gedaliyah

Jellyfin for shows and movies, Chora for Navidrome Music, and it works as a perfect little access to your homeserver.

I haven’t found an Android box that runs without Google services.

Kodi on a Pi is just meh at best imo.

I use ONN Android boxes. Fairly inexpensive, but I think it’s difficult to set up without a Google account (you can create a dummy account on the setup).

Side-loading is trivial. Some favorite apps: TizenTube to replace YouTube (or any of a dozen or so frontends), Projectivy launcher to replace the awful default. Add an always on VPN.

Yes? OP is specifically looking for something other than NextCloud. OwnCloud has basically zero bloat and in my experience is easier to set up than NextCloud.

I use OwnCloud, which was forked into NextCloud ages ago. I originally intended it as a temporary measure, but it has turned out to be a very reliable, no-frills but adequately featured fileserver. For example, it has file versioning, and companion apps on major OSs that help with managing local and cloud stored files.

If you want a dead simple option, CopyParty is amazing. It’s a 1MB Python file that is basically a Swiss Army knife of file hosting. FTP, web interface, WebDAV, SMB, etc., etc. It wont have system integrations or file versioning, but it’s impressive what it can do

Yes, there are a couple import tools for Google Takeout, and you should absolutely use one. I don’t recall if I used this particular tool, but it is strictly necessary to get a clean import.

Big +1 for LRCGET. It is extremely powerful and dead simple to use. I’m generally able to point it at a directory and press go. It will return lyrics about as accurately and reliably as any manual search, and it has the (experimental) ability to embed the lyrics as well.

I prefer embedded lyrics, since I know that they will be available and inseparable from the files regardless of what my library looks like in the future.

Never tried it. It looks like maybe the mobile app is not available from open source repos.

FYI, I came across an app called FindFamily on F-Droid, but it looks like a vibe-coded vaporware, and who knows what server it’s connecting to in the background.

On device, I’d trust OwnTracks, Colota, or GPSLogger, then use Dawarich or Reitti on the server. That is, if you are interested in device history, which could be useful in tracking a lost device, or just having your personal memoies saved.

These do not provide defensive measures like photo or remote wiping. FMD can do that over SMS if the phone is disconnected from the server.

I had this and switched to reitti with owntracks specifically to work with multiple family accounts. Owntracks is not as nice as Colota in most ways, but shows the live location of my family. I had some stability issues with dawarich using multiple devices (most likely user error) but liked it. I do think that reitti has a nicer interface and features, but probably a matter of taste.

Sure. As a fork, it has all of the benefits of Calibre-web. It’s stable, well established, versitile, works well with Calibre desktop software (they are three different projects, despite the similar names). Yet it has a number of different features like automatic ingest, writing/converting files, sending to different devices, etc. There is a pretty complete list on the GitHub page I linked. It has a big community and active development, so its likely that any features you might look for could be coming soon.

There are other self hosted software projects for ebooks (you can even use Jellyfin!). I had switched to Booklore at one point for a more modern UI and tracking, but it was more flash than execution and ultimately looks like it flamed out over some community issues. There are also projects like Kavita that are designed for features around comics/manga, but also do an excellent job with ebooks in general.

You should consider two things: what the library looks like, and where it will be read. If it is mostly books with a few other media (like comics, PDFs, etc.), then CWA is probably a good bet. If it’s mostly comics and manga with some books and other media, consider whether Kavita is the better fit. If it is mostly DRM content, and you or if you want to manage it through Calibre Desktop, how does it connect? How often are new books being added and from where?

What screen will it ultimately be read on? If it’s an ereader, check out the “books” and “self-hosted” communities here on Lemmy for which protocol, etc. is used. If it will be read on a computer or mobile device, what apps are available? Will it be read on multiple devices?

For example, if it is a small library, read on an Android/iOS device, Jellyfin with JellyBook may be fine. If it is a large manga library already tracked on AniList, Kavita may be a good bet. If features like notes and highlights are important to sync across devices, something like Anx Reader with WebDAV might even be better.

What OP describes is an excellent setup for 90% of cases.

Excellent writeup! Thanks for posting. Lately, I’ve been using Calibre Web Automated, an active fork with a lot of added features and compatibility features.

Depending on someone’s setup it may or not be worth it to switch (Calibre-web works great), but I’d definitely recommend it for someone starting up.

I’ve switched to Picard, too. I do think for a task like this a GUI makes a big difference. I tried with beets, but you really have to do a lot of research in advance to understand what it is doing and the settings you need, and it’s not one-size-fits-all.

If you don’t have a lot of indie stuff, and you primarily have whole albums, AND you have the patience to go through your entire library one track at a time, then I’m sure it works fine.

The advantage of Picard is that you can see many tracks at a glance to focus on the ones that need attention. Plus you can pause at any time and pick up where you left off.

I now do almost all of this through Strawberry, which has Picard built in.

If you like reels, check out loops

KagI is pretty good in various languages.

Pretty much the exact same experience here. I just removed my wife’s photo storage from Google completely as of this month 🎉. Don’t even need the security blanket anymore. Immich is it.

I had a mini panic when moving from v2 to v3 was not automatic today, but it was a 15 minute fix, that was mostly just reading the step-by-step instructions for the update. Copy-pasted a handful of lines and we’re off!

😂🤣 Brighten my whole day.

If I had a nickel for every time that song came up on Lemmy this week, I’d have two nickels, which is not a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice.

Navidrome works best with a library that is already well-organized, but it can do some things in terms of library management, particularly with the use if plugins.

There are some good tools for organizing your library, such as beets, Picard, etc. I did not have good luck with beets because I find it a bit complex for a CLI tool, and a lot of my library is composed of singles and mixes. It seems to do better with whole albums. I use Strawberry player for local library management, which has tools like Picard built in, and also connects to lots of things like lastfm if you want. You can also add lyrics with a tool like lrcget.

If you have existing playlist files saved, Navidrome will automatically import them. It can also make new playlists, and there are plugins for smart playlists, etc.

Tempus is phenomenal. I switched to navidrome on my server to use it. Chora is also good, and I use it on my TV (works well on any screen). If you don’t mind closed-source, Symphonum is excellent.

If you are using Jellyfin, it works well on PC, with Fintunes on mobile.

You can find a number of good apps for navidrome here. I quite like Strawberry, which is cross-platform. I use it locally for library management.

I connect everything with Tailscale, which is dead simple.

Yep. It is a time-suck to see an interesting new project only to check it out and find out it’s AI slop. For some apps, it doesn’t bother me… They may not require the access or stability of critical apps. Other times, I just can’t trust a slop app, and it would be very helpful to know which it is in advance.

For document editing, I have had fairly good luck with OnlyOffice, although it is not without its issues. Others also recommend Collabora, which plays well with NextCloud and LibreOffice.

DAVx5 basically acts as the connector between your server and your calendar/contacts/files apps. I would imagine that this could be built into an app, but there are a lot of ways that such apps can sync or operate locally. I’m guessing that it is just a little more specialized than most developers want to get.

Thanks for the Syncthing-Fork tip! For now the official version is working for me, but I’ll have to migrate myself soon.

From my understanding, OpenVPN provides the same secure remote access as Tailscale, by a slightly different method. You should be fine to use what you’ve already set up.

I’ve done this.

For contacts, calendar, and files, I use OwnCloud, although NextCloud is as good/better. I couldn’t figure out Self-Signing certificates, which is supposed to be pretty easy, but I am kind of a dummy. NextCloud requires it. On my phone, I use DAVx5, and I replaced the GrapheneOS stock apps with Fossify apps as needed - although that is up to personal preference.

For photos, I use Immich, which is hands-down the best option.

NextCloud also has options for document editing, photo backup, and notes, but I can’t testify to those.

Syncthing is an ideal way to seamlessly sync files and folders between devices, but you will end up with the files on both devices. I use it sparingly, and they are phasing out android support. It’s still very useful to migrate large file libraries and act as a stopgap for other services.

There are tons of notes apps, and it largely comes down to preference. I settled on NotallyX, which can import your Keep notes directly (using Google Takeout iirc). It also has the option to store files externally, which means they can be synced for backup. There are also self-hosted web-apps, like Memos, or the slightly more adventurous Blinko.

I got a lot of great input from this community not too long ago.

The one Google feature I am not able to reproduce is Google Messages. If you use texting to any degree, there are some FOSS apps with pretty nice basic features (I’m using Fossify which is nice). However, there are none that have solid group-messaging features, reactions, and other RCS capabilities. It seems to be a technical/logistical/legal hurdle that is presently insurmountable. Lots of people don’t use texting anyway, so it may not be a concern for you.