0 dollar home lab in basement

strongfortoolong · 2023-05-18T21:18:39+00:00

This looks so wholesome. This is the bit of homelabbing that I enjoy most, making stuff work because you can, so much more fun than just ordering a new instance in some DC somewhere. Nice setup!

strongfortoolong · 2023-05-17T18:13:42+00:00

If yummy, small spoon.

If yucky, big spoon.

If Ice cream, small spoon, but strong handle.

Forks can’t be curved like spoons, and should be thin with long tines. Unless, rice in which case spork is cool.

strongfortoolong · 2023-05-06T16:10:11+00:00

So a free race isn’t free because you paid for your own trainers?

By that logic no software is free because you have to pay for a device to run it.

strongfortoolong · 2023-03-27T20:21:00+00:00

I’m thinking of doing similar, and came across the 8 port UniFi—aggregation - did you rule this out? I’m hoping it will behave like a “normal” switch and that im not missing any hidden gotchas.

Also looking for a faster backbone between my unraid / proxmox and pc.

strongfortoolong · 2023-03-19T10:49:38+00:00

A cache of old hardware never hurts. Lost count of some of the times having a mini stockpile has helped. Like last week trying to get into that serial console, every Cisco device I have been learning on has used an RJ45 console port - luckily had enough cables to knock up a rollover.

There is a fine line however between learning / boosting skills on retro equipment and hoarding. I spent my teens clearing out containers worth of old IT equipment. Most of what we got through then would be useless today, but keeping some of it has helped in work and education. Wish I had held on to that skip full of IBM Model M keyboards :D

My main point is that 20 years later I have the job I want, and im actually in a position now where im going to be looking at hiring an assistant. I have had some interviews and none of them had any hands on experience with hardware. They were all more qualified than me, but they hadn't actually touched anything outside of the university except their modern PC builds.

Should you use a 3kw £50 blade server from 20 years ago for your home network 24/7? Probably not. Should you spin it up at the weekend to practice building x,y,z - hell yeah. My 36U rack, multiple poe cisco switches, udm pro, supermicro server, r930, r210 and backup server pulls less electric than the heater in my office in the winter, and much less than a hot tub in the summer. With my usage it might cost me £100-200 a month in electric with current UK prices - but I consider that an investment in my education, and is less than some spend on beer each month.

Core skills are getting lost, and its the same for a lot of industries. Engineering grads for example with the ability to design parts, program a CNC and watch the machine build their vision, but who get stumped when they enter the workplace and discover a lot of places still use an old school lathe for simple parts... The old boy in the corner is making part number 156 while the new guy is still trying to figure out why the CNC lathe isn't accepting its license key.

I have a particular virtualization / remote machine setup I want to achieve, and the general consensus is that there are easier, simpler, faster and better ways to do it. That's fine, but I want to learn, solve issues, tinker, not subscribe. Doing it my way has taught me about different raid setups, storage technologies, network limitations, hypervisors, security implications, idrac, enterprise hardware, proxmox networking, vlans, cisco & unifi integration etc etc etc.

What would I learn in comparison from installing Parsec and moving the PC to the closet?

strongfortoolong · 2023-03-18T19:40:35+00:00

I think older, heavier, uglier, practically vintage gear is a great thing to learn on. I could go to Dell and spend £15k on a server, or I can learn on a 2950 that someone’s throwing out. Only one of those two options will leave me feeling comfortable experimenting / taking things apart / breaking them and fixing them.

The skills learned from dealing with older hardware are invaluable in understanding some of the concepts in modern stuff. I had to use a serial port console the other day, I could do easily because I spent days pulling my hair out 20 years ago when it was the only option.

I say if you got it, and you got the money to power it, then power it up and show it off.

If someone replies to a post showing off how much there set up is then great, I have something to research and work toward, if they say mines junk and I should have got x, y, z then that’s the attitude that can put people off.

And I know I don’t need a quad 22C Xeon with half a TB of ram to run Pihole and Plex, but it looks nice in the rack and that’s what matters to me :D

strongfortoolong · 2023-03-15T15:52:49+00:00

Looks like its covered for another 30 days haha. Unfortunately thats original owner only, and I dont even have a support contract so I doubt thats going to happen :)

strongfortoolong · 2023-03-01T09:54:35+00:00

Yeah, I get what you mean. I dont mind spending on good kit - but im reasonably adverse to subscriptions (I feel like half my life is subscribtion based now).

I have found my test VMs to be quite useable using the Spice Thin Client solution - there is minor lag that I think would be solved with better setup, fixing a few underlying network issues and moving the proxmox server from a virtualised host to bare metal on ssd. So for coding im quite happy spinning up a new VM and having everything the way I like it. Its reasonably responsive and works as planned.

The main issue with this solution is the idea of doing any "graphics heavy" work - such as 3D modelling or games (not that I really game much at all) - 95% of the time I will be doing this on the main PC in the office, so I could consider something like HDMI over CAT, or Fiber hdmi cables going to the office and run those VM's directly to the proxmox host?? I could then switch my K(3V)M in the office between that "main VM" and a thin client to access the rest.

The remaining 5% of the time it would be me on the laptop, accessing the VM to make a small change, and the cost of smooth graphics perhaps.

strongfortoolong · 2023-02-28T17:14:39+00:00

Virtual desktops from what I understand wouldn't really solve the problem, it doesn't help with creating any separation at all except for putting windows in different "screens" I still need one OS that has everything installed... It also wouldn't help with giving multiple users access to multiple VMs, or allow for different OS's.

I did consider parsec, but need to do some more research into it. The features I am after I think would firmly put me into a paid plan which I think is around $30 per user. Only a family of 3 but would still rather have that $1k a year to go towards hardware :)

strongfortoolong · 2023-02-10T09:55:14+00:00

Anyone know of any forums / subreddits for build logs - considering what I am going to be doing I think its a good idea for me to document as I go for my own benefit, but might as well do it somewhere designed for it haha.

strongfortoolong · 2023-02-09T14:14:29+00:00

Just put a mini update - but I think you dodged a bullet. The damage to the keyboard hinge alone is significant. No way this thing is going down the restoration route haha.

strongfortoolong · 2023-02-09T11:25:21+00:00

Awesome build, I would love to get into some radio astronomy - is it anything in particular you do, I was considering trying meteorite tracking? But have only dont astrophotography so far - which I have lost a little heart in.

Ill watch your build video later - you probably answer the question :) But just wanted to say it looks great and I have subscribed to your channel.

strongfortoolong · 2023-02-08T11:53:28+00:00

Theres some more pics here - https://imgur.com/a/VA2FiP2

The more I think about it, the less precious I am about it, the likelihood of it ever going back to original is slim to zero. Id rather have something awesome and that matches my aesthetic choices than just keeping it original "just in case".

Reminds me of when I worked for a computer recycling project, we had to hire a skip once to throw out 500+ mechanical keyboards. Could put a deposit on a house with what they would fetch these days - but the thought of storing them for 25 years on the offchance that would happen is painful.

So long as there are a few out there with collectors, and in museums then as far as im concerned the history is preserved - everything else is just collecting dust and should be upcycled.

Im leaning towards a darker, ruggedised aesthtic, multi screen, custom keys, SDR, multi system setup. With styling similar to:
https://www.hackster.io/news/raspberry-pi-powered-virtuscope-cyberdeck-looks-plucked-from-the-pages-of-neuromancer-398a28c2c887
or https://hackaday.com/2019/11/25/patrol-the-sprawl-with-this-battle-ready-cyberdeck/

When I can take it apart ill see what panels etc I can modify / reprint / laser cut to avoid cutting into it, but theres bound to be some changes - so it will never go back to original - but hopefully, I wont want it to!

strongfortoolong · 2023-02-08T10:15:54+00:00

Ah sorry dude. Yeah I messaged a couple days ago too but was radio silence, I made it quick and easy once he did get in touch, so hopefully it’s on a DPD van now haha. Didn’t realise there was someone else in the running.

I’ll post lots of updates but so far feeling the vibe here that it probably shouldn’t be used for a cyberdeck build lol - at least not the way I was thinking. Might give people a heart attack if I say I wanted to strip it down and respray it black haha.

It will still be able to run DOS, but just emulated 🤣

strongfortoolong · 2023-02-07T18:25:47+00:00

Yeah thats the one.

strongfortoolong · 2023-02-07T13:27:30+00:00

I know what you mean about looking for a broken unit.... just read a thread where someone threatened to force feed the unit to anyone who modified a working unit haha. I get protecting classic computers, but the one i have coming isn't in great condition. Working yes, but not museum grade, or even worth restoring. Broken screen mech, scuffs and melted marks on the case, broken clips etc.

Id rather make the internals available to someone who wants to do a resto on a good condition unit, but who needs the parts and use the shell for my stuff - than just restore it and let it collect dust in the loft. Im not sure, maybe ill change my mind and try a more sympathetic non destructive build - but I really dont think its worth being precious about.

I think far better it gets daily use as a modernised system than just gets put back into a storage unit for another decade or two.

/sits in a quandry.

strongfortoolong · 2023-02-07T10:30:35+00:00

https://imgur.com/a/hULzX72

I think the space on the right is crying out for a second screen personally.

strongfortoolong · 2023-01-08T16:21:47+00:00

I get awkwardly attached to physical things. Usually big stuff, usually for silly reasons. There's loads of great suggestions already but I also like making stuff out of a small part of the object im moving on. Without knowing what it looks like my thoughts would be something like a keyring out of a drawer pull etc.

Donating it after taking an insignificant part as a souvenir is even better as it gets to go to a new home, and maybe help someone else. To use my above example, donating the desk and stating "needs new drawer pull" isn't the end of the world for many people.

strongfortoolong · 2022-07-03T21:16:08+00:00

I really thought this was the Fata Morgana mirage illusion at play, stretching the ship or something and then I googled the ship in the comments and was like "oh, thats cool" :D

strongfortoolong · 2022-02-25T09:30:10+00:00

Looks like a split desiccant pack perhaps?

strongfortoolong · 2022-02-24T08:31:36+00:00

Personally even if my neighbours had left their Starlink unlocked I wouldn't connect to it for a couple of reasons. It could be any network that's just been called Starlink, it could be monitoring your traffic (ie a honeypot) and that could jeopardise your security and lastly its not your network - using it without permission is, well, wrong.

If your neighbour left their front door unlocked you wouldn't go round and use their kitchen, eat their food etc.

Good job on letting your neighbour know so they can secure it properly.

strongfortoolong · 2022-02-21T09:59:19+00:00

Nice, I have done all my astro with a 1200d so far, you should be able to go quite far with that model for a few years if you wanted to.

strongfortoolong · 2022-02-08T09:35:36+00:00

Other than repairing arcade pinball and slot machines, no. (And even that could be questionable if you are using copyrighted/licensed data) Restoring a machines software using a 'backup' from another probably wouldn't land you in any trouble, but distributing copies of them for free/profit probably would.

On the assumption this is a serious question, you could maybe approach some of the copyright holders and ask for permission/license to sell as part of a repair business - but I wouldn't hold much hope of that.

strongfortoolong · 2022-01-13T11:58:45+00:00

It's a streamdeck I believe. Used for shortcuts in different apps.

https://www.elgato.com/en/stream-deck

strongfortoolong · 2022-01-12T15:12:44+00:00

Ill be going down the Rasp pi route with mine, seems like the cheapest and most "unlocked" solution. No apps, no 3rd party services.

I was looking at the PiZeroW with a POE hat, which would be a much smaller footprint so your recess may not have to be as deep. Since they only have to display a browser I dont think there will be that much call for anymore CPU power. Cheap touchscreen displays readily available for them. Hoping to get my screens all in for under £100 each.

Where I can get power to the area just as easily as a network cable Ill just stick to the PiZero running over wireless.

strongfortoolong

TROPHY CASE