DJ Ware

CyberGizmo: My Purpose and Ethics

At CyberGizmo, I aim to give back to the community by sharing my knowledge on Linux, open source software, and related technology. I provide tutorials, insights, and in-depth reviews of Linux distributions, kernels, and other tools to help users make informed decisions.

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DJ Ware
n 2026, people say VMs are dead—containers won. Wrong. VMs are evolving, not extinct. I compare the practical VM managers for Linux: simple desktop tools to bare-metal homelab beasts and next-gen thin VMs. We cover: Why VMs still matter (isolation, legacy, parallelism fails) What VMs & containers are (plus why we need them) Head-to-head chart Real demos & findings My 2026 ranking Personal XCP-ng upgrade war story NOTE: You my notice the lack of screen shots for VMware Workstation Pro there is a reason and here it is: VMware Workstation Pro is free for personal use now and still one of the most polished options — but Broadcom's download portal is a nightmare. You need a login, then search, then scroll through 2,500 unsorted items with no way to filter or sort. I gave up. Broadcom, Please take a clue from Oracle VirtualBox: searchable page, download link on the front, direct to the product. That's how it's done. Broadcom — fix this. Until then, the open options like Proxmox and virt-manager are way easier. Chapters 00:00 - Intro 00:16 - VMs are dead? 01:43 - VM Managers How I Rated them 04:19 - Cockpit 04:56 - Gnome Boxes 05:15 - Oracle Vrttualbox 06:26 - Proxmox VE 07:47 - Vagrant 08:20 - virt-manager 08:46 - VMware Workstation Pro & VM Ware Fusion Pro 09:13 - XCP-ng 09:46 - VM Manager Overhead 12:14 - Virtual Manager Results 21:28 - VM Manager Final Tally 25:28 - Fina Thoughts
Linux Performance Tuning in 2026 – A Question of Balance (Part 1: Setup & Tools) Tired of outdated “magic sysctl” advice that doesn’t work anymore? In this no-BS series, I show what actually matters for tuning modern Linux (Devuan, Fedora, Arch) on real hardware in 2026. In Part 1 we: - Bust common myths (“old PC + Linux = fast”, “zram = free RAM”, “2–3× speedup from tweaks”) - Set realistic goals — why we tune, and why 2–3× is usually impossible - Install & validate the only tools you really need (top, vmstat, mpstat, iostat, sar, stress-ng) - Run first stress-ng baselines to see what “normal” looks like on fresh hardware - Share 50+ years of hard-earned lessons (mainframes to Ryzen) No hype. No snake oil. Just real measurements, stories, and rules that survive testing. Next video: Reading vmstat, mpstat, iostat, sar like a pro. If you’ve ever chased “magic tweaks” that made things worse — drop your story in the comments. Like & subscribe for more tuning that respects reality over hype. Chapters 00:00 - Intro 03:31 - Mythjs 03:48 - Performance Tuning Servers 04:05 - When Performance Tuning Makes Sense 04:12 - Workloads 04:25 - How to Performance Tune 05:07 - Getting Started - Gather Information 05:33 - btop 05:44 - atop 06:05 - Setting a Goal 06:31 - Measure First and Gather Data 09:06 - Stress Everything 11:19 - hardinfo2 (aida64 like) 12:13 - sar 13:22 - Graphs from SAR 13:45 - A Few Thoughts
I was curious if musil would slow Alpine down, so I ran the tests and compared the results to MX24, Fedora 43, Linux Mint, Rocky 10, Debbian 13, Deviuan 6 Chapters 00:00 - Intro 00:36 - Alpine specific Issues 01:34 - One More thing 03:05 - Benchmark Walkthrough 17:47 - Harmonix Means 19:46 - Final Thoughts Music: Non-Linear Protocol (c) 2026 DJ Ware
Experience the power of Alpine Linux 3.23, the minimalist distro that delivers maximum performance with minimal overhead. In this video, we install Alpine, explore its lightweight environment, and run real-world benchmarks to show why small Linux systems can outperform expectations. From minimal desktop setups to efficient package management, Alpine proves that less can be more. Perfect for Linux enthusiasts, experimenters, and anyone seeking security, speed, and simplicity. 00:00 - Intro 00:35 - Alpine Linux Overview 02:37 - System Requirements 03:24 - Linux 6.18 Changes 06:15 - Tool Chain 07:29 - Install Alpine in VM 10:19 - Proxmox Setup 37:33 - Final Thouhgrsa
Valaria guides us through the chaos and excitement of CES 2026, highlighting Jensen’s keynote topics: Physical AI, the new Rubin GPU, Vera CPU, and open-source tools supported forever. Along the way, penguins, robots, and a touch of mischief make this a short, entertaining cartoon adventure you won’t want to miss. also CES is being renamed fron Consumer Electronics Show to Corporate Excess Show
A thoughtful walk through FreeBSD 15.0—its design, discipline, and why composable systems still matter. FreeBSD 15.0 quietly advances security, adapts to change with finesse, and reflects solid, intentional engineering. It powers some of the most flexible firewalls in use today and enables forward-looking filesystem design. It does not claim perfection, yet it consistently moves toward it. FreeBSD does not chase trends, influencers, or corporate fashion cycles. It focuses on doing essential work well, then stepping aside so the user remains in control. This release continues a long tradition of careful engineering, clarity of purpose, and architectural restraint. Some assume FreeBSD has faded away. Quality endures. Disorder eventually collapses. In this video, we take a slow walk through FreeBSD 15.0—its design goals, system requirements, storage footprint, shells, installation process, and the broader ecosystem that has grown around it. This is not a benchmark race or a feature checklist. It’s an exploration of why FreeBSD still matters, especially as operating systems increasingly reflect commercial priorities. If you’ve ever wondered what it feels like to use an operating system that understands its role and stays true to it, this tour is for you. Contents 00:00 - Overview of FreeBSD 15.0 00:27 - freeBSD 15.0 02:54 - System Requirements 04:35 - Additional Features 05:36 - FreeBSD Spin offs 06:28 - More FreeBSD Features 07:53 - FreeBSD Shells 09:12 - Install FreeBSD 18:40 - Base disk space use 24:57 - A few Thoughts
Personal computers did not suddenly become expensive. They were pushed back in line. As artificial intelligence scaled upward, computation concentrated into massive datacenters built to compress time by overwhelming problems with hardware. That decision reshaped fabrication priorities, memory allocation, storage production, and supply chains across the entire industry. This video follows the engineering path that led here, explains why consumer hardware is absorbing the cost, and asks the question no one wants to answer: if AI lives in the datacenter, who is actually supposed to use it? Contents 00:00 - Beginning 00:52 - Part 1 Recap 02:30 - California Gold Rush 03:13 - AI Fever 03:47 - Fever turns to Rush 04:15 - PC Costs Drivers 04:48 - PC Cost Drivers 05:17 - AI Cost Drivers 05:45 - Resource Drivers 06:16 - AI Multipliers 07:21 - My Experience 08:45 - TenTorrent 12:10 - Backlash 13:15 - SCI 14:28 - NSCI 16:05 - Is Ai Foundational? 16:35 - Summary
Buying a computer used to be straightforward. Lately, it feels expensive, uncertain, and risky — even when the specs look better. This video isn’t about benchmarks or brand loyalty. It’s about why so many people are walking away, returning new machines, or settling for less — and what changed underneath the market. We’re living through one of the biggest shifts in computing since the 1980s, but almost nobody is talking about what it means for you — the person sitting at a keyboard. Hardware prices are rising. Performance gains are shrinking. Windows is pushing hardware requirements. Linux is drifting toward AI and the cloud. And corporations are investing trillions into datacenters while quietly stepping away from consumer devices. So what happens next? This video isn’t about AI hype. It’s about how the ground is moving beneath personal computing — and why millions of users feel the change but can’t yet explain it. Part 1 lays the foundation. Part 2 answers the question: “If everything is being built for AI… what’s being built for us?” Chapers 00:00 Intro 02:07 Smart Phones 03:03 Tablets – The Post-PC Era 04:13 Apple Silicon 05:25 Windows RT 06:30 Windows Copilot PC 07:43 RISC-V 08:46 Rising Prices 09:58 Price vs Performance 10:31 Repair or Used 16:42 Gentoo AI Code Policy 18:12 How Do We Know It’s AI-Generated Code? 19:15 Fedora AI Code Generation Policy 19:54 Linux Distros 20:13 The Open BSDs 20:15 NetBSD 20:37 OpenBSD AI Policy 20:46 FreeBSD 21:17 Rocky, Alma, and Oracle Linux 22:00 Thoughts on AI Policies 22:36 Wrap-Up
MX Linux 25 “Infinity” has arrived, and this release feels bigger and more polished than anything the MX team has shipped before. In this video, Val 3000 opens the show, and then I walk through every major change in MX 25 — from UI enhancements to system improvements — followed by a sneak peek at the new Tux Assistant. I’ll take you through the installation experience, run a short on-camera benchmark segment, share my final thoughts, and then close with the full benchmark suite set to music. A dedicated deep dive into Tux Assistant will follow once I’ve spent more time with it. Subscribe if you want more Linux reviews, hardware testing, and weekly technical coverage. 00:00 - Intro 01:57 - What's New in MX25 09:13 - MX Install 17:18 - FInal Thoughts
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