Mambuco - Linux

A Fresh Start

Mambuco — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 02:16:00 +0200

We’ve got the first article of 2026! About time.

Honestly these months have been kind of busy, as I said on fedi 6 months ago</a>: I haven’t been dead at all, just reorganizing my thoughts, going to therapy and a bunch of other things.

Now I really felt like coming back. I’ve got a set of goals for this year, with the objective of becoming a new person, because I’m not okay with the way I am right now: lazy, not motivated, and not putting any effort into the things that matter.

This article mixes tech and personal stuff. Feel free to skip the technical parts if that’s not your thing. </blockquote>
Back on Track</h2>
In 2025 I had quit so many passions. Even more in the previous years. The one that hit the hardest was coding; even now I feel like I’ve lost some of the creativity I’ve always had and couldn’t keep going for a while.
Apparently, the cause seems to be motivation. Yes, the same motivation that makes you want to wake up every morning… but I didn’t. I didn’t want to wake up, and I still don’t want to.
It’s not really easy to explain this because I can’t fully understand it either, but obviously this has a consequence on my will to do any other thing. But hey, I’m recovering, I swear. This article is proof of it!
The turning point wasn’t dramatic. Somewhere between therapy, and a few weeks of just sitting with how bad I felt, it seems like something loosened. I managed to work on a small project. Then another. Bad mornings still happen — I’m not going to pretend otherwise — but now everything’s not dark anymore, if that’s the way we can put it. This article is part of that: I couldn’t have written it three months ago. So here’s what I’m committing to this year.
2026 Goals</h3>
Notice: checked boxes are at time of writing

Setup a home server</li>
Move to Android</li>
Self-host most of my paid services</li>
Fix my study routine</li>
Coding at least 1hr/day</li>
Finish 3+ books/month</li>
Use my calendar better</li>
Find a job (and keep it)</li>
Start a skin-care (why not)</li>
Go back to the gym</li> </ul>
It’s a lot of objectives, right? I realise it even while writing them down. But that’s okay — even if I don’t manage to achieve them all, there’s next year. As long as I keep improving, I’m good.
New Lifestyle</h2>
Right now I really feel like I spend most of my day doing nothing. I wake up, go to school (which already takes up most of my day) and in the evening I either think, doom-scroll, or sleep because I’m bored. When I do stuff like playing or coding it’s always messy: no concept of time. If somebody asked how much time I spent studying or coding yesterday I wouldn’t know how to answer — everything is so fragmented.
Then I got tired of all of this confusion in my head. I started thinking how I could fix the fragmentation and I thought about a calendar! I created a bunch of calendars, added all my already coming events (e.g. school, my barber, various trips) and then added objectives like studying at least 1 hour every day, and same about coding. Called them “Study Session” and “Code Session”. I planned the study sessions right before tests, a whole week of studying for every single one. Not happy yet, I also added 45 minutes of reading every night before bed.
It’s currently going pretty well. The first days I managed to follow it, then I had to change a few things because I felt it being too strict and now I’m still following every single event I planned.
Finding a job</h3>
I’ve always wanted to put my coding skills to some use that could also support me financially, I’m not going to lie. I’ve worked on some commissions here and there to help a few people out, but I’d never actually gone out searching for a proper contract. Truth is I had been looking for one for the past 10 months AND actually found one!
I’m under an NDA agreement so I can’t say much about it but it’s about software development and I love what I do, so… great!
Reading</h3>

I’m currently reading the Rascal Does Not Dream</a> series, a Japanese light novel. I watched the anime about a year ago, loved it, and chose to buy the books depicting the whole story. It mixes romance, psychology, and has a subtle grasp on physics. I’m currently on the 4th, out of 15. I admit I’ve been going pretty slow, since I “don’t have a lot of time to read” — just an excuse. So I set an objective to have more occasions and actually find the time to read!
I’ve got other books in mind too, like the Monogatari</a> series — another great piece of fiction — and The Apothecary Diaries</a> of which I’ve already bought the first volume btw. I’d say the story has some similarities with the first novel I mentioned, but I know it’s much more elaborate and deep. I also want to read some novels by Haruki Murakami like Norwegian Wood. And I swear, all of them being Japanese is just a coincidence.
This also ties back to the time I said I bought a Kindle: now I can put it to more use than just reading manga — I can read actual books! I’m still buying a few physically though.
Wait, a home server?</h2>

Yup, I finally managed. I found an old Acer laptop lying around without any RAM (I’d scavenged it earlier to put into my own laptop) and I added some 4GB I found in my drawer. Yeah, it’s not that strong, but it can hold a couple of services. I also have a VPS, so it doesn’t have to handle all the traffic.
Since I already had a VPS on Hetzner, I hosted most of my stuff there — but storage was the limit. Storage costs, and my iCloud already holds more than 200GB of just photos and videos. In the end I set up Immich for my photo library and initially gave OwnCloud a shot for file management. While it didn’t quite stick (check the footnote for why), having my own infrastructure finally feels real.
The server has a 500GB SSD, so it should be okay for the moment. I’m already planning on upgrading it, and even finding a better one where I can fit a GPU for heavy work and that can hold all of my services, not just these. Here’s a full list of what it’s running right now:

Immich (Gallery)</li>
~~OwnCloud (Files, Contacts, Calendar)</del>~~1</a></li>
Vaultwarden (Passwords & Passkeys)</li>
Personal CDN</a></li> </ul>
The VPS</h3>
Apart from the home server (which by the way I named “freeway”) I started paying for a Hetzner VPS a few months ago, and I host Coolify on it alongside many other services. Linkwarden, Umami, this website… somewhere around 15-20 services in total.
It’s honestly an insurance policy. I’m not constantly scared that things may stop or overload on the home server, and it can notify me whenever something goes down. Once I upgrade freeway</code> I’ll probably downgrade the VPS to pay the least possible, but for the moment I need it to be as strong as it is now. It has 8GB of memory and 80GB of disk.
Android Migration</h3>I said in the previous article</a> I’d be trying to migrate to Android, more specifically a Nothing Phone. I found a good offer on the Phone 3 with 512GB of storage at only 620€</code> instead of 999€</code>, which is kind of crazy. I don’t like Google, so I’d like to use it as little as possible. That also means: no Google subscriptions. Luckily I’ve already taken care of photos and files sync, so that side is covered; what I’m actually worried about is not liking Android itself. The doubt hasn’t vanished — if anything, it’s amplified. A lot of recent regulations and updates on both iOS and Android are making me think that in a few years (or even months) having an iPhone or a Nothing won’t feel that different. Android phones are getting more and more limited as far as I know, while iPhones are opening up. But I’ve made up my mind: I’m switching either way. It’s just a phone, and if I end up sacrificing some comfort because of a bad choice, it’s not going to affect my daily life all that much. Conclusion</h2> It’s funny how things work: by the time I finished this draft, a few of those checkboxes—the job, the daily coding, the calendar—had already been ticked. Starting this post with a list of empty goals felt daunting, but seeing them fill up in real-time is exactly the kind of momentum I was looking for. The road ahead is still long, and I know I’ll probably stumble on some of these (especially the gym… we’ll see). But writing this out publicly makes it real. It’s not just a thought in my head anymore; it’s a commitment. I’ll check back in a few months to see where I stand. If you’re also trying to reset or reclaim your time, let’s do it together. One “Code Session” at a time. Anyway, thanks for reading! See ya! I’ve shut it down already: it has a bad UI, it’s difficult to use and I just need something seamless like Immich. I’ll eventually fallback to Google’s services temporarily if I don’t find a valid option. ↩</a> </li> </ol> </section>

My New Distropedia Mambuco — Tue, 25 Mar 2025 21:09:00 +0200 Banner was generated with Google AI Studio. Get ready, because you’re about to read a lot of interesting stuff (at least I hope so) about Linux, and about me. If you don’t know what Linux is, it’s basically a computer operating system like Windows and MacOS (from Apple Macs). Do I suggest you read this article? I’m not sure. The thing is that this blog is probably going to go into technical details about OSes, distros, software, and all that nerdy stuff. I’m not saying you won’t enjoy it, but you probably won’t understand a lot of it without some basic knowledge of Linux. </blockquote> Now, let’s look at the definition of Distropedia. What’s the Distropedia?</h2> The Distropedia is a new project I’ve been thinking about lately. I’ve been trying out a few distros lately―there’s a new article about a new distro coming soon―and I realised that I could make this my hobby in my spare time. So, the Distropedia is a new section of this website where you will find information about every Linux distro I have tried. I’m probably going to rank them, or list pros and cons about them. Don’t think of it as a wiki or anything, it’s more like a Wanderer’s Journal</a> (little HK</abbr> reference). A diary, where I’ll be both technical about linux aspects and theoretical, talking about how I feel about using it. The Criteria</h2> I’m obviously NOT going to install every distro as my daily driver because I’d be suicidial</del> after trying them all. I’ll use the great GNOME Boxes</a> application to sandbox them. Most people will say that to discover a distro’s true capabilities, you need to use it in its entirety, not just for a few specific tasks. I agree with that, so I’m going to write down some criteria to follow every time I try a new distro. What do I mean by criteria? Just a list of things to try out before you give feedback on the distro itself. Some of these crieteria might be Writing code</li> Launching games</li> Listening to music</li> Other stuff</li> </ul> Which Distros?</h2> Obviously I can’t try every Linux distro on the planet, so I’m going to pick the most popular ones + the ones that any of you want. I’m open to just about anything, so let’s start with Debian</li> Red Hat</li> Arch Linux</del></li> </ul> Q: Why not Arch? A: It was my first distro and I’ve been using it for months. Here</a>’s why I quit, but it was a wonderful experience. </blockquote> I’ll continue with Debian-based distros and so on with Red Hat/Arch-based distros. By the way there was a roadmap if you were interested. Conclusion</h2> The Distropedia tab used to appear in the sidebar. There you could find all the distros that have been tried so far, a roadmap, and a link to this article. The Distropedia is currently under maintenance and not available. Thank you, really. This website helps me get trough a lot of things. You probably can’t read about all the difficulties someone is going trough in one article. That’s why I really appreciate everyone who reads my blog light-heartedly. It helps me more than you can imagine. </blockquote> See ya! From Arch to Fedora Mambuco — Tue, 04 Feb 2025 20:25:00 +0200 Hey, this is my first post here. Alright, seems cool. This is actually the first post I write on this blog. I’m not even a native english speaker, and I’m not used to writing blog articles. I will get used to it with time, but don’t expect some quality content right now. </blockquote> Let’s talk about what the title itself says. I recently switched from Arch Linux to Fedora. This will require me to talk a little more about the past… First Approach to Ubuntu</h2> When I was 5 y/o I had a little laptop with Ubuntu Desktop, I remember it was a very old version of Ubuntu, but I don’t remember which one. It couldn’t run anything heavy but who cares, I was literally 5 years old or something. Time passed and new laptops came, they all had Windows, and I was fine with it. I even got my desktop computer (my current one) and used Windows 10/11 for years until last spring. Re-discovering Linux</h2> During the last 2 years I recently re-discovered linux by setting up a home-server with a friend, and I loved it. I learned how to use a terminal and learnt a lot about computers and hardware in general. One day I meet a friend of my friend, and he was using Ubuntu Desktop on his laptop. I obviously made a lot of questions about it, and I discovered about how many distros there were, as long as Desktop Environments, and stuff like that. Installing Arch</h2> By scrolling on Reddit I found a post about an Arch Linux rice</a> and got to research more about arch itself. I discovered that it was considered one of the “hardest” distros to install and use, and I was looking for a challenge. The thing is, I installed it following the true Arch way, by making mistakes. Turns out that instead of installing arch as a dual-boot with Windows, I wiped out the entire Windows partition of my laptop and lost pretty much everything. I must say, thanks god OneDrive exists. Using Arch</h2> I mean, the installation did go really well because I just used the Archinstall</a> tool, and it worked, but even then, I was really confused. My dumb ass decided to not select most of the options in the Archinstall TUI, so there was no Desktop Environment. I did manage how to install it eventually, with sudo pacman -S gnome</code>. At the end everything turned out great. I and the Arch Wiki</a> became best friends, and I also learnt a lot about linux and machines in general. The BIG Problem</h2> Everything was going fine, until a kernel update decided that my arch installation must not boot anymore. Without talking about the issue too much, I’ll just let you know that 2 weeks ago (when this happened) I was very ill and I just wanted to use my PC for a bit, and I couldn’t because of this. After a while I got tired of my system’s mood swings, every month something would eventually break. I already know that’s Arch’s philosophy, and it was fun at the beginning until it got boring. The Solution</h2> One thing led to another, and I was just furious, so I installed Fedora. You can’t imagine how happy I was to discover that Fedora came already in with my favorite DE</abbr>, GNOME. I riced it a bit at the beginning, installed whatever I needed, and it was ready to go. Conclusion</h2> I’m really happy with Fedora, but I miss Arch. I miss the AUR, the rolling release, the wiki, the community. But seriously, getting used to the AUR is horrible. Once you distro hop</a> to a non-Arch distro, you eventually end up managing dnf</code> repositories like I did, and it’s not fun at all. Maybe one day I’ll go back to Arch, but for now, I’m happy with my stable system, and it’s actually pretty fun. That’s all for now, I’m going to bed. I hope you enjoyed this article, and I hope I’ll be making more in the future.

Mambuco - Linux

A Fresh Start

Reading</h3> </p>

My New Distropedia

Which Distros?</h2> Obviously I can’t try every Linux distro on the planet, so I’m going to pick the most popular ones + the ones that any of you want.</p> I’m open to just about anything, so let’s start with</p>

From Arch to Fedora