Apologies if this post ain’t right for this community! I’m admittedly not interested in self-hosting myself, but I’ve a close buddy who’s wanting to get back to streaming, but rightfully hates Amazon. He’s wanting to self-host with Owncast to do video streaming with his pals, but lives in a very small flat with very little free space - hence the request for a laptop.

Ideally he’s needing something great for video encoding, and Linux friendly to boot. No Windows. Mate’s got a budget of ~£1,000.

If there’s a better community for this lemme know!

  • recursive_recursion [they/them]@programming.devEnglish
    61·
    2 months ago

    with a $1000 budget they might want to consider building a computer as desktops usually provide better performance/per cost rather than buying a $1000 laptop

    • desktop pcs can also be small if a small form-factor like ITX or mini-ITX is chosen (although mini-ITX can be pricey)

    building is incredibly easy as there’s a plethora of tutorial vids online and you’re less likely to get screwed over by an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) or retailer

    • diy vs. buying a pre-built

    the fediverse here also has an active community for support !buildapc@lemmy.world

    • helenslunch@feddit.nlEnglish
      22·
      2 months ago

      Desktops usually don’t have a focus on efficiency, which is important in a server.

      • recursive_recursion [they/them]@programming.devEnglish
        4·
        2 months ago

        that is true but for beginners with a $1000 budget who ask about buying laptops to host services

        • I’d usually steer towards pc building as buying a laptop would usually be the worst of all options (which brings me great pain for my customers)
          • and building an actual server can be costly unless you’re buying easily accessible second -hand/used components

        one thing I forgot to mention is that it also heavily depends on an individual’s use cases, restrictions, and preferences

    • GnuLinuxDude@lemmy.mlEnglish
      24·
      2 months ago

      The one caveat to building is if you build a PC and a single component is faulty, you are now responsible for determining which component is to get the RMA done. That can be a big hassle. One time for me it was actually two different components that needed to be replaced by the manufacturers, and that was a pain to figure out.

      • recursive_recursion [they/them]@programming.devEnglish
        2·
        2 months ago

        that is definitely true however the added benefit is typically a longer warranty range as buying a laptop would typically mean that all components would be sold under a single flat warranty cycle/deadline

        plus even if your computer is borked, you can still take it into a microcenter, memoryexpress, brick-and-mortor retailer to have their technicians figure it out the problem for a cost

        I often have these time vs cost tradeoff discussions with my customers after they’ve been informed on the basics