Then what are your hands doing under the table?

...

WHAT ARE YOUR HANDS DOING UNDER THE TABLE??!!

Super+Q

I would argue for Apache Cloudstack personally.

Though I have used and like Proxmox as well.

What this cat said.

Interesting. One other option is to use OrangePi for the server. OrangePi has ARC over HDMI and that would count as an input.

I did choose the WiSa surround sound system linked. I'll cannibalize it later to make better speakers. I like it because it is audio at 24 bit/96kHz. It also just uses the HDMI ARC.

Radio signal(I'm a comm/nav aircraft mechanic, I had to know):

• 5 GHz spectrum
• Fixed latency of 2.6 ms

Straight up, that is awesome. I absolutely love it.

Well... From the very small amount that I've gathered from balenaSound, timing is mostly handled. If the software I want to write for it becomes a thing, then the Server PI will have a microphone to detect how much latency there is and adapt. That is a step way down the line though.

I just find it weird cause hasn't some of her songs been anti scientology?

According to BBC, "Armstrong has never publicly commented on her relationship with the church, but several of Dead Sara's lyrics suggest criticism and rejection of Scientology's teachings.”

To me it sounds like she grew up in the church, yes, but does not fall into the culture. She seems to have her own beliefs and values. Speaking as someone who was born in a church(not scientology) and has escaped, I gotta respect that.

Still, no idea what her relationship with the church is and I reserve the right to realize I was wrong.

One more advanced hypervisor that I would recommend is Apache Cloudstack. Requires a little more networking though.

I'm curious where you are from and what hardware for self hosting you have. I also want to know what you are interested in self-hosting or learning.

For me, my home lab started with networking. Yours doesn't have to. For me, I had already achieved System Administration and was working to become a network engineer. Where are you on your path? In truth, starting with the network is not the best, mine required dedicated equipment: a firewall(UDM), switching(ubiquiti), and access points. This is expensive, so perhaps not the best place to stay.

I would say that a good place to stay is with virtualization and a hypervisor. A hypervisor is intended to run virtual machines. I think starting with a hypervisor is a good idea because once you have a hypervisor, you can experiment with just about anything you want. Windows, Linux, docker, wherever your exploration takes you.

Now, I would say the cheapest way to do this kinda depends on you. Do you have a .edu email address? If so, you should be able to receive free licensing for Windows Server through Microsoft imagine (previously called dreamspark). If not, do you have Windows 10/11 pro edition? I would say that Windows server may require dedicated hardware, but if you are already running Windows pro, then your daily driver pc will be capable of running hyper-v.

If you have an old spare computer, you can make it a dedicated hypervisor with either the Windows Server option, or in my opinion the preferable Proxmox. Proxmox may take a little time to get acclimated to since it is Linux command line, but you already have experience with that on the pihole.

Those are my recommended next steps to take. Though, there is plenty more that you can do. As others have said docker is a cool way to make some of this happen. I personally hate docker on Windows(it's weird and I just want the command line not a UI). But you should easily be able to spin up Windows Subsystem for Linux, install docker and docker compose and get started there without needing any additional hardware. You could also do the same using hyper-v if you prefer and have a pro license.

Regardless of what direction you choose to go, you can go far, you can succeed, and you can thrive. And if you run into any issues, post them here. Selfhosted has your back, and we are all rooting for you.

Side Note: Hyper-v used to only be available on Windows Pro, but if someone knows for sure that it is available on home please let me know and I will update my post.

I'm picturing open stack being fairly similar to Cloudstack? Cloudstack is nice, but does require some odd networking.

oOooo.... Quite interesting.

If you are intending to use it, I have some thoughts about the way that you should get it setup and running.

First thing I would look into is getting the iDrac reset and working. iDrac is intended to allow you to view the display of the server without connecting a monitor, simply use a web page. It also allows you to power on/off the server remotely even if it is frozen or off. It is a simple web interface that allows you to control it.

After that, I have some questions about your intention for this server. If you are intending to use this server as a hypervisor, I would like to take just a moment to shill for Apache Cloudstack. I recently setup a server running this and it is going absolutely wonderfully. The reason I chose to use it is it is more open to DevOps workloads, by default compatible with Terraform and takes literally 5 minutes to setup an entire Kubernetes cluster. However, the networking behind it is a bit more advanced and if you want more detail just ask me. For now, suffice it to say that it is capable of running 201 vlans protected by virtual routers.

If that is too much to bite off for a hypervisor at one time, then Proxmox is the way to go. You can probably see a few videos from Linus Tech Tips involving that software. It has much simpler networking and can get you up and running in no time.

Finally, if you are intending to learn something a little more professionally viable, then I would talk to your boss about utilizing an unused VMWare license or perhaps working with Hyper-V(my least favorite option).

If you do intend a Hypervisor, then I would highly recommend setting up a raid. Now, the type of RAID depends highly on what you want. RAID 5 will probably work for a homelab, but I would still recommend a RAID 10. RAID 5 gives you more storage space, but I like the performance benefits of a RAID 10. I think that it is very important when multiple virtual devices are sharing the same storage. You can read more about the various RAID levels here: https://www.prepressure.com/library/technology/raid

Someone needs to (Win + X, U, R).

Can't say I've used that... Yet. I like nextcloud because besides being compatible with Linux/Windows and having an Android app, it also has a simple web UI to access the files. It's probably closer to self hosted OneDrive than anything else I can think of. Kinda like the simplicity of pairdrop though.

Hell yeah, it will. I need one of those bad boys.

Hah. I see your looking into ZFS caching. Highly recommend. I'm running Ubuntu 24.04 Root on ZFS RAID10. Twelve each data drives and one nvme cache drive. Gotta say it's performing exceptionally. ZFS is a bit tricky, it requires an HBA not a RAID card. You may to to flash the raid card to get it working like I did. After that, I have put together a GitHub for the install on ZFS RAID 10, but you should easily be able to change it to RAIDz2. Fair warning, it wipes the drives entirely.

https://github.com/Reddimes/ubuntu-zfsraid10/

Do you have any hosting in your home lab? Preferably something for running a docker container, but a hypervisor could do the job too.

Nextcloud is an option if you do. Technically speaking you could properly protect it and make it public. You don't have to do that though. Any file you upload on your computer could be copied to your phone or vice versa. If it's public, then this could be done from anywhere.

I seed what you did there.

I'm going to go with yes. Since unlike Star Wars, Stargate has multiple enemies and is closer to Star Trek with its episodic nature. Although some(ok, most) of the enemies are based on ancient fantasy characters, I would say that what actually makes them different is simply technology as opposed to any legitimate magic powers(the force). I think that easily takes it from fantasy into Science Fiction. Perhaps this argument loses support when it comes to the ORI. But what about the wraith, the goauld, the ancients, the Jaffa, the tokra, the nox, the replicators, and the Asgard?

Thanks for the insight!

I may have to resort to using BTRFS for this host eventually if ZFS fails me. I do not expect a lot of duplication on a host, even if I have it, who cares I have 60 TB despite the raid 10 architecture. Having something with kernel support may be a better approach anyways.

It's interesting to me that it struggles with raid 5 and 6 though. I would have expected that to be easy to provide.