I wrote most of what is here the week the problem turned up, so the archive runs in date order, and date order helps nobody who is starting out.
Three paths below. Each one begins at nothing and ends at something running. Pick the one that sounds like your week and ignore the other two.
I want off Windows
Ends with Linux as your everyday desktop, and a setup that survives the next reinstall.
Linux desktop, 5 posts. Why Linux on the machine you use all day, the defaults before the customisation, and the distro question last.
Four of the five assume a terminal and nothing else. Arch against NixOS is last on purpose, and it is the one you will want to skip ahead to.
I want to run my own services
Ends with a cluster on your own shelf and a backup you have restored from at least once.
Homelab from scratch, 6 posts. Why you would run your own, what to buy, how to reach it from outside, what to run on it, and how to get it back when it dies.
Post 2 is where this gets expensive. Hardware is the part nobody prices before buying it, so it comes before the network and before the hypervisor.
- Self-Hosting for Everyone: A Vision for Digital Agency
- The Hardware Ownership Paradox: When Sovereignty Gets Expensive
- Tailscale for Homelab: Secure Remote Access Without Port Forwarding
- NixOS as a Hypervisor: KVM and QEMU Can Do Everything
- K3s Cluster Setup on Refurbished Mini-PCs
- Backup Strategy for Your Homelab: The 3-2-1 Rule in Practice
I have to run Kubernetes at work
Ends with knowing which part falls over first, and what that looks like at 2am.
Kubernetes in production, 9 posts. From what a container actually is to running a cluster with no internet, with the failure modes that bite in between.
The longest path here, and post 2 argues you may not need a cluster at all. Leaving at that point with that answer counts as finishing.
- Simulation, Emulation, Virtualization, and Containers: The Restaurant Metaphor
- When not to use Kubernetes
- Data-Driven Kubernetes Migration: Why You Need Metrics Before You Move
- Kubernetes High Availability: Stacked vs External etcd Explained
- How etcd Actually Works: The Heart of Your Kubernetes Cluster
- Graceful Degradation in Kubernetes: What Happens When Components Fail
- Unbreakable - My Fascination.
- Chaos Engineering: Breaking Your Cluster to Make It Stronger
- Running Kubernetes Offline: Edge Computing Without Internet
If you want the why first
Why I self-host everything and Working with an AuDHD brain are the reasoning the three paths rest on. Neither is a path of its own, so read them when you want to know why the choices above look the way they do.
If none of those fit
- Series holds four more reading paths, for when you already know what you came for.
- Categories is the subject index.
- Beginner collects every post that assumes a terminal and nothing else, including the ones that sit outside a path.
Everything here is something I run or have run. Where it cost me a weekend, the post says so.