask your administrator if you think this is wrong.
====== Software and Services ======

Software and Services / Websites I use.  I have a strong preference for Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) because it means you are the one controlling your data and it gets out of the cycle where someone makes a good app and then makes it progressively shittier to "monetize it". And if you dont own the software do you really own your device? Consider donating to the ones marked open source if you like them they're run mainly by donations and volunteers.

===== Guides/Info =====

https://ssd.eff.org/ - Has a ton of good info on why you should give a shit about online security and privacy as well as good guides for people from scrubs to tech nerds. Consider donating they do a ton of good advocacy and software dev work.

===== Web Services =====

https://www.startpage.com/ - Get google search results without the tracking

https://duckduckgo.com/ - privacy focused search engine. learn how to use their bang! commands to search other things fast ie g! will let you search google, i! will let you search images, bi! bing images and so on

https://proton.me - Decent web email that is encrypted and privacy focussed, paid accounts have calendar, cloud storage, and vpn.  Based in Switzerland so a bit harder for people to get warrants for the info and your info is all encrypted so all they can give away is whose account it is really.

https://mullvad.net - VPN that I use.  Pricey compared to most but Swedish based and they store no logs. Good clients for most platforms. You can even pay by bitcoin or cash by mail if youre into that.

https://bitwarden.com/ - Password Manager.  [[https://ssd.eff.org/en/module/creating-strong-passwords|EFF Password Guide]] good guide on what makes a password good.  Using a long passphrase with lots of words might seem annoying but it only took me a week or so to memorize and now I don't have to know any of the others.  Keep your master password written down somewhere safe until you've memorized it

https://www.duckdns.org/ - Good free no nonsense dynamic dns so that you can host your own minecraft server or whatever.

https://namecheap.com - My current domain name registrar for melm.xyz. Cheap, works, they haven't stole my credit card yet and seems to have all the tools I need so far.
===== Software =====

Most of these are on all platforms 

https://signal.org/en/ - Encrypted messaging as well as text messaging.  If a contact has signal then you'll automatically send them encrypted messages over signal.  If they don't then it will send them a regular text message instead.  ios android pc

[[https://element.io/|Element]] - Open Source Messaging and group chat app.  Make your account on PC first if you can there are apparently still some bugs if you first make your account on web.  I have a web client for it up at https://element.melm.xyz I recommend singing in there once and verifying it too so that you can always get your encryption keys back.  If you lose your device and arent signed in anywhere else you wont be able to see old encrypted messages. ios android pc

[[https://www.mozilla.org/en-CA/firefox/browsers/|Firefox]] - Open Source web browser.  The only browser I recommend it's also one of the only ones not using googles webkit. Not all the extensions work on mobile but the adblock does and thats the most important one. Here are some of the extensions I use.  Works on PC android and ios.
  * [[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-CA/firefox/addon/ublock-origin/|uBlock Origin]] Free and Open Source adblocker.  The best around works on mobile and PC
  * [[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-CA/firefox/addon/bitwarden-password-manager/|bitwarden]] auto fill your passwords
  * [[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-CA/firefox/addon/startpage-private-search/|Start Page]]


[[https://transmissionbt.com/|Transmission]] - Open Source Torrent Client.  Does all the things most people need with a simple ui

[[https://www.qbittorrent.org/|qbittorrent]] - Open Source Torrent Client. For people who want all the torrent options imaginable

[[https://www.videolan.org/|VLC]] - The open source media player. If it won't play it it's not a media file. Can even stream files from remote sites. The Developer was once offered a million or so dollars to put ads in it and told them to go fuck themselves so that's pretty cool.

[[https://kodi.tv/|Kodi]] Open source media center.  What I currently watch all my downloaded tv and movies on.

[[https://www.virtualbox.org/|Virtual Box]] - Open source Virtual machine manager.  This is the most noob friendly recommend using it to test out any new operating systems in VMs before you install them. Or keep it around to run that one windows xp app or whatever.  Doesn't have full processor pass-through so if you want to run something cpu or GPU intensive you'll need to use something that supports kvm or qemu.

[[https://www.libreoffice.org/|Libre Office]] - Like office but Libre, Open source, Some documents will get fucked converting between MS office and this because MS refuses to use their own standards, but most things work pretty good.  If you need advnaced excel shit this won't really work either. If it's for you keep it in opendocument format and then convert to pdf to send to anyone.

[[https://www.thunderbird.net/|Thunderbird]] - Open source email client. Made by the same guys who make firefox. A good alternative to Outlook if you use a desktop app and need the advanced features.  Personally I just use the webmail pages for all my emails. 

[[https://www.torproject.org/|TOR]] - The Onion Relay Networks Browser.  Open source firefox based.  For improved anonymity and circumventing censorship.  Don't use it to download big files if you don't have to it has limited bandwidth.  If you're going to use it for crime make sure you read all the info you can and actually understand what it can and can't do. Consider using it legally just to add some cover to people who need it. (you won't find CP unless you look for it)

[[https://www.7-zip.org/download.html|7-Zip]] - Open Source Compression.  Refresh that free trial of winrar no more.  This can open and make them all and 7z format is actaully better compression.  

[[https://www.retroarch.com/|RetroArch]] Open Source and basically all the emulators from atari to n64.

[[https://dolphin-emu.org/||Dolphin Emulator]] Open source wii and Gamecube.  Amazing how good some of the old games still look with upscaled graphics and framrate.

==== Android Only ====
Some of these might have IOS versions but I'm not gonna look. Be sure to edit a note in if they do. I'm going to link to Fdroid but most of them will be on play store too.

[[https://f-droid.org/|FDroid]] An open source google play alternative, all the apps here will be completely open source and wont rely on google services. More software repos can be found [[https://forum.f-droid.org/t/known-repositories/721|Here]] They're unoffical so use at your own risk.

[[https://auroraoss.com/|Auroro Store and Aurora Droid]] - Aurora store is a FOSS replacement for the play store allowing you to download from google play anonymously. Aurora droid is a Fdroid replacement with a better UI

[[https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.proninyaroslav.libretorrent/|Libretorrent]] - FOSS torrent client. Works fine receives updates.

[[https://f-droid.org/packages/de.danoeh.antennapod/|Antennapod]] - Good FOSS podcast app seems to have all the things without bugging you for money.

Bitwarden - You need to add the repo to get it from fdroid.

[[https://f-droid.org/packages/com.pitchedapps.frost/|Frost]] - Facebook app that basically just adds some bells and whistles to the mobile page.  Works good without giving facebook any access to your phone.

[[https://f-droid.org/packages/me.ccrama.redditslide/|Slide]] - FOSS reddit app.  Currently redgif links dont seem to work right on any reddit apps which is a real disaster for jerking off on your phone.

[[https://f-droid.org/packages/org.adaway/|Adaway]] - Blocks ads at the device level which means even those shitty free games adds should disappear.  Using firefox mobile with adblock and using mainly these FOSS apps I actually dont bother using this anymore since it does drain battery slightly.

[[https://www.mozilla.org/en-CA/firefox/browsers/mobile/focus/| Firefox focus]] - Mobile Firefox built with adblock and tracker blocking turned on by default.  Honestly a pretty good choice for your browser. It's in permanent incognito mode so your logins won't persist is the main downside. Works on IOS as well.
==== Sysadmin / For Nerds ====
Mostly linux only some might have windows versions.

[[https://virt-manager.org/| Virt-manager]] - Open Source, Virtual Machine Manager Linux only.  Has all the bells and whistles and with passthrough almost no loss of performance a bit of a confusing whore to get started with though.

Filezilla - Good remote file transfer program especially on windows has pretty much all the protocols.

Powershell - Windows has finally made a command line system that isn't total dog shit.  only took like 30 years.  Has ssh and I think can run many linux programs through windows linux compatibility layer or whatever.

Terminal - just use whatever terminal manager came with your linux distro unless you want something fancy. OSx has a terminal as well.

ssh - remote connections to servers running ssh. Industry standard. Disable password logins and use token only if you want to login over the internet. Use sshfs to mount your remote files securely from linux desktops.  Windows Powershell implements ssh as well, dont think sshfs works though.

Wireshark - See whats going where on your network.  Used to be able to use it to lift logins from coffee shops before everyone went to https.




==== Self-Hosted/Server ====

Samba - Implements windows shares on linux servers.  It's the easiest to use for sharing things with every pc on your local network across OS's.

ssh server - so you can login remotely

tmux - terminal multiplexer.  Did your internet crash partway through a big operation logging you out and fucking you? no more.  Reattach to existing sessions and keep your programs running, along with multiple tabs and split windows.  Mandatory if you want to do things remotely.
  * [[melm:tmux]] My tmux.conf

htop - command line process viewer

nano - command line text editor humans can use

[[https://www.docker.com/|Docker]] - Platform agnostic containers.  Basically like a mini VM that is set up to run a single application or set of applications with all the right libraries so you don't have to fuck around switching between OSs. Most of my server programs are deployed in docker right now which lets me quickly move them around while keeping settings.   

  * I use [[https://docs.linuxserver.io/general/docker-compose|Docker Compose]] for all my containers so everything is just in one nice text file and I can quickly start or stop any containers I want. 
  * https://fleet.linuxserver.io/ make my preferred containers all their config options are the same.
  * https://hub.docker.com/ main repository of public docker containers both official and made  by some drunk student
  * [[melm:docker-compose]] My docker-compose in all it's glory


[[https://jellyfin.org/|Jellyfin]] - FOSS Plex replacement, a selfhosted netflix.  Has some issues but seems to work ok. Now just need some bandwidth.  You might have to fuck around and read some docs to get transcoding working.  Also handles a music library.  You can download files for offline but annoyingly they download one at a time so not amazing.  Why I'm working on the torrent of my library.

[[https://wiki.servarr.com/|*ARR's]] - Automated Media Libray Management. These used to be a bunch of different projects but they've recently united to share codebase and syntax making my life way better. I use:
  * [[https://sonarr.tv/|Sonarr]] TV Shows, I usually have to download the anime myself if I dont want it to be a mess but otherwise it's been pretty great. I run them in docker.
  * https://radarr.video/ For movies. Has some trouble with foreign movies sometimes.
  * https://lidarr.audio/  Music. Dont really use. I need to find some good trackers to make proper use of this one.

[[https://hub.docker.com/r/linuxserver/transmission| Transmission Web]] - Easy to setup and use for headless torrenting. Can be fed torrents from Sonarr etc.

[[https://hub.docker.com/r/linuxserver/qbittorrent| Qbittorent Web]] - I've recently switched to this from transmission as it has a built in torrent tracker server.

[[https://www.dokuwiki.org/|DocuWiki]] - This wiki. Seems to be pretty good so far, Took almost no setup.

[[https://sabnzbd.org/|SABNZBD]] - The Best usenet download client I use it with the *arrs from docker.  You need a usenet account.  Consider signing up for whichever one they have an affiliate link for so they get some cash.

[[https://nextcloud.com/|Nextcloud]] Self-hosted google drive / onedrive replacement.  Havent got this playing nice with the other stuff yet right now.  definitely one of my priorities.

[[https://nginxproxymanager.com/|Nginx Proxy Manager]] - Haven't got this playing nicely yet but when I do it will probably be what all the web traffic gets directed through.  I plan to have it in it's own VM to limit attack surfaces. As you can see right now we aren't using https for this wiki which isn't great.

[[https://github.com/spantaleev/matrix-docker-ansible-deploy|Matrix Synapse]] - Matrix is the protocol that Element uses to chat and Synapse is the name of the matrix server that we use.  This ansible script use docker and does all the config and updating for you it's what I'm using.  I keep the Matrix server in it's own vm to limit attack surfaces and to limit the downtime from me fucking around with other software.

===== Operating Systems =====

All of these will be open source. They should all have live cds you can use to try on your hardware before you install.  I recommend testing them in a virtual machine  first  to try out lots of them without installing.

==== Desktop ====
You can use these for your server if you wanted to too.

[[https://linuxmint.com/|Linux Mint]] a good linux desktop for beginners based on Ubuntu so it will have good software support and the cinnamon desktop should be easy to use coming from windows. My main desktop.

[[https://ubuntu.com/|Ubuntu]] The most popular with the most people using it.

[[https://get.opensuse.org/tumbleweed/|Open Suse Tumbleweed]] - I've been trying this one lately looks like it is good for people who want up to date software and lots of config options. Lots of supported desktop environment options

[[https://archlinux.org/|Arch Linux]] - If you want to know exactly whats installed on your system and why and if you want the very latest packages set up exactly how you want it.  I used to use this as my main but I couldn't be bothered to keep up with the updates.


[[https://pop.system76.com/|Pop! OS]] - Supported by a laptop vendor.  Ubuntu based as well, seems like a good alternative to linux mint I've only played with it a litle.

[[https://www.freebsd.org/|Free BSD]] - The only non-linux one on this list FreeBSD is BSD based, apple actually based their operating systems off of freebsd. Had basically no wifi or graphics card support last time I looked but it's fun to see how other systems do things.  recommend installing in a vm.

Windows is a privacy disaster. Can't comment on OS X but still requires trusting apple.

==== Mobile ====

[[https://grapheneos.org/|Graphene OS]] - Best privacy focused OS no google services by default but you should be able to run almost everything but bank apps through their compatability layer. Only works on pixels

[[https://lineageos.org/| Lineage OS]] - Has the most devices supported based on android open source project. Allows root and customising anything you want I noticed my samsung camera performed significantly worse. Apparently thats because a lot of cameras use closed source drivers that the open source devs cant use.  So if camera is a super important thing for you that might be a problem.  You can install the microg packages to get most of the functionality of google play without needing an account.

Stock android is pretty much a privacy disaster.  Funny enough iOS is very secure but you still have to trust Apple.  

==== Server ====

These can also be used for desktop too if you want.

[[https://www.debian.org/|Debian]] - Older than you and named after buddies girlfriend.  Old packages but very stable.  Ubuntu actually bases their packages off of Debians work.

[[https://ubuntu.com/|Ubuntu]] The most popular with the most people using it. Download the Server version to get it set up without a desktop and with server programs preloaded.  Most of my server VMs are running this, mainly for software support.  I'm always looking for the perfect one though.  Ubuntu makes some weird choices that make DevOps and admin super annoying.

[[https://archlinux.org/|Arch Linux]] - If you want to know exactly whats installed on your system and why and if you want the very latest pacakges set up exactly how you want it.  I used to use this as my main but I couldn't be bothered to keep up with the updates.

[[https://www.proxmox.com/en/proxmox-ve|Proxmox]] - Debian based for running multiple virtual machines and managing them remotely easily, even has options for load balancing between different location or machines if you manage to get fancy. It will nag you to upgrade to pro but you can just remove the package that does that  the community edition has all you'll nee and is completely opensource.  melm.xyz currently runs on this as it's base. The FOSS answer to VMwares Hypercube or whatever the hell they call it.

==== Specialty ====

[[https://openwrt.org/|OpenWRT]] - Open Source Router Software, has good device support and has pretty much every option you could possibly want while still being pretty user friendly, currently running this for my router.

[[https://opnsense.org/|OPNsense]] - Open Source Enterprise grade router software.  BSD instead of linux so it doesn't support very many wifi radios.  I'm going to be switching to this in the future for the better performance and better networking options.

[[https://osmc.tv/|OSMC]] - Open Source Media Center, Kodi optimized for Rasberry pi, Vero, and Apple TV.  What I currently watch all my TV on.

[[https://www.kali.org/|Kali OS]] - For if you want to be a leet hacker like on Mr Robot.  Don't run this outside a vm, its made to be used from a vm for pentesting. Has lots of handy tools to see why your network is fucked too.

[[https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/|Linux From Scratch]] - To bake an apple pie from scratch you must first create the universe.  More of an educational tool than something youre supposed to actually use, but you could use it.

[[https://tails.boum.org/|TAILS]] - Run TOR on the go from a usb stick so you don't leave a trace on the computer you use.  Theoretically more secure than just the TOR browser especially if youre using an OS you cant trust like windows.  Same caveats as TOR it doesn't make you completely anonymous.  The NSA/whoever likely run a large amount of TOR nodes.