Building a Simple DevOps Lab

Focus Area: Home Lab Setup

🎯 Context & Objective

Repurposing my old MacBook Pro as a Linux machine for DevOps practice. Adding another box to my lab so I can test multi-machine scenarios.

✅ Work Recap & Achievements

Hardware Refresh: Wiped macOS and installed Debian on my 2015 MacBook Pro. Giving old hardware a second life.

System Config: Set up the system for DevOps work—performance tuning, installed packages, basic optimizations.

Multi-Machine Lab: Now I have my main MacBook for development, a Debian VM for testing, and this machine for infrastructure experiments.

What I set up:

Debian on old MacBook Pro
Encrypted disk partitions
Lightweight GUI for when I need it
Network config for multi-machine communication

🧗 Challenges & Struggles

Driver Issues: Some hardware needed specific drivers. WiFi and graphics required manual setup.

Performance Tweaking: Balancing features with performance on older hardware. Had to pick which services to run carefully.

Going All-In: Completely replacing macOS meant making sure I had backups and committing to Linux-only.

📚 Key Learnings & Progress

What I learned:

Linux installation on specific hardware
Performance tuning for older machines
Multi-machine network setup
Resource management strategies

Strategic Thinking: Started thinking about how different machines can play different roles in a learning environment.

⏭️ Next Steps & Closing Thoughts

Fun project. There’s something nice about giving old tech a new purpose instead of just buying new stuff.

With Linux basics covered and a multi-machine lab ready, I’m set to start with Docker and containers. Having multiple machines will be useful for testing distributed scenarios.

Ready to learn how containers change the deployment game! 🐳

Linux Basics Done! 🎉

✅ Got comfortable with Linux commands
✅ Learned server administration basics
✅ Understood networking fundamentals
✅ Built a multi-machine home lab
✅ Ready for Docker!