I checked out the main feed, OP. Not sure this is going anywhere based on the content I saw. I have no opinion on the site as a technical work.

I think an open-source general device benchmark would be cool. Including CPU / GPU / Battery life metrics. As far as I know, everything that does this is proprietary.

I would go Debian, purely because it will result in less maintenance on your end. Maybe show them several DEs and see what looks easiest to them.

There are pretty okay trackers asking for no proofs on open signups. It's mostly a matter of patience. You can even just sign up for everything and see what's a good fit, but be sure to use unique passwords on everything to be safe.

If FNP or LST open up again I would suggest signing up, they are shaping up to be good entry level trackers. Also TL usually opens a couple times a year. It's a massive site but kind of a mess when it comes to curation. Don't use iPT unless you have no other option.

People will tell you to join book/music trackers to rank up, but unless you like grinding I'm not sure this is the best route.

I think this is what you're looking for?

https://es-de.org/

cs.rin.ru

Make an account and seek the relevant thread.

I've noticed some scene game/software releases have blake3 hashes now. That doesn't account for everything else, but I'd say it's a good step.

That's a good article. From my observation, there are a few things:

• Necessity. I'm active in communities with people who don't use the terminal until it's an absolute necessity. Like people running unraid, docker, or whatever containerized server. Eventually they need to type commands.
• The prettiness. Yeah, I run oh-my-zsh. It's nice having a setup pretty environment. Some people's only experience might be opening up the powershell default display to run one command... And that is a bad experience.
• Niche commands/programs. Take ffmpeg as an example. It's probably the most powerful media tool that exists, but has no official gui. And it's expansive enough that no GUI really covers what it can do. There are a bunch of other things like this.

Edit: And yeah, git. I've never used a graphical client. Seen a handful in use and don't like it.

Yeah this is honestly how I find/download most stuff. Almost all trackers on I'm on have jackett support, and then I can choose the exact release I want.

Another +1 for gitea. It works quite well and is easy to setup.

1. Yes, I'd say they're absolutely worth it. The main draw is you can get pretty much anything (unless you have very strange tastes) quickly, and be sure of the quality. Maintaining a ratio isn't hard on most trackers with a credits/bonus system, so it's usually not a worry if your upload is kinda slow. And you don't really need to interview for movie/tv trackers. Probably joining a couple entry-level ones would be fit your needs.

2. Most private trackers are very safe when it comes to malware, publics can be hit or miss. There is always a risk with binary content, which is why some people only grab scene releases for games and check the hashes. In either case, if you're just grabbing videos you should be fine.

I mean, probably not? If no one in your country has ever been charged or extradited over it then it's unlikely you will.