My home lab in a 12U rack as of March 2026. What is a Home Lab? Think of a home lab as a place where you can fail in the privacy of your own home. As Thomas A. Edison said: “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” I consider myself […]
Reduce Disk Writes on Debian & Ubuntu (Server & Desktop)
Every write to disk costs something, whether it’s wearing down an SSD, slowing I/O on a busy server, or draining battery on a laptop. One of the biggest offenders is logging. Between systemd-journald, web server access logs, and application-level logging, a default Debian 13 (Trixie) or Ubuntu 24.04 LTS system writes a lot to disk. […]
Install AI Models on Linux: Discover LLMs and Chatbots for Linux
2026 update: It has been two years since this article was last updated. During that time, several of the projects mentioned have changed direction, become more commercial, slowed in development, or been acquired. This update refocuses the article on free and open-source projects, with sections revised, outdated information removed, and broken links updated. Hello, fellow […]
rsync Command in Linux with Examples
The rsync command is one of the most popular and powerful tools in Linux for synchronizing files and directories between different locations. It is widely used for backups, remote file transfers, and directory syncing, offering robust features like incremental file transfers, compression, and file permission preservation. In this article, we’ll explore the basics of rsync, along with […]
What to buy for your Raspberry Pi 4
Update 2026: This article has been updated to fix broken links and verify long-term reliability. After 4 years, every device recommended below is still working in my lab, including multiple SD cards that continue to perform without issue. Over the past year, the prices of Raspberry Pi 4 boards have skyrocketed to $200, $300 and […]
Securing Linux with SELinux (or AppArmor)
SELinux and AppArmor have been around for many years, but are still essential for maintaining a secure Linux environment. This article will cover how to set them up and troubleshoot these mandatory access control (MAC) frameworks. Even if they seem overwhelming at first, learning how they work and how to manage them is an important step […]
Ncdu Command in Linux: Disk Usage Analysis with Examples
This article is a follow-up to the previous 90 Linux Commands Frequently Used by Linux Sysadmins post. As time allows, I will continue to publish articles on each of these 90 commands, geared toward Linux sysadmins and Linux power users. Efficient disk space management is a key aspect of Linux system administration. The ncdu (NCurses Disk […]
VPS IOPS vs. Latency: Why NVMe Benchmarks Lie
Every VPS provider loves to advertise NVMe storage. It sounds fast on paper and is usually a noticeable upgrade over older disk (HDD) and traditional SSD storage. The problem is that those IOPS numbers on their own often tell you very little about how your server will feel under typical loads. IOPS measures throughput: how […]
Free vs. Available Memory in Linux
At times, we need to know precisely how a Linux system is using memory. This article explains how to interpret memory usage using the free command and, more importantly, how to correctly understand the difference between free and available memory on Linux systems. Free vs. Available memory explained What exactly is free memory, and how […]
Why Your Linux Server “Looks Idle” but “Feels” Slow
Servers can sometimes appear idle yet still perform sluggishly. This scenario is common across web hosting servers, database servers, VPS or cloud instances, or even containerized workloads. In all mainstream Linux distributions, the core reasons and diagnostics are similar. Below, we explain why an “idle” server might be slow and how to diagnose the real […]