Last time, I mentioned Creating Ventoy VDI for Linux Live USB , however, it may not boot on some strange hardware and I unfortunately have quite a few of those. So in such cases, it’s better to boot Linux natively. By doing this, we need Rescuezilla/Clonezilla to extract the Linux system out of Virtualbox’s hard drive (VDI/VMDK). Download and load the ISO of Rescuezilla, a GUI version of Clonezilla, it’s larger but eaiser to use. ...
This is the server I build back in 2023, based on a moded Dell Optiplex 3010 SFF motherboard with i5-2300 and Tesla M40. I wasn’t planning to put an Xeon E3 back then but something happened which changed my mind. After approximately 1.5 years of 24/7 running, my CPU power extension cable melted. This is just like the PCIe to EPS adapter situation last time, so I have to replace it with a heavier gauge (something better than the cheapest like above). ...
iPhone Talks There are a many cellphones that make me feel nostalgic. None of them is Android nor iPhone. Some of them are QWERTY, some are flip phones. Phones were much interesting back in the days when Motorola, Nokia, Sony, Sharp, Blackberry and more are still competitive in the market. Today’s smartphones are indifferent and rather being “boredphones”. And all of these boredness are rooted in the “iPhone Moment”. Despite how much I dislike iPhone’s disruptive innovation and its market breakthrough as well as Apple’s philosophy behind it. There is one thing true about the spirit of Steve Jobs, that is, a phone should be comfortably used in one hand. Although this was his defense of iPhone’s 3.5 inch screen size, I strongly agree with his ergonomics minded UX design. ...
Lately, there is a need of private chatbot service as a complete alternative to OpenAI’s ChatGPT. So, I decide to implement one at home and make it accessible to everyone in my household alongside with my network printer and NAS (OpenMediaVault). In the past, I used to recommend people using Llama series for English tasks and Qwen series for Chinese tasks. There was no open-source model that’s strong enough in multilingual tasks comparing to proprietary ones (GPT/Claude). ...
Days before mini-PC become a thing, there was no NUC, MinisForum or Beelink. It was the time of thin client and SFF (small-form-factor), manufacturers such as Shuttle, Dell and Lenovo were made a lot of these. Back then, the performance of SoC was too weak so that even laptops wouldn’t use them. But my first dedicated home lab machine was an Atom D525, which was called embedded industrial computer. It served as a router rather than server due to its performance and heat. That was also the time when I got into the world of m0n0wall derivatives (pfSense/FreeNAS). ...