In creating the tutorial, “Installing NixOS on Raspberry Pi 4,” I ran into a ton of paths that didn’t work.

I’ve collected them here for the sake of saving others time retrying the same steps.

The standard NixOS aarch64 image doesn’t work

When I checked the NixOS download page, I saw that they offered 64-bit ARM images.

Highlights

• I’m trying to figure out where I’m spending unnecessary time on TinyPilot.
• I realized I’ve once again become addicted to email.
• I built my first server rack.

Goal grades

At the start of each month, I declare what I’d like to accomplish. Here’s how I did against those goals:

I recently bought my first-ever managed networking switch, a TP-Link JetStream TL-SG3428X.

The main feature of a managed switch is that it lets you segment your network into VLANs. I was excited about this functionality, but it took me hours of trial and error to get VLANs working.

I found TP-Link’s VLAN documentation lacking, so I’m sharing my notes in case they’re helpful to others.

Nix is a tool for configuring software environments according to source files. I’ve been hearing more and more about Nix on Hacker News and Twitter. The idea of it appeals to me, so I’ve been tinkering with it over the past few weeks.

My history with infrastructure as code

Ten years ago, I discovered Salt, a tool that allows you to define a computer system’s configuration in source code. I loved the idea of a git repo that defined what services were installed on my computers and VMs. I could blow away the computer, re-run the configuration tool, and get it back to the same state.

Highlights

• I frantically tried to come up with $250k for a large expense.
• I evaluate how a contract manufacturer will change my finances.
• Outsourcing to a 3PL vendor is less expensive than I expected.

Goal grades

At the start of each month, I declare what I’d like to accomplish. Here’s how I did against those goals: