Linux

Running LXCs on Debian

· Reading time: ~4 minute(s) (783 words) linux homelab lxc

I discovered that you can run LXC containers on Debian without needing Proxmox. Sure, you miss out on the great tooling that Proxmox has, but it’s useful when you’re working with limited resources… which I am.

This follows on to my previous post where I talked about keepalived where I used it for providing resiliency to my home DNS. This time, I’ll be moving my second container onto another machine.

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I discovered keepalived

· Reading time: ~6 minute(s) (1174 words) linux homelab networking

I’ve wanted to provide some resiliency to our home DNS setup for a while, mainly to stop needing to schedule any maintenance on my Proxmox “server”, but also because it makes sense.

So after some investigation, and conversing with Claude, I discovered keepalived.

What is keepalived?

Keepalived is a Linux daemon that provides high availability (HA) and load balancing for server clusters using the Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (VRRP) to manage a virtual IP address, ensuring seamless failover and continuous service availability. It is commonly used in conjunction with other services like HAProxy and Nginx to enhance network resilience.

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Pantheon Code on Arch Linux

· Reading time: ~2 minute(s) (231 words) tools programming linux

Prior to getting the MacBook Air as my portable beater machine, I was temporarily using my old HP DM1-4027. As expected, despite having 8GB RAM, it wasn’t very quick so I wasn’t going to get away with using VSCode as it’s not exactly resources friendly is it?

Enter “Pantheon Code”, a text editor that is built into ElementaryOS. It looks simplistic, offers syntax highlighting, git integration and it can load a terminal window into a panel at the bottom. What more do you want when you’re on the move!?

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Arch Linux on Macbook Air

· Reading time: ~3 minute(s) (561 words) linux arch macbookair

A few months back I was looking for a “beater” laptop - a cheap device that can go (almost) anywhere and take a few bumps along the way that I’m not too bothered about. Sure I have my MacBook Pro, but even after 4 years, it’s still in great condition and I’d like to keep it that way.

After the usual hunt for Lenovos, and realising they hold their value better than they used to, I needed to think outside of the box. And that’s when I saw the MacBook Airs from 2015. After a few attempts, I managed to find one on eBay that was near to home and already had a bump or two but was in good working condition. I got lucky with the spec too… a 2015 MacBook Air with an i7-5650U processor, 8GB RAM, 1TB NVMe and a battery with only 11 charge cycles.

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Arch Linux Installation

· Reading time: ~6 minute(s) (1171 words) techsupport notes linux macbookair

First of all, create a bootable USB (or CD) based on the ISO downloaded from the main Arch Linux website and boot it up.

The Arch Linux wiki is probably one of the best I’ve ever used, so the latest basic installation steps can be found here.

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Sony Vaio C2M/W, Lubuntu 14.04 and a new battery

· Reading time: ~2 minute(s) (311 words) techsupport linux

The genuine battery died a few months back on the “bricktop” (a Sony Vaio C2M/W), and with the hard drive starting to click, I just dumped it on the side and gave up with it. After trying to persist with an Atom N450 netbook (Visual Studio usage is soul-destroying on an Atom CPU!), I’ve dug it back out and ordered a new battery from Amazon and the Intel 40Gb SSD that was on offer at Ebuyer for 20 quid.

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