SumGuy's Ramblings
The art of wasting time.
Docker, self-hosting, AI/LLM, Linux, and DevOps — explained by someone who learned the hard way. No fluff, no enterprise jargon, just practical stuff that actually works on real hardware.
Recent Posts
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SigNoz vs Uptrace Self-Hosted Observability
Two OpenTelemetry-first observability platforms backed by ClickHouse. Here's how SigNoz and Uptrace compare for self-hosted homelab and small-team use.
13 min read -
Used GPU Buying Guide for Home Lab LLMs
Your no-BS guide to buying a used GPU for local LLM inference in 2026. Budget tiers from $200 to $1500 plus, real VRAM math, and tips to dodge the scams.
12 min read -
Longhorn vs Rook-Ceph
Two ways to give your K8s cluster persistent block storage — Longhorn for simplicity, Rook-Ceph for scale. Real homelab tradeoffs, not vendor marketing slides.
11 min read -
Gateway API vs Ingress in 2026
Ingress is the annotation-soup classic. Gateway API is the role-oriented future with proper L4/L7 separation. Here's when to migrate and when to wait.
11 min read -
Rock 5B vs Orange Pi 5 vs Pi 5
Rock 5B, Orange Pi 5, and Raspberry Pi 5 compared for home lab use — NVMe, 2.5GbE, NPU, Frigate, k3s performance, and which one you should actually buy.
12 min read -
Velero: K8s Backup and DR
Your cluster will fail. Velero captures everything — manifests, CRDs, persistent volumes — and lets you replay it on a fresh cluster. Setup, gotchas, real DR plans.
11 min read -
BIOS/UEFI Tweaks for Headless Servers
Before you rack that server and walk away forever, these BIOS and UEFI settings will save you from a 3 AM drive to the datacenter or your dusty basement.
12 min read -
Claude Code in a Homelab Workflow
Claude Code brings an agentic AI coding assistant into your terminal for real homelab work — compose files, bash scripts, Ansible, systemd. The honest take.
12 min read -
Kustomize vs Jsonnet for K8s Manifests
Kustomize patches YAML with overlays. Jsonnet is a real templating language with imports and functions. Here's which K8s manifest tool to pick.
9 min read -
cert-manager: ACME at Scale
cert-manager makes Let's Encrypt automatic on Kubernetes — once. Then you scale, hit DNS-01 quirks, wildcard limits, and rate-limit walls. Here's the full survival guide.
12 min read -
Rootless Docker: Tips, Gotchas & Fixes
Rootless Docker tuning deep-dive: network drivers, env vars, port drivers, cgroup delegation, and real troubleshooting — anchored to Docker Engine 29.x.
12 min read -
Argo Rollouts vs Flagger Progressive Delivery
Argo Rollouts uses a Rollout CRD with a slick UI. Flagger watches your Deployment with a Canary CRD. Here's which progressive-delivery tool to pick.
11 min read
