I’m only familiar with CLI tools but at least for smaller directories diff works well. Say you have a backup directory and you want to see how it differs from a source directory:
diff -rq /source/directory /backup/directory
Another trick is to use find to look for a unique file to see where, if at all, it’s backed up:
find /backup/directory -name unique-file-name.jpg
Ah, in that case you will probably need to go into the container to do the backup. I avoid mounted volumes.
As your user account, just run something like:
podman volume export VOLUME >backup.tar
Or from another machine, say you want to do a remote backup from your server:
ssh user@host podman volume export VOLUME | zstd -o backup.tar.zstd
Consider dnscrypt-proxy. I think it does what you want and has worked well for me for years.
I think you have to go into desktop mode to find the setting to disable shader pre-caching but it’s 100% better with it disabled!
Typically, in my experience, official Linux support isn’t required for a good experience. While the last thinkpad I used with a tablet was an x41 I guess about 15 years ago, I’ve been using thinkpads with Linux continuously since before then. It’s amazing to see manufactures officially supporting Linux now, but once the hardware works in the linux kernel, it tends to keep working on all future releases. It’s not like Windows where you need to go to the manufacture’s website and download drivers, they are open source and are kept working by volunteers for a long time.
Please do your own research, but in a quick search it seemed like the Thinkpad X12 was working well for some people with modern Linux distributions. I know some people use Linux on the Surface Pro’s and I almost bought one once, but decided to go with a wacom tabletop monitor/tablet instead.
Most VPNs don’t allow port forwarding, and if they do it’s a random port that changes frequently. So you’d need a method to tell people the new port. Also, you typically want to use SSL so you’ll have to use self signed certs. Though interestingly LetsEncrypt recently started testing certs for IP addresses:
https://letsencrypt.org/2025/07/01/issuing-our-first-ip-address-certificate
You can. I recommend making sure you have logging in place so you know what’s going on. This could include not just service logs but firewall logs as well. You might want to rate limit the connection attempts for SSH and WireGuard and consider Fail2Ban or something similar.
I can’t give you specific recommendations because I don’t know much about E mount lens, but in general I would say 30mm is wide enough and your next lens should probably be in the 75-100mm range. Don’t be afraid of zoom lenses, the modern mirrorless zooms are much better than old zooms. Also the longer the lens, the more expensive 2.8 aperture will be. So don’t worry too much if you have to go up to f/4 or 4.5.
Another thing to pay attention to is minimum focus distance. It can be really fun to be able to get the lens close to an object. Consider macro lenses. Just because they say macro doesn’t mean you can’t use them for everything else, it just means it’s capable of taking pictures close up. From a quick search, it looks like there’s a Sony 90mm 2.8, Sigma 70mm or 105mm macro lenses for around $500 used. Not sure if that’s too much but I would pick something like those.