DEV Community: pizidavi

Minimal Homelab Server with Alpine Linux

pizidavi — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 17:37:05 +0000

I wanted a minimal homelab server with full control over every component - no bloated NAS distros, no web UIs I didn't ask for, just a lean Linux box with pooled storage, parity protection, VPN access, containers, and automated backups. Here's how I built one with Alpine Linux on my Zimablade server.

⚠️ This isn't a tutorial; this is how I created my system. Yours may be different.

1. Install Alpine Linux

Download the ISO from alpinelinux.org, flash it to a USB drive with Balena Etcher, and boot from it.

setup-alpine

Walk through the prompts:

Keyboard layout - pick yours
Hostname - whatever you want
Network interface - select your adapter
DNS - leave domain blank, set DNS as 1.1.1.1 8.8.8.8
Root password - set a strong one
Timezone - pick "UTC" or your local timezone
Proxy - none
NTP - busybox
APK mirror - don't skip this one
- Press c to enable community packages
- Press f to auto-select the fastest mirror
Create a user - I used admin
SSH server - openssh
Disk - select your drive, choose lvm then sys
- lvm (Logical Volume Manager) lets you manage disk space flexibly - resize, add, or remove partitions without rebooting
- sys means a full disk installation

Reboot when it's done.

2. First Boot: Baseline Setup

SSH in from your workstation:

ssh-copy-id -i .ssh/id_rsa.pub admin@192.168.1.X
ssh admin@192.168.1.X

Switch to Bash

Alpine ships with ash by default. Swap it for bash for the admin user:

sudo apk add bash

Edit /etc/passwd and change the admin user's shell from /bin/ash to /bin/bash.

Then create ~/.bash_profile:

# Aliases
alias l="ls -la"
alias sudo="doas"

NOTE: Alpine uses doas instead of sudo. The alias makes the transition painless.

Install Base Packages

sudo apk add util-linux lsblk xfsprogs curl git

Fix APK Repositories

Edit /etc/apk/repositories and make sure you have main, community, and testing:

https://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/<version>/main
https://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/<version>/community
@testing https://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/edge/testing

NOTE: Replace <version> with your current Alpine version (e.g. v3.21). To install testing packages, append @testing like: apk add mergerfs@testing

3. MergerFS + SnapRAID

This is the heart of the homelab. MergerFS pools multiple drives into a single mount point, and SnapRAID provides parity protection - think software RAID without the lock-in. Read more: MergerFS + SnapRAID is the new RAID 5.

Prepare the Disks

List available disks:

lsblk

For each data disk (sda, sdb, sdc, ...), create a partition and filesystem:

sudo fdisk /dev/sda

Inside fdisk:

g - create a new GPT partition table
n - create a new partition (accept all defaults)
w - write changes

Then format with XFS:

sudo mkfs.xfs /dev/sda1

Repeat for every drive. If mkfs.xfs complains about the device being busy, reboot and try again.

Mount the Disks

Get the UUIDs:

blkid

Create mount points:

sudo mkdir /mnt/disk{1,2,3}
sudo mkdir /mnt/parity
sudo mkdir /mnt/storage

Edit /etc/fstab - replace the UUIDs with your own:

# Data drives
UUID="..."    /mnt/disk1    xfs    defaults    0    2
UUID="..."    /mnt/disk2    xfs    defaults    0    2
UUID="..."    /mnt/disk3    xfs    defaults    0    2

# Parity drive
UUID="..."    /mnt/parity    xfs    defaults    0    2

Test it:

sudo mount -a
df -h

Set Up MergerFS

sudo apk add fuse@testing mergerfs@testing

# Enable FUSE
sudo modprobe fuse
echo 'fuse' | sudo tee /etc/modules-load.d/fuse.conf

Add MergerFS to /etc/fstab:

# MergerFS pool
/mnt/disk*    /mnt/storage    fuse.mergerfs    defaults,allow_other,use_ino,cache.files=partial,dropcacheonclose=true,category.create=pfrd    0    0

Mount and verify:

sudo mount -a
df -h

You should see /mnt/storage with the combined capacity of all data drives.

Set Up SnapRAID

sudo apk add snapraid@testing

Edit /etc/snapraid.conf:

# Parity disk location
parity /mnt/parity/snapraid.parity

# Content file locations (one per data disk + one in /var)
content /var/snapraid/snapraid.content
content /mnt/disk1/.snapraid.content
content /mnt/disk2/.snapraid.content
content /mnt/disk3/.snapraid.content

# Data disks
data d1 /mnt/disk1/
data d2 /mnt/disk2/
data d3 /mnt/disk3/

# Exclude patterns
exclude *.unrecoverable
exclude /tmp/
exclude /lost+found/
exclude .AppleDouble
exclude ._*
exclude .DS_Store
exclude Thumbs.db
exclude desktop.ini
exclude *.tmp
exclude *.temp
exclude .fseventsd/
exclude .Spotlight-V100/
exclude .Trash-1000/
exclude */.Trash-1000/
exclude .recycling/

# Auto-save content every 100 changes
autosave 100

Create the content directory and run the first sync:

sudo mkdir -p /var/snapraid
sudo snapraid sync

NOTE: The first sync can take a while depending on how much data you have.

Automate SnapRAID with Cron

[IMPORTANT] SnapRAID is not a real-time RAID solution. It only protects against disk failures when you run snapraid sync. You should run it daily or more frequently depending on your data change rate.

sudo crontab -e

0 1 * * * snapraid sync && snapraid scrub -p 4

The scrub -p 4 checks 4% of your data each day for bit rot - this means a full check completes roughly once a month.

4. Tailscale

Tailscale gives you a private VPN to access your homelab from anywhere - no port forwarding, no dynamic DNS headaches.

curl -fsSL https://tailscale.com/install.sh | sh
sudo tailscale up --accept-dns=false

Authenticate with the link it prints, then you're in.

Tailscale Serve

Expose local services over your Tailscale network with a clean HTTPS URL. Read more: Tailscale Serve

sudo tailscale serve --service=svc:<service-name> --https=443 <local-port>

For example, to expose a web app running on port 8080:

sudo tailscale serve --service=svc:webapp --https=443 8080

Access it at https://webapp.<your-machine>.ts.net.

5. Docker

sudo apk add docker docker-cli-compose

Enable and start the Docker service:

sudo rc-update add docker default
sudo service docker start

Verify:

sudo docker ps

Create stack directories for your containers:

mkdir -p /mnt/storage/stacks # This is where the compose.yml files will live
mkdir -p /mnt/storage/data # This is where the container data will be stored

6. Backup with Backrest

I use Backrest, a web UI for Restic, to back up to Backblaze B2. Everything runs in Docker.

Create a Backblaze B2 Bucket

Create a Backblaze account
Go to B2 Cloud Storage → Create a Bucket (e.g. homelab-backup)
Go to App Keys → Create New Application Key
- Give it a name (e.g. backrest)
- Note down the KeyID and Application Key - you won't see the key again

Docker Compose

Create a directory for Backrest:

mkdir -p /mnt/storage/data/backrest
mkdir -p /mnt/storage/stacks/backrest
cd /mnt/storage/stacks/backrest

Create compose.yml:

services:
  backrest:
    image: garethgeorge/backrest:latest
    container_name: backrest
    hostname: backrest
    restart: always
    ports:
      - "9898:9898"
    volumes:
      - /mnt/storage/data/backrest/data:/data
      - /mnt/storage/data/backrest/config:/config
      - /mnt/storage/data/backrest/cache:/cache
      - /mnt/storage/data/backrest/tmp:/tmp
      - /mnt/storage/data/backrest/rclone:/root/.config/rclone # Mount for rclone config (needed when using rclone remotes)

      - /mnt/storage/stacks:/stacks  # Mount local paths to backup
      # - /path/to/local/repos:/repos     # Mount local repos (optional for remote storage)
    environment:
      - TZ=UTC # Set your timezone, e.g. "UTC"
      - BACKREST_DATA=/data
      - BACKREST_CONFIG=/config/config.json
      - XDG_CACHE_HOME=/cache
      - TMPDIR=/tmp

Start it up:

sudo docker compose up -d

Configure Backrest

Open http://<your-server-ip>:9898 in your browser
Go to Add Repository and fill in:

Type: S3
Repo URL: s3:<region>.backblazeb2.com/<bucket-name> - check your bucket's endpoint in the Backblaze dashboard (e.g. s3:eu-central-003.backblazeb2.com/homelab-backup)
Password: choose a strong Restic repo password

Under Environment Variables, add:

   AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=<your-key-id>
   AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=<your-application-key>

Go to Add Plan:
- Repository: select the one you just created
- Paths: the directories to back up (e.g. /mnt/storage/stacks)
- Schedule: set a backup frequency (e.g. daily at 2 AM)
- Retention: configure how many snapshots to keep

Final Checklist

At this point you should have:

Alpine Linux installed and hardened with SSH key access
A pooled storage filesystem via MergerFS with parity protection from SnapRAID
Automated daily SnapRAID sync and scrub
VPN access to your homelab via Tailscale
Docker running with your user in the docker group
Automated backups to Backblaze B2 via Backrest

References

Minimal Fedora install with Niri + DankMaterialShell

pizidavi — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 16:19:56 +0000

I wanted a minimal Fedora base without giving up a modern Wayland desktop.

This guide shows a reproducible flow to install Fedora from the Everything ISO, then layer on:

Niri as the Wayland window manager
DankMaterialShell (DMS) as the desktop shell (Quickshell + Go) via the DankLinux installer

⚠️ This isn't a tutorial; this is how I created my system. Yours may be different.

0) Before you start
1) Install Fedora minimal
2) First boot: baseline setup
3) Install Niri and DankMaterialShell
4) Post-install: drivers and core functionality
5) Daily packages
Final checklist

0) Before you start

A USB drive with the Fedora Everything ISO written to it
Basic familiarity with the Fedora installer
Internet connection (for updates + packages)

If you’re installing on a laptop, keep an Ethernet adapter/hotspot handy — Wi‑Fi firmware is the most common “minimal install” snag.

1) Install Fedora minimal

Boot from the USB and follow these steps in the Fedora installer:

Select your language
Set your keyboard layout
In Software Selection, pick the minimal/custom option (keep it minimal)
Configure the disk (choose your layout — Btrfs is a solid default)
Create a user account and keep root disabled (recommended)

At this point you should boot into a minimal Fedora shell environment.

2) First boot: baseline setup

Maximize DNF download speed

Edit DNF’s configuration:

sudo nano /etc/dnf/dnf.conf

Add (or edit) this option:

[main]
max_parallel_downloads=10
defaultyes=True

Enable RPM Fusion repositories

RPM Fusion is needed for some codecs and (commonly) NVIDIA drivers.

sudo dnf install \
  https://mirrors.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm \
  https://mirrors.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm

Update the system:

sudo dnf group upgrade core
sudo dnf upgrade --refresh

3) Install Niri and DankMaterialShell

Run the installer:

curl -fsSL https://install.danklinux.com | sh

In the wizard I selected:

Niri as Window Manager
Alacritty as terminal emulator
dms-greeter as display manager/greeter (a greetd greeter)

Ensure a graphical boot target:

sudo systemctl set-default graphical.target

Now reboot!

4) Post-install: drivers and core functionality

Now that Fedora + Niri + DMS are installed, validate the “core stuff” (networking, graphics, portals, audio). The goal is to catch driver/firmware issues early.

Install core software and firmware packages

sudo dnf install which wget pciutils usbutils linux-firmware

Optional utils:

sudo dnf install plocate autoconf bison re2c libxml2-devel sqlite-devel oniguruma-devel libcurl-devel gd-devel libpq-devel libzip-devel

NOTE: pciutils provides lspci for hardware identification; linux-firmware provides firmware blobs for many peripherals.

Create XDG user directories

This sets up the standard home folders (Downloads, Documents, etc.) using xdg-user-dirs.

sudo dnf install xdg-user-dirs
xdg-user-dirs-update

Wi‑Fi (NetworkManager)

Install and enable NetworkManager:

sudo dnf install NetworkManager NetworkManager-wifi
sudo systemctl enable --now NetworkManager

Verify:

nmcli device status

If Wi‑Fi doesn’t work: diagnose driver/firmware

Troubleshooting commands:

# Identify the Wi‑Fi adapter + kernel driver
lspci -nnk | grep -iA3 net

# Check if common Wi‑Fi modules are loaded
lsmod | grep -E "iwl|rtl|ath9k|ath10k|mt76|b43|bcma"

# Scan logs for firmware/driver errors
sudo dmesg | grep -iE "firmware|wifi|wlan|iwl|rtl|ath|error"

Intel Wi‑Fi firmware manual install (if your adapter needs it)

Download firmware from the upstream linux-firmware repository:

wget https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/firmware/linux-firmware.git/plain/intel/iwlwifi/iwlwifi-so-a0-gf-a0-89.ucode
wget https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/firmware/linux-firmware.git/plain/intel/iwlwifi/iwlwifi-so-a0-gf-a0.pnvm

Move into /lib/firmware/ and fix ownership/permissions:

sudo mv iwlwifi-so-a0-gf-a0-89.ucode /lib/firmware/
sudo mv iwlwifi-so-a0-gf-a0.pnvm /lib/firmware/

sudo chown root:root /lib/firmware/iwlwifi-so-a0-gf-a0-89.ucode /lib/firmware/iwlwifi-so-a0-gf-a0.pnvm
sudo chmod 644 /lib/firmware/iwlwifi-so-a0-gf-a0-89.ucode /lib/firmware/iwlwifi-so-a0-gf-a0.pnvm

Restart the driver:

sudo modprobe -r iwlwifi
sudo modprobe iwlwifi

GPU (Intel + NVIDIA)

Intel iGPU (Mesa)

Install Mesa drivers and the glxinfo tool:

sudo dnf install mesa-dri-drivers mesa-vulkan-drivers mesa-libGL mesa-demos

Verify:

glxinfo | grep "OpenGL renderer"
# Expected: "Mesa Intel(R) ..."

NVIDIA dGPU

Install NVIDIA drivers from RPM Fusion:

sudo dnf install akmod-nvidia xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-cuda

Verify PRIME offload rendering:

__NV_PRIME_RENDER_OFFLOAD=1 __GLX_VENDOR_LIBRARY_NAME=nvidia glxinfo | grep "OpenGL renderer"
# Expected: "NVIDIA GeForce RTX ..."

Quick tip

Add a shell alias for easier PRIME offload testing:

alias prime-run="__NV_PRIME_RENDER_OFFLOAD=1 __GLX_VENDOR_LIBRARY_NAME=nvidia"

XDG Desktop Portals (Flatpak + screenshots/screencast)

Install portal backends:

sudo dnf install xdg-desktop-portal xdg-desktop-portal-gnome xdg-desktop-portal-gtk xdg-desktop-portal-wlr

Add or edit the configuration in ~/.config/xdg-desktop-portal/portal.conf:

[preferred]
default=gnome;gtk
org.freedesktop.impl.portal.Screenshot=wlr
org.freedesktop.impl.portal.ScreenCast=wlr

This uses xdg-desktop-portal-gnome as default and keeps gtk/wlr available for Wayland-specific functionality.

Keyring

Install GNOME Keyring:

sudo dnf install gnome-keyring gnome-keyring-pam seahorse

Set the portal Secret provider in ~/.config/xdg-desktop-portal/portal.conf:

[preferred]
# ... existing config
org.freedesktop.impl.portal.Secret=gnome-keyring

Enable keyring auto-unlock in PAM

Enable fingerprint for sudo access:

sudo authselect enable-feature with-pam-gnome-keyring

Automatically change keyring password with user password

This only affects the login keyring

Append or uncomment to /etc/pam.d/passwd:

password    optional    pam_gnome_keyring.so use_authtok

Audio and microphone (PipeWire)

sudo dnf group upgrade multimedia --exclude=PackageKit-gstreamer-plugin
sudo dnf install pipewire pipewire-pulseaudio pipewire-alsa wireplumber alsa-sof-firmware

systemctl --user enable --now pipewire pipewire-pulse wireplumber

Bluetooth

Troubleshooting:

rfkill list
rfkill unblock bluetooth

Battery power profiles

sudo dnf install power-profiles-daemon

Fingerprint

Install:

sudo dnf install fprintd fprintd-pam

Enroll / list fingerprints:

fprintd-list <user>
fprintd-enroll

Enable fingerprint for sudo access

This will make keyring auto-unlock not work as expected

sudo authselect enable-feature with-fingerprint

Printer

sudo dnf install cups

# Start cups service
sudo systemctl enable cups.service
sudo systemctl start cups.service

Open http://localhost:631 to get CUPS dashboard

# Search for local/network available printers
lpinfo -v

Now configure the printers from DMS "Printers" settings

HP Printers

sudo dnf install hplip

"Open With" / URL handler

Install the common helper:

sudo dnf install xdg-utils

Set DankMaterialShell’s browser picker (dms-open.desktop) as the default browser handler:

xdg-settings set default-web-browser dms-open.desktop

Other quick checks

Keyboard function keys (volume, mute, brightness)
Camera
Screen sharing / recording
External monitor

5) Daily packages

Nautilus file manager + quick preview

sudo dnf install nautilus sushi nautilus-python

NOTE: sushi provides quick previews inside Nautilus.

FFmpeg (H.264 codecs)

sudo dnf swap ffmpeg-free ffmpeg --allowerasing

Flatpak + Flathub

sudo dnf install flatpak

# Add Flathub repository for Flatpak packages
flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://dl.flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo

Disks

sudo dnf install gnome-disk-utility

Btrfs Assistant

sudo dnf install btrfs-assistant

References

Fedora Everything ISO: https://fedoraproject.org/misc/#everything
DankLinux docs: https://danklinux.com/docs
Arch Wiki (for general Linux concepts): https://wiki.archlinux.org/
AI is your best friend!

Jurnal: A Voice-First Journal App with On-Device Whisper + LLM Note

pizidavi — Sun, 15 Feb 2026 21:18:42 +0000

This is a submission for the GitHub Copilot CLI Challenge

What I Built

Jurnal is a simple mobile journaling app that makes it easy to capture "what happened today" using your voice. Instead of starting from a blank page, you record a short voice note, and the app turns it into a clean, structured journal entry you can skim later.

Jurnal is a Romanian term that translates into English as diary or journal.

The core flow is:

Record audio in-app
Transcribe locally on-device using a Whisper model
Send the transcription to a larger LLM to turn it into a real note, with sections like summary/highlights/intentions in Mardown

What I like about this approach is the combination of privacy-first transcription with the "writing assistant" part happening after: I still speak naturally, and the app handles organizing the content into something readable.

Teck stack:

React Native with Expo
react-native-executorch to handle local transcription model
@tanstack/ai to provide online LLM utility
TailwindCSS by Uniwind for styling

Future improvements I'm excited about:

Custom templates for different styles
Choosing custom models for transcription and enrichment
Manual editing of the final note in-app
Smarter search with local RAG
A background queue for long-running processing

Demo

🔗 Repo: https://github.com/pizidavi/jurnal-app

Home	Note	Recording	Settings

My Experience with GitHub Copilot CLI

Copilot CLI was most helpful when I treated planning as a first-class step, not a formality. The biggest productivity boost came from writing a tight plan, implementing in small slices, and then letting the AI validate (and correct) itself.

To support that workflow, I made the project intentionally strict: ESLint rules are restrictive, TypeScript is in strict mode with other custom strict types, and I pushed the assistant to run lint and typecheck command before considering anything as done. That created fast feedback loops and prevents subtle regressions from piling up.

I also built a custom Orchestrator agent that follows a plan → implement → review cycle and repeats until the plan is completed. It was really fun to see the agents correct themselves when they missed a step or introduced a bug.

I'm extremely positive about the future of Copilot CLI: the UI is good and the interaction model fits real development.
One thing I'd love to see next is a persistent allowlist for safe commands (like lint/typecheck/format), so that I don't have to approve them every time.

Have fun!

DEV Community: pizidavi

Minimal Homelab Server with Alpine Linux

1. Install Alpine Linux

2. First Boot: Baseline Setup

Switch to Bash

Install Base Packages

Fix APK Repositories

3. MergerFS + SnapRAID

Prepare the Disks

Mount the Disks

Set Up MergerFS

Set Up SnapRAID

Automate SnapRAID with Cron

4. Tailscale

Tailscale Serve

5. Docker

6. Backup with Backrest

Create a Backblaze B2 Bucket

Docker Compose

Configure Backrest

Final Checklist

References

Minimal Fedora install with Niri + DankMaterialShell

Table of contents

0) Before you start

1) Install Fedora minimal

2) First boot: baseline setup

Maximize DNF download speed

Enable RPM Fusion repositories

3) Install Niri and DankMaterialShell

4) Post-install: drivers and core functionality

Install core software and firmware packages

Create XDG user directories

Wi‑Fi (NetworkManager)

GPU (Intel + NVIDIA)

Intel iGPU (Mesa)

NVIDIA dGPU

XDG Desktop Portals (Flatpak + screenshots/screencast)

Keyring

Enable keyring auto-unlock in PAM

Automatically change keyring password with user password

Audio and microphone (PipeWire)

Bluetooth

Battery power profiles

Fingerprint

Enable fingerprint for sudo access

Printer

HP Printers

"Open With" / URL handler

Other quick checks

5) Daily packages

Nautilus file manager + quick preview

FFmpeg (H.264 codecs)

Flatpak + Flathub

Disks

Btrfs Assistant

References

Jurnal: A Voice-First Journal App with On-Device Whisper + LLM Note

What I Built

Demo

My Experience with GitHub Copilot CLI