So there I am, 1am on a Friday night, and I am troubleshooting a hard drive that is almost 10 years old all because I had the realization that I had enough parts to cobble together another computer. Halloween is just around the corner and it's fitting, because not only did I Frankenstein a computer with all sorts of parts I had at the bottom of the office closet, I also moved my primary home server into a new case. Sounds like a great Friday night, right?

Jokes aside, my self hosted journey has led me down a road that I would have never thought possible. About a month ago I began studying to take an exam to gain a certificate in computer networking, with the idea to move into a IT career. Computers have been a passion of mine for a long time, but networking scratches a different itch. Networking is all about solving complex problems and I am thoroughly enjoying it.

Between setting up more computers, and moving my Windows machine that I use for my desktop to Linux. There have been a lot of changes in the computers I use over the last month. The driving force behind that is the need to learn more and continue to grow in my self taught path. Learning Linux has been on my to-do list for some time now. Not only has Microsoft done their best at pushing me out the door. I also know that Linux is the backbone for much of the plumbing of the internet.

Now if you are unfamiliar with Linux, the difference in short is that the Linux Kernel (think of it as the base OS, or more accurately, the kernel) is open source and maintained by the Linux foundation. So unlike Windows and Mac OS, Linux is the base, and then corporations and/or small communities build on top of it, creating their own desktop environments.

An analogy would be the Linux kernel is more like a base coat of paint, and the distributions are different colors of finishing paint. Some have been around for a long time, and some are brand new. What makes Linux awesome is its community of die hard fans that truly believe a free and open internet is a healthier space.

Computers are fun...that's really all I wanted to talk about. I am having a blast breaking things, learning how to fix them, and then breaking them again. I don't know if you need to hear it from me, but failing is a healthy practice. Learning how to move past a failure is a benefit that will reach far out into your life in all aspects. In the moment for me, I am suffering from impostor syndrome. I am constantly catching myself not just taking a win, instead I say, oh well I had to look that solution up, or I got some help from Claude to look at those logs. But guess what, the end result is that I solved the problem I was having. That is growth, I just have to step back a bit and actually look at what I am accomplishing compared to where I was 6 months ago.

I am still brainstorming what to do with this second server that I have thrown together...though it isn't functioning as of yet. I still need to source a drive. The hard drive that I had sitting in the bottom of my closet at some point decided to no longer function, but because of that I learned how to run a check on the drive for bad blocks. This was prompted by my install of Proxmox failing over and over again until I finally thought maybe the drive was bad. All that said, it was a good experience still. Did I get a lot done? Nope, sure didn't, but I did learn something I did not know yesterday. That is what this blog is all about. A short post, but I will challenge you, go out and attempt the thing that you are worried you are not good enough to do. You will fail at first, but you will get closer to it every day. Think of it as a install percentage, 0% is the first day, each day you move closer to 100%. Have fun with it, Tyler out.