Hey all 👋

So, I was supposed to be working on my garbage collector project and the very stoppable StopLang, but... you know when your brain says C, and your heart screams "Sea ya later!"? Yeah. That.

So instead, I’m kicking off a new project and a new series I’m calling:

🧪 HomeLab: Because what's better than chaos in your own home?

💻 The Plan: Frankensteining an Old Laptop

The victim: a brave old Dell Inspiron 🧟‍♂️ Specs:

CPU: 8thgen i5 processor (not the freshest fruit in the basket, but it'll do)
Memory: 8GB of dreams
Disk Space: 256GB of potential

I’m going to torch this machine 🔥 with a Linux distro (no GUI, because who needs fancy pixels?) and then just vibe with it.

🏴‍☠️ Why Arch? Because I hate myself (but in a fun way)

Arch Linux is my pick for this culinary disaster of a home server. Here's why:

No bloatware. Just vibes.
Comes bare minimum out of the box (just like me on Mondays).
Most importantly, PewDiePie uses Arch.
- And honestly, it bruised my tech ego that while I’m here running Ubuntu, he’s flexing with Arch. Not okay.

🧠 Backstory: I was actually an Arch user until November 2024 (RIP). Then I got a shiny new laptop and realized I no longer had the time (or sanity) to fix bootloader issues for the 100th time or recompile audio drivers like it’s Groundhog Day. So I reluctantly joined the Ubuntu™ Easy Life Gang.

🏗️ The Mission: Milestone 1

Here’s what I’ll be doing in Phase 1 of this HomeLab Madness™:

✅ Step 1: Install Arch (with just enough to not regret it instantly)

Barebones setup only. Think minimal. Think IKEA flat-pack with no manual.

✅ Step 2: Remote Control, Baby 🚀

Get remote SSH access, because reaching across the room is so 2020.

✅ Step 3: K8s or Bust 🐳

Set up a Kubernetes cluster from scratch.
- No kubeadm, no fancy tools.
- Just pure, uncut YAML & CLI pain.
- Because apparently I like suffering.

✅ Step 4: 🔥 Wall Building (Digital Only)

Set up firewalls to protect this digital potato.
But I want more than just ufw incantations — I’ll aim to build something slightly more usable, because who wants to memorize commands when you can just push a button?

🚀 After That?

Big plans, my friends.

I’ll be building a platform where I can deploy workloads on this cluster using:

A Docker image URL (or a local name if I’m feeling nostalgic),
A few config options to tweak runtime behaviour & exposure,
And some classification magic to keep things sorted.

Basically: "Give me a container, and I shall give it a home."

💬 Final Thoughts

This series is going to be weird, wild, and probably involve more swearing at YAML than anyone should legally be allowed to do. But hey — that’s (I guess) the HomeLab life.

Stay tuned, grab popcorn 🍿, and wish my Dell laptop luck. It’s going to need it.

🏠 HomeLab Chronicles: Episode 1 - Arch-nemesis