Interests: Linux, Fountain Pens, Rugby, Selfhosting, and a bit of boardgaming, rpgs, and Nintendo switch gaming.
I have the same issue. I want something simple but has encryption, native mobile apps for both Android and iOS, and threading. Facebook style posts with comments would be great.
For now we’re using matrix and element bc I can find anything better. Unless something more compelling comes along we’ll probably migrate to something xmpp based like snikket.
Joplin has a plug-in that can grab todos and reveal them all in one spot. You can use tags with it as well. Although I believe it only works on desktop? I haven’t tried on phone/tablet. https://github.com/CalebJohn/joplin-inline-todo#readme
I’m in the same boat.
Past: My notes are all over the place. Some are in paper notebooks, on scraps of paper, index cards. Some are plain text files, some are markdown; dumped into random folders (had some in my yyyy/mm/dd folders for my journaling, some in project folders) some are on a wiki, some in redmine, some in openproject. I’ve tried different bug tracking apps, but as mentioned, they (like project management apps) are too burdensome.
Current: For now I am using Joplin for my active notes (and slowly migrating historical notes as I have energy). I have a top level notebook for my homelab, then a subnotebook broken down by subject (infrastructure, app/service, hardware), then individual pages for each specific item (host os setup, vpn, application, etc). On those individual pages, I have it sectioned out; Goal, Research notes, Actions taken, results.
Future step: Once I have something figured out and ready for “prod”, I will be wiping it out and redoing it all through ansible. I’ll take that playbook and a clean markdown doc with the important details and put them in git. That way I can rebuild it later if there is a tragedy.
I have used Baikal for caldav for the server, with davx5 on Android. Was solid. Moved to NC for files, so went ahead with calendar sync on NC too. NC calendar sync has already worked well for me, no hiccups.
The only issue I’ve had with NC is auto upload of photos from my phone. It constantly has conflicts. Otherwise sync of regular files works great.
What email archive software do you use? I’ve often thought about spinning up an IMAP server locally that doesn’t send/receive but allows me to copy all my old mail to it. I have a dozen or more email accounts across different providers and would want each kept separate in the archive. They also span 15+ years.
My useless advice: Do it in phases as you learn.
Years ago I used to run a linux server with everything installed under Apache virtual directories and fought the constant upgrade cycle. Life got in the way and I gave up on it until the pandemic slowed life down enough for me to start playing again. So I went the Yunhost route on an old Mac Mini. I now have a 3 node Proxmox cluster with Yunhost in a VM (with a dozen apps running on it) and another 15-20 containers running under either lxc or docker. I eventually purchased a cheap NAS device for data storage so that I could make use of the Proxmox fail over capabilities.
If your mini pc has the capability for two drives, install the OS on one and store data on the other (unless/until you get a second pc/NAS).
This assortment is run under a combination of Proxmox LXC containers, docker containers, and Yunohost. Mostly I use it to play around, but most are heavily used by my wife and I. I’m planning to rebuild everything and making things more “official”. Looking to convert from a “lab” to actually making it “production” with solid failure routes and backups. I am looking to move anything currently under Yunohost to docker/lxc and to start making use of podman. Recently saw CosmOS and think it might be a good alternative to portainer.
Hardware:
I’m not sure about libre office, but Excel has lookup and lookup. I’ve not personally used those. But might be of help.