Homelab Journey: Hardware Tweaks and Installing Server Software

Welcome! This is the second post in a series documenting my homelab journey (see posts 1 and 3). Note: This series is more journal entry than tutorial. Reader beware.

Saturday Morning: Hardware Upgrades and TrueNAS Scale Installation

First thing Saturday morning, I jumped into my homelab project by hooking up my newly purchased Lenovo Thinkstation to the monitor with my newly purchased VGA cable (I had donated about three of those to GoodWill just three weeks ago). I wanted to make sure the computer worked as-is before I modified it. It shipped to me with Windows installed. It booted right up and the sort of familiar Windows OS loaded quickly. I clicked around for a few minutes until I was satisfied that the computer worked fine.

Hardware Upgrades

I shut down the Thinkstation and began making some hardware modifications. I replaced the optical drive with a 4TB hard drive and swapped out the original 240GB SSD for a 512GB SSD from my trusty 2012 MacBook Pro. Give me all the terabytes!

All of this took less than an hour, and by 9:30am, I was ready for a coffee break.

TrueNAS Scale Installation (or lack thereof)

Next up was installing TrueNAS Scale. I plugged in all the cables, inserted my Ventoy USB stick with TrueNAS Scale as an ISO to choose from, and rebooted the Thinkstation. I rebooted the Lenovo and selected TrueNAS Scale from the ISOs that Ventoy listed and thought to myself, “Piece of cake!”

I swiftly made my way through a couple of setup prompts until the Terminal window started doing its thing. This went on for a long time before I realized it repeatedly noted both a Memory failure and a Hardware Error. It just kept going with the same errors. This was not good. No cake.

I tried rebooting and going through the TrueNAS Scale installation a few more times with the same result. Error. Error. Error. Time to pivot! I rebooted and installed Pop!_OS from my Ventoy USB to check that my hardware was working. Pop!_OS booted right up which was comforting.

I spent the next two hours going down a rabbit hole of…

1. trying to solve the hardware error + memory failure problem encountered while installing TrueNAS Scale,
2. and searching for info about running CasaOS on top of Pop!_OS since I was lacking confidence I’d ever get TrueNAS to install.

It’s now 11:15am and I’ve got to jet for a brisket lunch at a friend’s house in LA. I’m feeling accomplished and determined. I know that when I get back home to tinker some more I will figure out a path to run a server one way or another.

Saturday Night: Pivoting to CasaOS on Top of Pop!_OS

I didn’t get back to the homelab project again until about 10pm, but I had been thinking about my next steps all afternoon: install CasaOS on top of Pop!_OS which was already in place. This is not the route I intended to take, but I wanted to end the day with a win.

Installing CasaOS simply requires the running of one command in the terminal:

curl -fsSL https://get.casaos.io | sudo bash

It really was that simple. After running that command on the Lenovo Thinkstation, I opened up a browser on my Mac Mini, went to my local IP address, and was prompted with “Welcome to CasaOS Let’s create your account”.

Installing Apps with CasaOS!

At this point, I was feeling great about this accomplishment. I was able to quickly install several apps from the App Store within CasaOS. For most of them, that’s all I did, install them. But for Nextcloud, the belle of the ball so to speak, I created an account within that app and installed apps with it. By now it was way past my bedtime, and I was ready to call it a day.

It was a successful day for the most part which included hardware improvements to the Lenovo Thinkstation and getting a functioning home server in place with apps that will help me reduce my dependency on Google Workspace apps and that will provide a robust file backup system.

I’m not sure yet if the current configuration, Pop!_OS running CasaOS, is the permanent solution for me, but it felt good to get this far after around 5 hours of tinkering on a Saturday.

Before I go too far in configuring the apps within this CasaOS setup, I’m going to do more research about the optimal Linux distro to run it. At this point, I can still scrap everything on the Lenovo without losing any important data. This is the learning phase, not the ready for primetime save all your most important documents and memories phase.

The Great Debate: Ease of Use vs Learning the Ins and Outs

As I scoured Reddit posts, YouTube videos, and Linux forums, I learned that CasaOS is not actually an OS. It’s an application that dashboard-izes Docker containers. Those Docker containers run the apps within CasaOS. Mind blown yet? I read a lot of Reddit posts from people with very big feelings about whether CasaOS was good or bad for beginners since it obfuscates (not a word I use often) the Docker functionality by doing a lot of the heavy lifting for you after you simply click an install button. But since my original goal was to self-host my office suite and create redundant backups (ie. not to learn Docker), I’m good with this obfuscation (I said it again).

Action Items: More Research and Tinkering

To move forward with this project, my next steps involve:

• Testing out lighter-weight Linux server distros (Ubuntu Server and Debian) that will run CasaOS
• Once I’m satisfied with the base operating system, diving more fully into configuring the apps within CasaOS

By taking a step back to research and reassessing my options, I can ensure that I’m progressing toward reducing my dependency on Google Workspace apps and creating a robust file backup system.

As I continue down this path of learning and experimentation, I’m excited to see where it will take me next. With the help of tools like CasaOS and lighter-weight Linux server distros, I’m confident that I’ll be able to create a robust and secure home server that meets my needs for data freedom and redundancy. Stay tuned for further updates on this journey!