I have put together the box I am going to use as my test NAS. The drives barley fit, but it works. Good enough for testing and learning.
Its a case swapped Dell XPS with an I7-3770 and 16gb DDR3 1600. I have added a WiFi 6 card, a 2.5gbe nic, an Intel A310 GPU, 4x1tb HDD’s, and a 256gb sata nvme drive. I did 3D print the drive cages.
About a month ago I went to a large Flea Market and a Vintage Flea Market over Labor Day Weekend. I bought 2 things. I found a 160gb iPod Classic, Gen 6 I believe. Paid $50 for it. The dude said it worked. I took it home and charged it up. It works! I reset it and put a bunch of music on it. I have been using it issue free since then. The back is scratched up, but it gives it that used look. The screen has some large scratches on it and is just as beat up. The rest of the front cover is in decent shape. I have picked up an iFlash dual to convert to micro sd and have two storage slots. I plan on putting in a single 256gb to start. My music library is currently ~200gb. I also picked up a new battery and a new front cover. I am going to try Rockbox on it. I also need to get either good wired ear buds or add bluetooth somehow. I picked up a cheap transmitter, but it sucks. I got this as an offline way to enjoy my music.
I also found a Gold Retina MacBook, model A1534 . It has an Intel M5 in it. It runs decently, but overall sucks. It thermal throttles really easily, so I think the thermal compound on it might not be the best. Not sure how to change it. There is not much inside this thing. I got it as the engineering on this is amazing, it is very thin and light. I paid $100 for it, but when I got home I found that the the bottom cover was installed incorrectly, the screws were not in the correct holes. I also found that the cable for the keyboard/track pad was bad. I ordered a new one for a few bucks and things are fixed. I also noticed when i had it open that the USB-C port is easily replaceable. It makes sense since it is the only port on the device. I did use open core legacy patcher to update it to Sequoia, so technically it is still supported. I have not used it for much, but I did reset the iPod and load music onto it. It also let me see what modern Mac OS is like. I hate it! I was debating getting a MacBook Air at the time due to my issue with Framework Support at the time. To me Mac OS feels dated. It feels like using Windows XP. It also felt like it was designed around consumption, like buying/subscribing to stuff. It made me realize how special Linux is. Its not perfect, but it is not Mac OS or Windows.
One more thing I took apart an old OCZ Vertex 4 SSD. There are so many nand chips compared to modern ones. My Samsung 990 Evo Plus drives have 1 if they are 2tb and 2 if they are 4tb. This drive was 256gb. I also have an even older OCZ Agility 60gb that is a sata 2 drive.
I have been having GDM crashes on Bazzite here lately. I do believe it is due to Nvidia driver shenanigans. I have also had weird app issues that I have tied back to Nvidia as well. I really don’t get why Nvidia cannot just play nice on Desktop Linux at this point. I am debating buying another GPU AMD or Intel and selling both my 4070 Super and 3060 12gb due to the issues. I do not have these issues if I use Intel or AMD graphics. I want to ask for help, but I feel that it is pointless! I had these issues before and I bought a 9070XT for my desktop. Have not had an issue with it since. If I were to get a new GPU I see two options:
Buy a new GPU for my Desktop. Thinking Radeon Pro 9700 23G or Intel B70, B65, or B570/B580. I would move the 9070XT to my system on the 4K OLED.
Buy a Intel B570/B580 and replace the 4070 Super.
Looking for ideas!
Have tried doing a rollback to confirm? Possible gnome needs to be updated or Nvidia is haivng issues with it atm. No issues on my wife’s PC (KDE, 2080ti).
If I reboot every few days it seems to be no where near as bad. It might be time to try KDE. I have not used KDE in over a decade, probably closer to 2. I have nothing against it. I use gnome as I like the settings app better and I have a few extensions I have used for years. When I installed Bazzite it gave me the option for gnome so I just chose it.
I have not tried a rollback as the issue always seems to always be there to some extent. I also do not have active secure boot due to the driver as well. I just cannot enroll the key. I have tried to resolve it a few times with no luck. I don’t do anything amazing on the system other than watch YouTube, stream from Jellyfin, and play some games.
I checked prices of GPU’s this morning and ouch! Radeon pro 9700’s are like $1700. I can’t really justify that. The Intel B70 is just as much. The same 9070XT I have is $200 more than it was when I bought it a year ago, $899. The Intel B380 was ~$350, but it’s a budget GPU. I hate Nvidia so I won’t even look and don’t wanna know. On the positive side I might be able to get a decent amount for my 3060 and 4070 super.
Also, I am going to try out KDE tonight. I will probably do the KDE Plasma version of Fedora. I have heard good things.
I’ve had excellent luck with Fedora KDE.
I am still alive!
This morning I am updating my Fedora systems from 44 to 45. I updated my Framework 12 a few days back and I have not had any issues. I am looking forward to some of the changes, particularly with the file browser. It is supposed to be more usable now when doing large transfers instead of being all laggy and slow. Time will tell. Back in my Windows days I had similar issues so I am not really expecting much, but maybe.
I am also trying to figure out what to do with my Gaming/Entertainment System. Bazzite is just not working. I do not blame Bazzite, I blame nvidia. I keep having apps crash, not work, freeze, etc.. I can trace it back to compatibility with the nvidia driver. I have tried KDE, but found that some old problems go away and new problems emerge. I was going to buy a new GPU but I can’t justify the prices, ~$1000 for a 9070XT. I keep checking Newegg for an Intel B580, but they have been out of stock. It would not be an upgrade, but it would be fun to try and they are ~$380. I am going to try Fedora 45, Pop OS, and maybe Ubuntu. If that does not work out I may just go back to Windows, at least the drivers work. I am still open to suggestions on this one.
Then this weekend I want to Continue on my Test NAS box. I am no longer going to use Debian, I am going to try Fedora Server and see how things go.
Nvidia drivers on Linux suffer from Kernel limits. 7.0 your good, 7.1 or 7.2 isn’t supported.
I have to use my distro’s package upgrade mechanism. Even when a 7.2 kernel was slated to be upgraded, their package control software recognized the new kernel would break the system because of the Nvidia driver, so it doesn’t upgrade the kernel. The best I can do is an early version of 7.1. After that point a kernel feature was introduced that breaks the Nvidia driver.
Interesting, so Ubuntu 26.04 may be a good option! It is on 7.0 I think.
$ nvidia-smi
Sat Nov 14 18:23:05 2026
±----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 595.112.07 Driver Version: 595.112.07 CUDA Version: 13.2 |
±----------------------------------------±-----------------------±---------------------+
$ uname -a
Linux … 7.0.9-1…(2026-05-28) x86_64 GNU/Linux
We are no longer providing proprietary flavor RPM/Debian driver packages, starting in 615 only OpenGPU.
https://developer.nvidia.com/blog/nvidia-transitions-fully-towards-open-source-gpu-kernel-modules/
Please apt install nvidia-open on supported hardware, older hardware needs 580 proprietary driver.
Some discussion is here:
Proprietary Kernel Modules Removed
The proprietary kernel modules have been removed. The open kernel modules are now the only kernel module flavor provided.
Version locking packages for Ubuntu / DebianDriver pinning packages have been introduced for Debian and Ubuntu to track specific driver branches and versions across the various releases.
Since I’m running a Debian variant, driver pinning is required for me.
There is a discussion about Kernel.orgs changes to the Kernel breaking Nvidia drivers, I just can’t find it at the moment.