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). ...
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). ...
Windows Nostalgia A recent video on Windows 7 as daily driver OS by Brodie Robertson was hilarious but also arguable. For me, XP is the best OS ever made by M$. However, it has became not so useful nowadays neither for retro gaming (which 98SE is the king) nor for day-to-day usage, due to both hardware and software incompatibility. The compromise would be Windows 7. I agree there are too much of accumulated unpatched security vulnerabilities, but there are tricks to mitigate most of those either technically or strategically. ...