Ceph. I have some Raspberry Pi’s that I’m going to set up a cluster with. Just haven’t gotten around to it yet. I half expect the performance to be relatively terrible, but maybe it won’t and I can try to build something on top of the cluster in a sort of hyper converged setup.

It’s completely overkill for a small home lab but that’s what makes it fun.

Metal Arms: A Glitch in the System

Yeah this is the answer. I was about to list off some movies but realized I actually watched and finished those. I couldn’t even bring myself to finish anything after Endgame besides the last Guardians of the Galaxy movie.

Just use Debian. Why use the inferior downstream distros when you can go right to the OG? You are already halfway there.

Debian doesn’t have a corporate sponsor so there is no risk of getting spammed or giving someone your personal information.

My recommendation for that price range is to buy a used business-class laptop. Emphasis on the business-class. These are the Dell Latitudes and the HP ProBooks. Try to find something less-than five years old (businesses tend to phase out older laptops in the three or four year mark). Buy from a reputable re-seller that offers support in case you get a lemon.

It won’t be the fastest or sexiest laptop out there. But it will be long lasting and reliable.

Maybe something I should look into again.

Yes! I’ve used that before.

I spun up a trial version of Windows Server and tried to get it working. It seemed to want a Domain environment and I didn’t want to go down that road. There probably is a way to do it without setting up a Domain but I didn’t feel like messing with it at the time.

I have a Windows VM on my server. If I need MS Office or any Windows-only program I just use Remmina to RDP in and get stuff done.

Windows has pretty good touch support over RDP so I can even do this from my phone or tablet if I need a full desktop on the go (using a VPN).

Yeah I think the distro is less important. Really it’s choosing a lightweight DE + web browser will determine if a machine that old will work.

Check out Looking Glass.

https://looking-glass.io/

Why not just run TrueNAS Scale? It’s a NAS built on top of Debian?

I like Apple’s hardware but their software is not ideal.

I have an M1 Macbook Air that is honestly the best laptop I’ve ever used. I will run this thing until it dies. I’m running Asahi Linux so I don’t even have to deal with MacOS anymore.

As for my smartphone, while I am concerned with privacy and control over my devices… I think privacy is more important. While I do not trust Apple with my privacy, I trust them over a literal advertising company.

I took the code you posted and then asked the free version of ChatGPT to do what you asked and got working code immediately. I would go that route.

Do you have any code written? Generally speaking people are willing to help but won’t write your project for you.

I have a copy of Microsoft Office 2013 on a Windows 11 VM.