Systems talk with production-grade skepticism.
2.5 Admins turns current tech news into practical, opinionated admin talk. Recent episodes move from orbital data centers and Windows Update pain to ZFS design, router policy, passkeys, AI hype, and home-lab tradeoffs.
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2.5 Admins is a systems-administration show with a strong bias toward operational reality. It is not impressed by a headline just because the headline sounds futuristic. Orbital data centers get measured against launch costs, latency, heat, power, failure modes, and maintenance. AI search summaries get treated as a web-publishing and trust problem, not simply a product feature. Windows quality promises become a discussion about update architecture, reboots, performance drag, and whether users can believe the mechanism will actually improve. The show spends a lot of time around storage. OpenZFS, FreeBSD, TrueNAS, Proxmox, VDEV topology, media refreshes, hardware portability, and backup strategy all recur as practical subjects rather than abstract preferences. Security is handled the same way. Passkeys, exposed buckets, router manufacturing rules, supply-chain attacks, and endpoint automation are discussed through risk, incentives, usability, and the messy work of keeping systems intact. The conversations are technical, but they stay close to lived admin decisions. What should run on bare metal? When is a firewall rule enough? What is a reasonable used machine for photo backups? How much runtime does a power station actually give compared with a traditional UPS? The show is opinionated and often blunt, with dry jokes and sharp frustration aimed at bad defaults, vendor lock-in, weak QA, and AI overclaiming. It also has a useful routine: headline analysis up front, practical answers near the end, and recurring attention to listener problems. Joe, Jim, and Alan are heard in a conversational rhythm that mixes experience, disagreement, and quick correction. 2.5 Admins is best for people who already know the difference between a neat demo and a service they might have to keep alive. It rewards listeners who care about storage layouts, operating-system behavior, network boundaries, backups, update failures, and the hidden cost of convenient decisions.
Made for: For sysadmins, home-lab builders, storage obsessives, and technically fluent listeners who want news filtered through practical operations. It especially suits people who care about Linux, FreeBSD, Windows, ZFS, security, and small-infrastructure decisions.
What sets it apart: The show stands out by turning tech news into concrete failure analysis: latency, firmware, QA, vendor lock-in, recoverability, and what happens after deployment. Its admin-question segments keep the commentary tied to real machines, real budgets, and real tradeoffs.
2.5 Admins is a podcast featuring two sysadmins called Allan Jude and Jim Salter, and a producer/editor who can just about configure a Samba share called Joe Ressington. Every week we get together, talk about recent tech news, and answer some of your admin-related questions.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
2.5 Admins tests technology news against the practical realities of running, securing, and repairing systems.
2.5 Admins turns technology news into an argument about what happens when software and hardware meet an actual system. Joe Ressington, Jim Salter, and Allan Jude trade firm opinions, challenge one another's assumptions, and keep pulling abstract claims back toward maintenance,…
A power bank can outlast a UPS, and Joe, Jim, and Allan make you rethink backup power.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
Orbital data-center skepticism gives way to AI-search and storage talk.
Two and a Half Admins episode 295 stays focused on orbital data centers and the practical objections that follow them, with launch costs, heat, and latency doing most of the work.
Arm's first CPU, security trade-offs, and a modest photo-backup box anchor a practical systems discussion.
Arm making its first CPU gives 2.5 Admins a clean way into a broader systems question: what happens when a company best known for licensing designs starts shipping the thing itself?
Windows quality, update pain, and a practical turn toward TrueNAS and Proxmox.
The segment opens with a storage-planning detour before settling into a clear look at Microsoft's Windows quality promise. It keeps circling back to how updates behave in real use: reboots, install timing, update detection, and the familiar annoyance of watching the system lag…
A skeptical look at policy theater and supply chain risk.
The episode pulls two kinds of risk into the same frame: policy that misses the real problem, and security tooling that becomes a target because people trust it. The hosts dig into the U.S.
A practical tour of backup power that treats watt-hours as the interesting part.
Admins turns a backup-power question into a practical conversation about UPS hardware, with a quick detour through open ZFS storage for independence and a warning about passkeys locking people out of their accounts.
A blunt admin chat about AGI hype, ZFS design, and FreeBSD container friction.
Two and a Half Admins 288 opens with a London pub meetup plug and a note on a Proxmox and ZFS piece, then settles into a firm case that an LLM or agent is not AGI.
Plainspoken help for messy everyday tech.
Specialists walking through software's tradeoffs, one system at a time.
Founders and engineers on AI coding agents like Claude Code, and supply chain security.
The hosts discuss TrueNAS dropping FreeBSD for Linux, the resulting fork ZedVault, and the importance of upstreaming changes in open source projects.
The hosts discuss ZFS storage solutions, including building enterprise-grade storage on Proxmox with ZFS, and recap highlights from the OpenZFS Summit, particularly a talk from MIT's AI Lab about managing JBODs.
The hosts discuss Google's data collection from downgraded Nest thermostats and promote their ZFS webinars.
The hosts discuss FreeBSD NetGraph for advanced networking and a news story about hacked crosswalks in Seattle using default pins.
The hosts discuss Microsoft's plan to turn Windows into an agentic OS, starting with the taskbar, and share their skepticism about the idea.
The hosts discuss the economic and operational challenges of orbital data centers, focusing on heat dissipation and power generation.
The hosts discuss Arm's first self-produced CPU and Alan's article on FreeBSD and OpenZFS for technical independence in storage.
The hosts discuss Microsoft's commitment to improving Windows 11 quality by scaling back AI and reducing update disruptions, and Alan plugs his article on five-year storage design with OpenZFS.
The hosts discuss a US executive order banning consumer routers not made in America, suspecting it's a cash grab, and plug an article on open source storage independence.
The hosts discuss a listener's warning about the risks of using passkeys for encrypting user data, emphasizing the potential for lockout if the passkey device is lost.
Joe, Jim, and Alan of 2.5 Admins discuss the escalating hardware shortage, noting Western Digital says it has sold out all hard drive production through 2026 and that some buyers are even flying overseas to buy drives cheaper than local retail.
Western Digital's dual-pivot hard drives target 2× current bandwidth and potentially 8×, but Joe, Jim, and Alan question the IOPS gains.
A hijacked Notepad++ download host delivered Chrysalis, a backdoor the hosts say can search files, run commands, and erase evidence of itself.