Notices by Leah Rowe is not a Rowebot (libreleah@mas.to)

New Minifree website will be available soon. Here's a WIP.

I concluded that I was over-thinking it entirely. What you see is intended at first to be a temporary site - but it may in fact become permanent.

Static HTML. No databases, no bloat. Just a list of products, my company info and an email address to contact.

I'm still looking into using Stripe to process card payments. Wire transfer for now, Invoices by email.

*I'm already taking orders*. Contact info@minifree.org if you want to order.

@milvus_migrans_govinda CPUs about the same, in terms of FLOPS (floating point operations per second); it *is* slightly higher. GPU performance is much higher.

Power efficiency is higher, and the T480 can take more RAM (*64GB* max, versus 16GB on the T440p).

T480 also have an NVMe SSD slot, enabling higher data throughput.

It is theoretically possible to add a 2nd NVMe SSD on T480, by designing a modboard to piggyback off of the PCI-E x4 lane (unused dGPU slot). T440p also has that dGPU slot.

gonna bring up a temporary static html site today, with products and contact info, so that people know how to email me and enquire about new orders - i regularly process orders manually via email anyway

the actual new shop site will be available as soon as i have my stripe account fully set up, as the new site will take payments via card.
stay tunude for further update.

it'd be so easy to just set up shopify or something, but i never outsource minifree hosting. i run all my own infrastructure.

FYI I expect Minifree to be back online by about Wednesday, March 26th - possibly Friday 28th. I'll have the site ready tonight but I'm setting up my Stripe account, for card payments.

I have no idea how long it'll take for that account to actually be up. My old website simply mailed wire transfer instructions.

If anyone wants to order, you can still order before the website comes back: email info@minifree.org

Libreboot T480 32GB RAM and 1TB NVMe with Intel AX210 wifi: £598+shipping+VAT TBD.

Finally got my new machine set up for the new Minifree shop. Site should be back online in the next day or so.

Wireguard has faster failover than xl2tpd; ~2 secs vs ~40-60 secs. The main DOCSIS-based internet service also seems to throttle L2TP connections, but not Wireguard. Minimal MTU overhead so it's OK.

L2TP stays up during failover, deferring to wireguard and only using its own slower failover as fallback.

A&A L2TP provides residential IPs so I can use the web without getting captcha'd. And host servers.

Same setup at home too (will post pics soon). I plan to run a load balancer through the VPS.

New routers:

* NAT router (IPv4); my cable router is in modem-only mode.

* PPPoE router (VDSL), OpenWRT. IPv4+6 dual stack

* Wireguard tunnel router via my *own* VPN server on a VPS. IPv4+v6 NAT on LAN.

* L2TP tunnel router, via #AAISP L2TP service: https://www.aa.net.uk/broadband/l2tp-service/

Tunnels have redundancy: WG via docsis/vdsl.

L2TP via Wireguard/VDSL/DOCSIS failover.

L2TP router has public /28 IPv4 subnet and /64 IPv6 *on LAN*.

100% Libreboot. New Minifree shop coming soon, hosted on this network!

@milvus_migrans_govinda by all means. instructions are at https://libreboot.org/docs/install/t480.html

@qeeg @pepperz and what speed / type of connection is it

@qeeg @pepperz what isp is that?

@qeeg @pepperz but you're probably not hammering the connection non-stop. most families probably don't use more than a few TB per month. ISPs budget that in when investing in their infrastructure. your ISP most certainly does not have the capacity for everyone on your line to hammer their connecrtions 24/7. therefore it is not unlimited. you probably don't have any sort of SLA either.

@qeeg @pepperz if you're paying for 1gbps unlimited, but you're getting 600mbps at certain times of the day, then you're paying for 600mbps, not 1gbps. that's all i'm saying.

i generally avoid the unlimited packages for that reason. i don't use much data, but when i do need it, i want the speed that i'm paying for, as advertised. no surprises.

@qeeg @pepperz don't just do the maths. check your speed at different times of the day. you'll find that the average "unlimited" package is anything but.

i pay £20 per month for 20TB on my VPS, which gives me 2.5gbps both ways. i run wireguard on that and that's my internet (i also use a separate L2TP service). it's actually 2.5gbps (on the VPS).

if i go to basically any "unlimited" VPS provider, i might be lucky to get 800mbps throughout the day, at usually higher latency.

bandwidth costs ££

@qeeg @pepperz unlimited is a lie. as soon as they say that, everyone jumpps on it and then the network gets congested all the way to hell and back

promising and engineering an exact speed, at an exact level of data, is more responsible - actual unlimited bandwidth costs way more

a 25gbps line at a datacentre will cost hundreds, if not thousands, for that actual speed. do the maths, when considering that 1gbps unlimited package you get from your average shit-tier isp that costs you ~£60

@milvus_migrans_govinda i7 is compatible, but pointless. it only offers about 10% performance boost, yet those models cost about twice as much online. better go with the i5-8250u model, it's the best value for money in my opinion. that's the one i sell. i can do i7 but they're super rare and i'll probably start charging extra for those from now on (i've been basically banking on a few of them being i7, in big batches that i buy, rather than buying them specifically, where the latter costs more)

By the way I'm still accepting Minifree orders despite the website being offline; I expect the website to be back online by the weekend.

However, I regularly do custom orders via email anyway. If anyone wants to purchase a Libreboot machine from me, just contact me (info@minifree.org)

I've had a few people email me asking when the shop will be back.

I've been re-wiring the lab internet, prior to setting up the new shop.

Librebooted ThinkPad T480 and Dell Optiplex 3050 Micros are what I sell.

but most british isps probably still won't provide ipv6 in the year 2030

apparently 50gbps fttp is going to be a thing in british homes, possibly during this decade

https://www.openreach.com/news/openreach-and-nokia-test-uks-first-live-hyper-fast-50gbps-fibre-broadband-connection/

can't wait!

Update on minifree.org situation: I'm nearly done configuring my new network, and I'll begin setting up the new shop tomorrow morning most likely.

I'll have the new shop online by the weekend at the latest. I'm doing a totally new shop site, to replace the old one.

The new site will also have easier payment methods e.g. card payment method.

And I'll also make it look sexy, like it was designed in the year 2025, instead of the year 2014. The old site was designed in 2014 and was never changed.

@april i'm probably going to wing it. i've never had problems even half way through a testing cycle. it's only sid that really ever breaks on me.