The servers' apps backups archives are about 120GB. The files are about 700GB. The backups for the apps are synced daily with my local machine. So I download 120GB daily. Then the files are synced incrementally to the same machine and now they are about 2.2 MILLION files.....takes some 10 hours to sync since it has to read the timestamp of each file in order to know what files need to be updated. Then the backup archives and the files, are mirrored to another external HDD.

All in all these backups take a long time and a lot of storage space. The greatest offenders are Peertube for file storage, although the core app is only 2GB in size, but the files are about 600GB. However Friendica and Matrix are by far the greatest offenders in terms of the number of files, over 1.5 million I'd guess. These are thumbnails, media files, and such. The Matrix server has a 10GB database already, same as Friendica.

Is this scalable? I guess it is. If this gets too crazy I'll stop backup the cached thumbnails for Matrix and Friendica since these are the ones that take up so long to sync due to being so so so many of them. Maybe will do so for thumbnails for Peertube as well. After all these backups are just in case of a fatal failure of the server. And if that happens we can deal with generating the thumbnails again for Peertube and the like....

#tromlive

Today I installed TROMjaro XFCE on another laptop that had TROMjaro Gnome. This laptop was using a little maze of file syncing with Syncthing + FreeFileSync, so that photos from other computers synced automatically on this laptop, then to an external HDD, then picked up automatically by Shotwell. Same with a phone sync. In essence if the person got some photos/videos from friends via Syncthing or took photos via the phone, they will all coalesce in Shotwell. Neat!

This laptop was also connected most of the time to an external monitor that was used as the main monitor (so lid should be closed all the time). So it also had an external keyboard and mouse.

The experience:

Booting to the live usb was a breeze. Testing it was perfect. All worked, all keys, everything. All smooth. Installing was super fast. All worked great. No issues. Bringing back the files to this machine and settings + apps is always time consuming regardless of the OS.

Bringing back the apps + settings + databse sync issue:

You have to know what apps you had installed and install again, and this was the first bump: there is a issue with TROMjaro XFCE, and this may be a Manjaro/Linux thing, but despite the fact that the Software Manager showcased the available apps (so I can easily install them), as soon as I tried to install then I was faced with a sluggish Software Center that was refreshing all apps and dependencies....that took some 20 minutes. I had to close it at one point and then do a manual Database Refresh via the same Software Center. Luckily that took a minute or two. After that all worked ok and I could install the apps.

AUR banning the IP:

Another weird issue I saw in Manjaro a few times too, was the AUR banning your IP so then you can't find any AUR packages. The ban is temporary. Luckily we have a trade-free VPN. Click it and all works fine. In a day or so the ban is removed and stays removed.

Multiple monitors confusion:

First, I was disappointed to see that there is no way to make a panel available on multiple screens in XFCE. I thought it can mirror a panel...on Gnome you could that that via the Dash to panel plugin. You can tho, create a new panel for the external monitor and add the items back to them + settings. It is not pretty but is fine.

The way you deal with the monitors is interesting, you can add them on top, bottom, sort them as you want. That's very cool. You can even expand panels across monitors - idk if that's useful.

I did ran into an issue: I wanted to close the laptop's lid but keep the laptop running so that it works via the monitor. No setting allowed me to do that until I manually edited a file in the root directory. That fixed it. It took me some 20 minutes to deal with the monitors situation...

OVERALL:

The issue with the software center can be a bad one to deal with....new users will be confused by that. The upside is that once it syncs the database it works no problems afterwards. The issue with the monitors and restoring the apps' settings and reinstalling the apps, is kinda normal on most Operating Systems.

TROMjaro XFCE performed really well today with my tests. So overall it was a very good experience even with the above errors/glitches that some are normal with many OSes.

#tromlive

I think I found a proper livechat for our livestreams :D . It is directly working from our website itself, and you need to account. We will use it for our next tromcast. We may have to do tromcast in a bit of a different way so we make sure it properly works. There 2 issues with our peertube instance of peertube in general:

• The proper way to livestream is to livestream and have the video auto save in your account + convert. Problem is, this is buggy and stops the stream after 1h or so.
• Because of that we had to do our previous streams without the conversion, but we ended up reuploading the casts to convert them, so the url changed, and we would delete the original stream url. But that also stopped working...

And in general if your connection drops (for whatever reasons), then the streams interrupts and that's it. It is done!

The solutions: permanent live.

The way I streamed last time was to create a permanent stream. This is it - videos.trom.tf/w/81mQvysgPGp9G… - this has the same URL all the time, and whenever you stream it will start the video. Being a permanent live it won't stop. Because if your connection drops you come back to the same URL. The downside is that we will have to record the casts and upload after. But considering points 1 and 2, then this is ok. We already had to do that...

In this new way I am pretty sure all livestreams will go through and not fail + it is easy to implement this into tromsite.com/live with a chat.

So yah. The thingy is already setup. I will make it public tomorrow. #tromlive

Tomorrow I plan to release TROMjaro XFCE Beta. That's it! With this release we will officially replace our Gnome edition with XFCE. I need to change the tromjaro.com homepage a bit to reflect the new cool features + make an article about it + maybe a "walkthrough" video to explain it. We managed to make a cool toggle for the "global menus" to turn them off and on, thanks to @Future is FOSS and @Xantulon !

The Beta will be tested on 3 laptops + 1 tablet for a month or so. These I have access to. Plus what others will test on their devices. And in a month I will also switch my system to this. I will make articles/videos to explain in very simple ways how to move from TROMjaro Gnome to XFCE.

From my initial tests this new TROMjaro is overall superior to Gnome. It is clearly faster and snappier, is easier to use overall, has a lot more settings in terms of everything...customize the look and all that + we added a bunch of things like tweak your RGB lights for your devices, mouse buttons, touch or mouse gestures, and more. But it is not crazy when it comes to options. XFCE has a sane amount of them. XFCE is really amazing!

Ok. Seeya tomorrow and probably we will get a Beta out there into the wild. #tromlive

I think we may be ready for a TROMjaro Beta very very soon! I finally installed it on my microsoft tablet and XFCE rocks! I mean yah I also had to set it up properly but here are the great news first, then the not so great (bit sill not that bad) news:

The great:
- I managed to setup proper and basic gestures for: touchscreen, touchpad, mouse. Closing windows, tiling them, minimize, switch workspaces, or closing windows, is so so easy and so nice using either of those inputs.
- I manged to add and setup a virtual keyboard. Is easy to access and very functional.
- Pretty much everything works on the tabled and is so nice. Let me give you 2 simple examples. In Gnome I had to install an extension to be able to switch between the input and output devices from the volume drop down. In XFCE this is, of course, integrated. Second, in XFCE you can play and even change the volume per application. So say you listen to music and to a podcast and want to switch between them, in XFCE from the same drop down you can play and pause any. I have no clue how this is done in Gnome..
- The way XFCE workspaces work is not as cool, but a lot more sane and useful

The not so great:
- the virtual keyboard misfires at times....but rarely
- the dock left menu is a bit buggy but is a new XFCE project so expect for it to improve

Tomorrow I'll make a video to showcase TROMjaro on a tablet with touch gestures and all that! XFCE is fucking sane! Enough settings to let you do pretty much anything you want with it, but not too many so it will make you depressed at so many settings.

Love it! #tromlive