Syncthing uses a centralized discovery server to connect device IDs to IP addresses (although you can change this to point to your own discovery server, too).

I don’t know if Funkwhale has a similar option.

The way Linux treats many things as part of the file system (devices, sockets, etc.) that Windows doesn’t.

I thought they were talking about the elementary particle—I was afraid we’d have to find some other way of manifesting our physical existence.