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Node0 is operational. The DI fleet runs inference. Storage serves data. NixOS keeps configs sane. The core works. But “operational” isn’t “finished.” Here’s what’s next. Immediate: Services # The hardware runs. Now it needs to do more. Ollama/vLLM deployment. Proper inference servers with API endpoints. Not just interactive sessions. Services that other…
Every post in this series mentions collaboration with Claude. That’s not marketing. It’s how the work actually happened. What Collaboration Means # Not “AI wrote it for me.” Not “I told AI what to do.” Something in between. Something harder to describe. Planning together. “Here’s what I’m thinking for the ZFS dataset structure. What am I…
Twenty-two months from hardware purchase to operational fleet . Not the fastest path. Not the slowest. The path that happened. Looking back: what would I do differently? Start with Storage # This one I got right. nexus went up first. ZFS. Centralized datasets. NFS exports ready before any compute came online. Every machine that followed mounted storage from day one. No local data silos. No…
Four DI servers. All operational. 128GB+ of VRAM across the fleet. The ability to run 70B parameter models locally. Inference, fine-tuning, training. All on infrastructure I control. Full local capability. Complete control. The freedom to experiment with whatever the work requires. This is what we built. Node0 v1 deployment. The DI fleet running: di01-di04 visible with their color-coded fans,…
The utility tier was up. The production server was stable. Time for the flagship. di01. The heavy iron. The machine for when you need everything. The Specs # Component Spec CPU Threadripper Pro 5975WX (32 cores) RAM 512GB ECC DDR4 GPU 2x RTX 4090 (watercooled) VRAM 48GB total Storage NVMe + NFS from nexus Fans Red (Simon Says) Power ~350W idle, dedicated UPS 32 cores. 512GB ECC. Dual watercooled…
di03 and di04 proved the patterns. Now it was time for the production tier. di02. The workhorse. Stable inference endpoints that don’t go down for experiments. The Specs # Component Spec CPU Threadripper Pro 5945WX (12 cores) RAM 448GB ECC DDR4 GPU 2x RTX 3090 (NVLink bridge) VRAM 48GB total Storage mdadm RAID 1 (OS) + NFS from nexus Fans Yellow (Simon Says) Threadripper Pro for ECC memory.…
Not every workload needs a Threadripper. Before deploying the heavy iron, I brought up the utility tier. di03 and di04. Smaller machines. Essential roles. di03: Utility (Capable) # Component Spec CPU Ryzen 9 5950X (16 cores) RAM 128GB DDR4 GPU RTX 4090 (AIO watercooled) VRAM 24GB Storage NVMe + NFS from nexus Fans Green (Simon Says) The “capable” utility server. 14B-32B models run…
The storage foundation was in place. The network had a name . But the pipe to the outside world was still local point-to-point wireless internet. Good company. I’ve been grateful for them, but it’s affected by weather and is limited to 150mbps. Time to fix that. The Upgrade # Allwest Fiber. 2.5 Gbps down, 1.6 Gbps up. Symmetric-ish. Real bandwidth. PTP wireless was fine for…
The mental shift to config as code on the Framework was practice. Now it was time for the real thing. NixOS across the fleet. The Problem # Every Linux machine is a snowflake. Install packages manually. Configure services by hand. Document what you did (maybe). Hope you remember it later (probably not). Three dev boxes. Four DI servers coming. A storage server. Utility machines. Each one…
December 31, 2025. Last day of the year. The five-day sprint was behind us. Storage deployed. Services running. But something was off. The network was still called TempleOfHarmony. A Name From Another Life # TempleOfHarmony made sense once. A different phase. A different purpose. But this infrastructure wasn’t a temple. It was a node. The first node of something larger. Names matter. They…
December 27 through 30, 2025. Five days. One sprint. A sovereign computing foundation that actually works. This is what got built. Day 1: Storage Goes Live # The storage foundation came first. Nexus, the Terramaster F8-424 Pro, went from box to production. Created ZFS pool with RAIDZ2 (two-drive fault tolerance) Configured datasets with appropriate recordsizes Migrated ~21 TB from old Synology…
After months of the hardware waiting , it was finally time to build. December 27, 2025. The Terramaster F8-424 Pro, codename “nexus”, went from box to production in a single day. The Iron # Component Spec Chassis Terramaster F8-424 Pro Drives 8x Corsair MP600 PRO NH 8TB NVMe Pool ZFS RAIDZ2 Usable 41.3 TiB RAM 48 GB Network 10GbE Eight NVMe drives. Not spinning rust. Not SATA. Full…
Christmas morning. A package I’d been waiting for since pre-ordering months ago. Inside: a Commodore 64 Ultimate . The first real Commodore computer in over 30 years. Not an emulator. Not software pretending. An FPGA recreation of the original silicon, wrapped in a clear case with blue LEDs. And a card with a sticker: Technology That Enables # In 1982, Commodore launched what would become…
A month into the Framework 13 experiment. Time to take stock. Which of the modern CLI tools actually stuck? Which ones am I reaching for daily? The Survivors # These earned permanent spots in muscle memory: fish for interactive shell. The autocompletions alone justify it. Tab through command history with context. Syntax highlighting as you type. Sane defaults without configuration sprawl.
Two days into the Framework 13 setup , something clicked. I wasn’t just learning new tools. I was learning a different way of thinking about configuration. The Old Way # Twenty years of muscle memory: write scripts. Bash, PowerShell, whatever. Step-by-step instructions. Do this, then this, then this. # The imperative approach apt update apt install nginx systemctl enable nginx systemctl…
The hardware had waited for months. But before deploying servers, I needed a development environment that could drive the work. November 2025. Framework 13 with Omarchy. The laptop that would orchestrate everything. The Machine # Component Spec CPU AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 RAM 96GB DDR5 Storage 2.8TB NVMe (btrfs) OS Omarchy (Arch + Hyprland) Framework because repairable, upgradeable, not locked down.…
This post is dated March 2024-when the hardware was purchased. But it’s written in late 2025, looking back with the perspective that only comes after the waiting is over and the building has begun. In March 2024, something shifted. I don’t remember an aha moment. That’s not how I work. When something hits and I know it, I go all in. Within weeks I’d spent a substantial…