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Buying a Dumb Smart TV in 2025

When shopping for a new TV recently, I wanted something inexpensive but not full of ads. Enter one of the greatest features of the modern era, "basic tv mode" on Google TV platform:

I purchased a TCL QM7, but presumably all Google TVs are similar: it prompts to configure "Google TV" or "Basic TV" mode on startup. After confirming that Google TV mode resembles the interface from Idiocracy, I factory reset and chose basic mode. The result is a streamlined Android interface with a few preinstalled apps (YouTube, Netflix, etc.) that aren't much of a bother if you just want to select HDMI inputs and call it a day.

Note that basic mode still forces you to agree to some terms before using the TV, just not as many as Google TV mode. The TV also has a microphone, but it can be disabled via a toggle switch on the bottom.

Looking to create a Software RAID 1 setup for your 2-disk server on Ubuntu Server 20.04?

Let's start with the basics: the official guide by Ubuntu (https://ubuntu.com/server/docs/install/storage) is outdated/wrong. And as of March 2021 it's possible that there's a bug as well with how the bios_grub partitions are created when using multiple disks.

Now on to the solution:

Select "Custom storage layout" when you reach the storage configuration step of the installer.
If the disks have existing partitions, click on each disk under AVAILABLE DEVICES and then select REFORMAT. This will (temporarily) wipe out the partitions.

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