That system also sounds a lot more capable than mine. How did you end up with 25 VMs?

I’m running it in a regular mATX case (Node 804) but I think you can also get AM5 motherboards in rack-mount cases.

Perhaps my recent NAS/home server build can serve as a bit of an inspiration for you:

• AMD Ryzen 8500G (8 cores, much more powerful than your two CPUs, with iGPU)
• Standard B650 mainboard, 32 GB RAM
• 2 x used 10 TB HDDs in a ZFS pool (mainboard has 4x SATA ports)
• Debian Bookworm with Docker containers for applications (containers should be more efficient than VMs).
• Average power consumption of 19W. Usually cooled passively.

I don’t think it’s more efficient to separate processing and storage so I’d only go for that if you want to play around with a cluster. I would also avoid SD cards as a root FS, as they tend to die early and catastrophically.

The GPL (and AGPL) do place some restrictions on how you can integrate it into another application but this doesn’t have anything to do with commercial use.

Basically, if you create a derivative work and publish/sell it, you also need to license it under the AGPL. In case of the AGPL it also applied if you use it to offer a service. But if you only use the unmodified version (same source code) and the intended application interfaces, this does not apply.

Running the application on Windows is clearly allowed. The second case also sounds ok (allowing this is kinda the point of FOSS). However, if you create an improved version of PDFCreater, then you’ll need to publish it under the same AGPL license.

I’m not a legal expert, but the AGPL seems to be quite clear on this point:

2. Basic Permissions.

All rights granted under this License are granted for the term of copyright on the Program, and are irrevocable provided the stated conditions are met. This License explicitly affirms your unlimited permission to run the unmodified Program. […]

You may make, run and propagate covered works that you do not convey, without conditions so long as your license otherwise remains in force. […]

However, depending on the exact thing that they said, they may be in violation of the AGPL. Once they have given you (conveyed) a copy of the program, they cannot impose a license fee for the use of the software.

10. Automatic Licensing of Downstream Recipients.

Each time you convey a covered work, the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensors, to run, modify and propagate that work, subject to this License. […]

You may not impose any further restrictions on the exercise of the rights granted or affirmed under this License. For example, you may not impose a license fee, royalty, or other charge for exercise of rights granted under this License, and you may not initiate litigation […]

Switzerland has since introduced a law that changed this to self determination.

I agree that the Tuxedo Nano Pro is very expensive, but the Mac Mini is much more expensive. When you look at the comparable, German prices, it looks like this:

• 8GB/512GB: 849€ vs 929€
• 16GB/1TB: 924€ vs 1389€
• 32GB/2TB: 1044€ vs 2079€ (24 GB only)

The minimum config prices from Apple look quite good, but they fleece you for the RAM and SSD capacity. And of course you can’t upgrade them on your own. And of course the Mac Mini doesn’t support Linux (maybe Asahi Linux will get there in a few years, but Apple certainly isn’t helping).

The video is clearly about the water block. They describe their experience while building a computer with it and then give purchasing advice. Sure seems close enough to a review that they should be fair to the manufacturer. And their ethics should not go out of the window just because the didn’t put “review” in the title (when was the last time they did that anyway…).

That’s really missing the point. They were trying to sell the water block to rich people with more money than sense that, importantly, wanted the best of the best. By not reviewing it correctly, LTT screwed a small company over pretty hard. Linus then went on to say that he made this decision to save $100 to $500. He was unwilling to spend that kind of money to preserve the journalistic integrity of the channel.

The fact that he tried to make it look like LMG was going to compensate them for the block (replying only after the GN video was released) only makes it worse.

Unfortunately, more sustainable (e.g. organic) farming practices generally do not reduce greenhouse-gas emissions [1]. The main issue is that these methods reduce crop yields and thus have a higher land use.

[1] L. Smith et al. “The greenhouse gas impacts of converting food production in England and Wales to organic methods”

Weird, they certainly claim so on their US website:

Available countries and regions: United States, Saudi Arabia, Canada, Singapore, […]

I think that the Minisforum UM690/UM790 are looking quite attractive for their price points, if you’re looking for something high-end. $520 for an 8-core Zen 4 barebone. I haven’t bought one though, I’m just using an old notebook.