Passable6192May 22, 2024
Pete Keen

My decision making process is not coherent.

#HomeLab

May 22, 2024 at 2:56pmWeb
Show threadPete KeenMay 22, 2024

I have no justification for this largess. I just wanted one or two spares to mess with because I have five in production and sometimes I need to FA to FO. I could have spent $40 on one machine but I chose to spend $160 on 16 machines.

I haven't tested any yet but they all look to be in good physical shape and all appear to have their (incredibly rare) wifi cards. If they all work I can plausibly part out half the wifi cards for what I paid for the lot.

#HomeLab

Show threadJeff TriplettMay 22, 2024
@zrail Have you written up how you use them? Less technical but more practical. Do you have one in your kitchen?
Show threadPete KeenMay 22, 2024

@webology I have a draft blog post somewhere. Basically I use them in homeprod for talking to zwave and zigbee and serial ports of a few things around the house. One of them is also a local gps-driven stratum0 NTP server.

I'm probably going to mess around with HA voice remote. Maybe k8s. Maybe a family dashboard kind of thing in the kitchen or mudroom.

Show threadStefan May 22, 2024
@zrail oh that’s pretty cheap. Looking forward what you are going to use them for. Maybe a kubernetes cluster or service dedicated setup. So many options.
Show threadMichaelMay 22, 2024
@zrail That sounds and looks like a very coherent decision making process. 😁
Show threadPete KeenJun 15, 2024

Sigh. This was probably actually a mistake. I have had one up on my desk for a couple weeks now running fine but it seems to have turned itself off and forgotten its power restore option, which means either the CMOS battery is dead or something is horribly wrong. I can't turn it back on without taking it apart because the power button is busted.

#HomeLab

Show threadPete KeenJun 18, 2024

Turns out I never actually replaced the battery in that machine. Ha ha.

I went through all 16 to replace battery, unlock the bios, change to boot on power restore, and run the self check. A bunch have broken power switches, which I knew. Some of them even have broken power LEDs.

Only one has a bad eMMC chip, which is great.

Next subproject is to get a headless immutable USB booting Alpine running.

Also I want to try writing a kernel driver <_<

Show threadItzTrainJun 15, 2024
@zrail Small hiccup in world domination! Please proceed!
Show threadItzTrainMay 22, 2024
@zrail whatever is going to happen with these I'm absolutely here for it!! 🤣🤣💪
Show threadDaevienMay 23, 2024
@zrail

Nice, that should provide some interesting projects. If I showed up with that many, I would definitely have the "wtf?" response from the gf, even if she is usually pretty chill about computers & basses, the two things I have a number of lol