Best of Homelab — November 2025

  1. 1
    Article
    Avatar of selfhostedselfhosted·29w

    What to do with an old laptop?

    A developer seeks advice on repurposing a 2014-2015 laptop (Intel i5, 8GB RAM, 500GB SSD) into a home server for running scripts, cron jobs, and self-hosted services. Key considerations include choosing a lightweight Ubuntu-based Linux distribution, enabling SSH access, minimizing resource usage and noise, optimal placement near the router, and whether to disconnect the screen for power savings. The goal is a 24/7 server for automation tasks, data storage, and services like Pi-hole, self-hosted cloud storage, and workflow automation tools.

  2. 2
    Article
    Avatar of notedNoted·28w

    The 10MB Discord Limit Drove Me to Build a Self-Hosted GPU Video Compressor

    A developer built 8mb.local, a self-hosted video compression tool that solves Discord's 10MB file size limit. The single Docker container includes a SvelteKit UI, FastAPI backend, and Celery worker queue with automatic GPU detection for NVIDIA, Intel, and AMD hardware acceleration. It features target-size-first compression with automatic retry logic, real-time progress streaming via Server-Sent Events, and seamless CPU fallback. Installation requires choosing the appropriate docker-compose configuration for your hardware, with special attention to NVIDIA driver capabilities and reverse proxy buffering settings for proper SSE streaming.

  3. 3
    Video
    Avatar of veronicaexplainsVeronica Explains·29w

    I stream nothing, and I am happy.

    A personal account of abandoning streaming services in favor of physical media (DVDs, Blu-rays, CDs) and paper books. Covers the technical setup for ripping and managing media using tools like MakeMKV, Handbrake, and Jellyfin on Linux, while critiquing algorithmic recommendations and advocating for more deliberate content consumption and ownership.

  4. 4
    Article
    Avatar of lobstersLobsters·29w

    A prison of my own making

    A developer reflects on how adopting best practices like GitOps, immutable infrastructure, Kubernetes, and declarative systems turned their homelab from a relaxing hobby into an overwhelming burden. They realized that enterprise-grade tooling (NixOS, Fedora Silverblue, CI/CD pipelines) made simple tasks impossibly complex for a solo project. The author shares their decision to simplify by abandoning immutable distros, reducing automation, accepting stateful backups, and prioritizing ease of use over architectural purity.

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