As it happens, I’ve just finished setting up a system exactly like this for a completely off-grid setup. I needed a Raspberry Pi running Home Assistant to be completely self-contained to monitor an adjacent, larger system that is only powered up intermittently (close enough that the two systems have a common ground).

Short version: the Raspberry Pi and the Huawei LTE router I’m using for connectivity draw a steady 9W between them (there’s a lot of monitoring going on). I went with an old pair of 80W panels in very suboptimal positioning, a simple MPPT charge controller and a 110Ah deep cycle leisure battery which costs about €45, €30 and €120 respectively. The system has been running a few months now and the battery had never, ever dropped below 12.4V. The Pi uses WireGuard to connect to my VPS so Home Assistant can be accessed with a web browser since the network I’m using on-site doesn’t do public IP addresses.

Also, one of the reasons the EU waited for USB-C is that it specifically supports Alt Mode, which allows non-USB-standard protocols - like this new video connector thing - to be encapsulated within it.

The whole point of USB-C is that it’s a standardised connector that allows anyone to shoehorn their own protocol down it if they want using Alt Mode. Moreover, they can do that without breaking compatibility with other USB-C - or even just specific features - if one of the devices doesn’t speak their crazy-ass moon protocols. This is a benefit of USB-C, not a failing.

Graphics cards come with as many ports as the manufacturer wants them to. My home PC’s GPU has two HDMI and two MiniDisplayPort. Also, there are cheap lossless adapters that will convert between MiniDisplayPort, DisplayPort, HDMI, DVI, etc, etc.

I disagree with the more than 4K being a theoretical need thing but, regardless, where I work, every desk has a pair of 4K monitors that connect to the user’s laptop via a single USB-C cable. That cable also connects a keyboard, mouse, gigabit ethernet and, depending on the desk, 10Gb ethernet, multiple cameras and conference audio. The cable also charges the laptop, of course. At the moment that’s mostly done using USB-C docking stations, but we’ve started to deploy monitors that are USB-C native and can be daisychained together.

In case anyone is wondering, yes, this is utter nonsense. The EU made USB-C mandatory only as a charger for portable devices like phones, tablets, headphones and mice. That’s all. This new standard, unwelcome as it is, has nothing to do with charging phones so there’s no reason why it can’t be used in the EU.

But let’s not allow measley facts get in the way of having a moan at nothing, shall we? Fucking EU. Forcing us to [checks notes] charge all out things using a single connector, reducing e-waste, and, uh, ensuring there’s lots of futureproofing built-in. BASTARDS.

Yeah, but I’ve not got two hundred Firefox tabs open on Voyager.

The 10Gb is full duplex, so you can transfer at the full 10Gb though that is split between upload and download. These and the kind of ‘problems’ I wish I had to consider.

The idea is that you use the 10Gb port as a trunk, then you use your switch to split it into separate physical ports using VLANs.

Sawme here! Honmestly I dom"t thinkl I coukd ever go vack tp a mormal keyboard ¶¶¶¶

I keep thinking of creating Linux BTW…

“Modern Teens Killing Travelling Minstrel Industry”

They’re clearly under the control of Big Train, Loom Lobbyists and the Global Gutenberg Printing Press Conspiracy.

I’ve still not forgiven them for prematurely cancelling BoJack Horseman.

I’m a bit late to the conversation here, but I bought four of these car seat occupancy sensors - https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/316523892197 - and installed them between the mattresses, one at butt level and the other at shoulder level on both sides of the bed - and connected them to an ESP32 on ESPHome. Works a treat. They’re sensitive enough to momentarily disengage if someone rolls over or shuffles about if you need that, otherwise a generous bounce detection allowance smooths it out.

I feel like a stuck record saying this, but if there was a serious contender to Group Policy on Linux I honestly think Windows in the workplace would be dead in five years.