ENTRY
This is the post that started it all for me. When I came across this post and the discord, I had no idea how much my life would change. I was working at the time in a NOC doing NOC stuff and not really progressing. I imagined saving up to get a server and start learning more than what I knew already about Linux and hosting services. I just couldn’t pull the trigger and my own ignorance kept me desiring homelabs like you see in r/homelab.
With this article, I took the plunge on the Ideapad to setup my Plex. That made a world of difference and as the cliche goes, it was the gateway drug to learning more. Since then I bought 4 HP290’s that I set up as independent servers, then got into docker, then podman, then learned how to SysAdmin the correct way. Which now has changed my career for the better. Since this started I have become a SysAdmin at my job. Experimenting with containers has opened the door to training with the cloud infrastructure team. In 6 months, and a ton of hard work, I am sure I will get a position in that team and continue to reach my goal to be a Cloud Architect.
With all this said, just want to thank the community here that helped me in my journey and showed that expensive gear is not necessary to learn. A homelab of cobbled together of laptops/hp290s can and is more than enough to hone your skills.
Thanks and happy holidays!