I’ve thought more on this yesterday, and I think my issue is-

I don’t want something that ‘just works’, I want to BUILD something that ‘just works’

The distinction is that I don’t want to buy premade solutions. I want to make them. Not because of the customizability, but because the fun is in the building. Think Lego- hundreds of people build the exact same product in the end, but why are they sold in pieces? Just assemble the damn things and sell them complete (with markup). You think more people wanna buy that?? I’d bet against it.

Hard agree. In fact, I think there’s a market for JUST the guides. It’s true that there’s a TON of guides out there already, from old blogs to YouTube, but the issue is: all of them start or end with: “your use case might differ, so perhaps this solution isn’t for you.” Or “make sure this setup is compatible with your specific hardware”

For example: I want to set up some sort of backup/cloud storage type system. Well there’s about 1400 ways to accomplish that. I can easily just grab one and go, but I’ll always wonder- should I have done this a different way? Would my life be easier/more secure if I chose a different set up?

So offering hardware that is compatible with whatever “stack” of services included would be a huge plus. Sorta like getting a raspberry pi and following a specific raspberry pi tutorial- you know the issues you get aren’t gonna be due to incompatibility.

I think it really boils down to the scale of one’s home lab- are you just tinkering to get some skills and make something cool? Or are you hoping to do something much much bigger? Different software solutions fit those extremes differently.

Sorry, got off rambling there. I guess I’ve been down the home lab hardware/software wormhole for too long these last few weeks.

Yeah, two separate drives. Do you set up bios legacy from the bios menu?

Damn, that would be perfect. I’ll give that a go. Thanks

Interesting… but that just replaces an existing step with another step. I’d like to reduce the overall steps to get to each system. And if I can’t do that, I’d at least like to switch the order to win>EOS>Deb

Good deal. Seems like you’ve got a pretty good grasp of it.

When I got the sales pitch I just leaned into it, and went out and got quotes from 3 others. Compare and contrast!

That makes sense. Can’t you give PSE a call and see what the schedule is?

Otherwise you could check what the cash price is anyway, and use a HELOC or personal loan to get a fixed interest rate (this really only makes sense if you’re serious about paying it off quickly)

But seriously ask about the “cash price”. Because I was shocked at how much more the principle is on the financing offered through the Solar company. It seems solar companies are partnered with financing companies to make the monthly price palatable for larger groups of customers.

What’s with the financing? 0%-11%

Is the rate adjustable?

Ask for the cash price and see what the actual interest rate is. Generally the financed price is higher, and the interest rate is low. But if you’re planning to pay it off in 2 years, you might be better off saving up and buying in cash.

That’s just been my experience (oregon, not Washington)

That is incredibly true. I try to automate everything I can. That’s where laziness is a superpower.

That sounds pretty slick. I envy your scripting prowess. You really have to know your system top to bottom to be able to boil it all down like that.

I’m just beginning my journey into this whole space, and it’s really interesting how many different ways people have to deal with the same basic things.

I’m also incredibly lazy, so maybe more scripting is in my future! Thanks for taking the time to write such a detailed reply!

I really like this strategy. I currently use proxmox for my home server needs, but I am curious what you use now instead?

Interesting! Looks pretty slick. Might be a nice stepping stone into that world. This chromebook is so old that it could be a perfect playground for this sorta thing. I don’t have any important files/apps or anything on it that I’m afraid of damaging or being without. Thanks for the suggestion.

After some serious googling, it looks like gestures is a feature that really only exists in the “luxury” DEs. There is something called Touchegg and Touche that can add them to others, but I’m not far along enough to know if it will do what I want it to.

I just tried debian with Xfce, and it’s pretty fast, but I REALLY love using gestures! It makes my tiny screen feel way bigger.

I’ll be honest, I’m a bit scared of Arch, but this might be the push I need to give it a go. What’s the worst that happens?

Can you add trackpad gestures to Arch?

Yeah, you don’t have to remove it (I didn’t when I tried this 10 years ago) but if you don’t you always have to hit ctrl+l when it boots, or it could get stuck looking for ChromeOS. The hardware is so old now, I don’t really care if I brick it. I’m just learning about linux by goofin.

Looks interesting! Seems it pantheon is built on top of GNOME, so wouldn’t that make it a bit heavy for my 2GB RAM beater? Or is there really not that much difference between the different DEs with regard to resource usage?

Dang, that’s a nice deal. I think I want something with a bit more juice, as I would like to play Minecraft from time to time. I’m leaning towards used thinkpad

I think this is the way forward.

I’d love it if I could find something with a decent GPU so it could run some Minecraft action.

Is eBay my best bet?

Yeah… the more I read into the pine stuff, the less fitting it is. I might enjoy one to mess with, but it won’t make a great gift!

Nice. That’s the move. I am finding it more and more difficult to find smaller laptops/chromebooks these days. If I want a big screen, I’ll sit down at my desktop!

Thanks again for the resources