[washadjeffmad]

that's based on your compression and what you're transferring, so it depends on your definition of "high" (ie- cost, likely to exceed an "unlimited" plan, etc).

I haven't exceeded 1GB/mo on cellular in over a year, but I also have easy access to wifi.

[Aerbil313]

Thanks! I was skeptical, but I took the time to actually compare Framework, Macbook and custom remote workstation on these metrics: battery life, security against theft and accidents, high speed networking, upgradability, repairability, compatibility (eg. external Nvidia GPU, coreboot), offline use, performance and weight. Remote won on every metric (has no single drawback) except offline use, which is not a problem when you are at home. So I decided on doing this. If you don’t mind, how do you connect? What is your setup? Are you able to eg. forward USB devices to the workstation?

[washadjeffmad]

Closed the tab on the original, better response. Sigh.

I don't use usbip, but it's an easy setup. I do use kvm/libvirt. Tailscale didn't exist when I built everything, but the documentation is excellent, and I could replace most of this with similar convenience.

Everything I'm mentioning here is locally hosted.

I connect via either wireguard or Unifi Teleport, depending on which network is needed. Wireguard connects to guacamole which manages connections to more secure core services, controllers, and shares. Unifi Teleport allows easy access to surface services like a book server, IOT, NVR, webuis, APIs, etc.

Chrome remote desktop is much more convenient than I expected, and I use it to connect to friends' systems or to hop onto graphical instances that I don't care to set up lasting connections to.

My three primary nodes are for GPGPU compute, "big" jobs, and storage. I've removed most IPMI/IPKVM to allow more flexible consolidation and upgrades. My "OOBM" is now UPS with remote power plugs with always-on BIOS settings. Once things gracefully halt, I can kill power if/until needed (my downtimes are all planned, but I reserve the capability).

I've greatly simplified over the past half decade so I can focus more on using than administrating, and while I haven't removed all of it, I try hard not to create environments more complicated than I can understand after not being touched for a few months.

[Aerbil313]

Thanks, that was one deep rabbit hole of a reply! I did not think things would be this complicated. I'm happy to hear some things for which I've intended to roll my own solution with my RPis already exist. I took my notes, I appreciate you!