I believe that I am relating to OROBTC in the sense that he seems to be wanting something that is more of a kind of plug and play solution, if there is such a thing
Absolutely! These are generally referred to as a "node in a box". You buy the box, plug it in, and you have a node. You could look at MyNode as an example. But all of these kinds of things bring a price which is far higher than if you just set up a node yourself.
When you suggest to get an old laptop and to install and run Linux on it, I am already scared away. Maybe it is easy peasy to run Linux, but when I personally think of easy peasy, I prefer GUI interfaces.. and yeah.. I know that is kind of stupid... because any of us should be able to NOT get scared away when we have a command window in front of us... but I am sure that many folks get scared off as soon as they consider that they might have to type in a command rather than click on a button... or to choose from a list of buttons.
There are
lots of very newbie friendly Linux distros which do not require any command line stuff to set up and run. I would suggest looking at Ubuntu and Linux Mint. Both have GUIs which will feel very familiar to most people. And of course Bitcoin Core itself can be run entirely from the GUI.
But do I have to remove other software from that Mac.. what if I still want to use that Mac as a back up.. can I also use it as a kind of node too?
I have a separate device for running my node (as I suspect most people do), but there's nothing stopping you from running a node on your main device.
I would still say just give it a go. If you get half way through and throw your hands up in frustration, then you've lost nothing and at least you can say you tried.
I am likely in a very similar situation to OROBTC in some ways, at least in the sense that I don't want to do very much at this time. It seems that anything that I do takes a lot of time, and even last year when I kept telling myself that I should start to use lightning network and try to fit in the use (and learning of lightning network) at some time, it took me nearly half of the year before I finally put some money on BlueWallet.. and of course, CashApp had incorporated some lighting abilities in the last year too, but still some might suggest that these kinds of abilities to spend and use lightning (even though surely mostly custodial - even from my understanding there may be some ways to set up BlueWallet as non-custodial if you have your own lightning node) are not really using or knowing about lightning network because the ONLY thing that I accomplished in a whole year is to be able to use a couple of different lightning custodial services/wallets.
Part of my point is that I tend to be really slow to add new things to my already existing practices, and sometimes I am reluctant to disclose my own limited number of things that I am doing related to bitcoin - or to suggest possible vulnerabilities that I might have in terms of the places in which I hold my coins or how I might diversify my locations or possibly lessen some of my risks in regards to storage and/or transacting...
Probably, if I felt myself to be more stationary I would have experimented with some of the bitcoin node matters or even mining way earlier, and my understanding is that lightning node is even more difficult than regular bitcoin node issues, so surely if any node were to come it would be to start with a regular node before even going down the lightning node route.
Ever since I got into bitcoin (in late 2013), part of my goal was to be able to be able to have options to transact in bitcoin when mobile.. or when moving from place to place, even if I might have been attempting to maintain some base locations.. and surely 2013 projections of what I would be doing may well differ from what I ended up doing, but some of the goals of trying to retain and maintain some mobile abilities has not disappeared, even if sometimes I have been stuck in one location for considerable amounts of time.
In some sense, I personally have been disinclined to set up some kind of a node at my base location and to communicate back and forth through something like that even when mobile, because it seems like a step too far in terms of what I want to do or how I want to spend my time ... or that I am going to get sucked into trying to do stuff in which I don't want to be spending very much time doing (because there are ONLY so many hours in each day)... because it is enough for me to merely just be juggling around with various bitcoin user-interfaces in the way that I currently do, and keeping track of coins and even just making sure that I have backups for various set ups that I have tried to employ and that sometimes may well be geographically separate (even if the set ups might have times in which they are geographically together too, depending on where I am at.. and then having to rethink some of these matters from time to time because just keeping coins safe and even considering potential successor type issues can take a lot of time and efforts.. just what I consider to be some of the basics, like that)..
Part of my thinking with the Mac was that when I travel I tend to have a couple of computers, and the Mac is a back-up to my main computer.., so my back up Mac is not really being used on a regular basis, but I don't really feel like I should have it set up in a way that it is running some other kind of operating system.
Yes, the back up may not be doing much of anything except maybe running to show some BTC prices or maybe some rudimentary types of back up search that I might do on it from time to time or that I might hand it over to someone to use on another guest log-in on a temporary basis.
So in that sense, I want my back up Mac to run something close to the same Mac software that I run on my primary computer in case my primary computer breaks down or has to go in for repair, but at the same time, I was thinking that the back up computer might be able to run node software... and perhaps even be a way to connect a Trezor to the back up computer so that I don't have to go through Trezor's server in order to access the coins on my Trezor.. or some other variation of accessing coins in that kind of a way.. but it is not like I want to be able to do that or to learn about all of those kinds of things at one time anyhow, even though I have been thinking about those kinds of things.. but still ONLY having only a little amount of time that I might add one change or another.. but with my back up Mac I have a 2 TB SSD, so maybe having 1 TB out of the 2 TB SSD available for running a node might still be o.k. .and then if my primary computer were to break down, then I could still use my backup, but at that time, I would probably shut the node software off while using it as a backup (then as a primary.. since my primary would be out of service).. or at least not run the bitcoin node software if I were to be temporarily using that back up computer as a primary.
In my years of using Macs, I have found that they don't seem to break down too often, but with anything they do sometimes break down or have periods in which they cannot be used and may take a week or two to repair if they need some kind of servicing... which the backup computer comes in handy.. and sometimes a burden to lug around when traveling for a few months at a time, but I do sometimes engage in those kinds of activities to travel and to travel too heavily and to have my back-up with me while traveling, even if I don't seem to have to use it too often. .it is still nice to have, overall... and could serve as a node during that period that it is not really being used, extensively.
I am also familiar with the idea that some things are not as difficult as they might seem to be, but it is still the case that sometimes it is not easy for any of us (mere mortals) to add something new onto our schedules.
For example, for the past 6 months or so, I have had a plan to go on a two month or more long trip that should be easy to accomplish, but I have not gone on such trip since I had some things that I felt that I needed to put into place prior to going on such trip (because I thought that the trip would be at least a couple of months, and things need to be in an adequate order before booking such a long trip), so it has already been several months that my trip has been delayed and delayed and more delayed and frustratingly delayed merely because it can take a while to set things up in order to feel sufficiently comfortable and not feeling any need to come back either, so sometimes I consider that all I need is to add more work for myself in terms of adding some other project of setting up a bitcoin node at home, even if in theory that it would not take very long to accomplish.. but still I would have to fit in such new project.. so how many hours are there in the day. .don't I need to sleep? How is that going to happen if I am already having a delay in a trip that I have been thinking about for half a year but still not able to make my travel reservations because I don't have all of my "other shit" sufficiently together in order to feel comfortable with leaving for a couple of months or even in a kind of indefinitely longer status.
By the way, I had heard that the Embassy presents itself as a kind of plug and play node device that can do quite a few things and even be set up at home while a person is traveling.. but even the Embassy people describe that the Embassy device is not exactly plug and play and can take a bit of time to get comfortable with some of the set up and some of the interactions that might be made through such a device, and that all sounds fine and dandy as something that could be added by more and more regular (normies) people (including yours truly, and perhaps even OROBTC? - hate to speak for him).. in the future.
