Ubuntu on Technical Notes

ProxmoxVE Helper Scripts

Thu, 14 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

If you have little experience it might be a bit daunting, which is why I recommend this wonderful project: Proxmox VE Helper-Scripts, where you’ll find hundreds of scripts to make your life easier installing CTs or VMs on top of your Proxmox.

A Decent Windows

Sun, 03 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This post is about deflating, removing what I personally believe is unnecessary in Windows 11. In English they call it debloat or bloatware removal. In this post I explain how to do it on a fresh Windows install, but it also works on an existing one.

The point is to remove apps, services and pre-installed junk that aren’t essential, consume resources and worst of all, affect performance and UX.

Home mDNS

Sun, 09 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Multicast DNS (mDNS) is a networking protocol designed to resolve hostnames to IP addresses within small networks, without the need for a local DNS server. It requires no configuration (zero-configuration) and uses the same programming interfaces, packet formats and operational semantics as unicast Domain Name System (DNS).

It was designed to work as either a standalone protocol or alongside standard DNS servers. mDNS can work together with DNS Service Discovery (DNS-SD), a complementary zero-configuration networking technique specified separately in RFC 6763.

Router with PiHole 6

Sat, 08 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

A couple of months ago I moved the DHCP and DNS services to my home Linux router and left the Pi-Hole 5 service on a separate virtual machine. Despite everything working perfectly, I hit a snag: troubleshooting from PiHole is complicated because all DNS queries are resolved by the router and PiHole sees nothing. So I decided to redesign the setup.

In this post I describe how I install Pi-Hole 6 on my Linux router so it provides DNS, DHCP (with dnsmasq) and ad sinkholing. This involves undoing the native dnsmasq installation.

DHCP and DNS Server

Thu, 26 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

In this post I describe how I’ve evolved my home DHCP and DNS server. Until now I had a PiHole dedicated on the network to DHCP, DNS and ad sinkhole. I’ve decided to migrate to a different configuration, move both DNS and DHCP services to the home router (Linux).

I realized that when PiHole went down, the rest of the home services would spiral out of control, despite having the router and internet working, so I’m leaving PiHole exclusively as the ad sinkhole.

Windows for Development

Sun, 25 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

In this post I describe the steps to set up a Windows 11 machine as a development workstation for a cross-platform environment — Linux, macOS, and Windows. This is not oriented towards Microsoft/Windows-only software development, but rather for those who like to develop on and for multiple platforms and environments.

I start from a clean Windows installation (in English), with nothing installed. I took advantage of needing to set up a dual boot and configured the operating system in a lightweight manner. The post starts with the CLI and WSL2, and in the second part I cover the tools and programming languages.

A Decent Windows (Obsolete)

Sat, 24 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

In this post I explain how I configure a Windows 11 that I’m going to use for software development, testing or demos. I don’t need frills since it won’t have sensitive data, I want its essence, bare-bones, with few applications, some browsing and that’s it. In the end it became a technical exercise – removing everything I can, ads, Edge, extras, installing minimal drivers, a local account, having it boot and be available as soon as possible.

Note: a year later I decided to create a new decent Windows 11 (2025).

Dualboot Linux Windows

Fri, 23 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Dualboot means having two operating systems on the same computer and choosing which one to boot during the boot phase. My goal is to prepare my PC for dualboot and install Windows 11 Pro. Normally you install Windows first and then Linux, but in my case I already have Linux (Ubuntu) working perfectly and using the entire 4TB disk.

I’m going to “add” Windows to enable dualboot. I describe the entire process, how I did it, how I resized the hard drive, added Windows and customized the boot menu.

Linux for Development

Thu, 25 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

In this post I describe my configuration log for setting up a Linux (Ubuntu) machine as a development workstation. I install several graphical and command-line applications that are essential for my workflow.

Starting from a fresh Ubuntu installation, the installation order can be varied, but I recommend (if your Ubuntu is freshly installed) that you follow the same order to see the same results.

Home Automation and Networking

Sat, 08 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I’m sharing my home networking setup with the option to knock on the door for on-demand access from the Internet. Today’s home networks end up supporting multiple services, and with the rise of home automation things get complicated, so I’ve decided to document it to keep track of everything in the future.

The number of devices grows and maintaining the network of a smart and automated home becomes a priority. I dedicate this post to those Geeks or Techies who, like me, have been deep into the complexity of networking in a home automation network for a long time.

Proxmox: VM from Template

Fri, 07 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Proxmox VE is a powerful and easy-to-use open-source virtualization platform that enables the deployment and management of virtual machines (VMs with KVM/QEMU) and containers (CTs based on LXC). Proxmox offers Templates to minimize the creation time of new instances of these virtual machines or containers.

In this post I focus on how to create my own Virtual Machine Templates along with a cloud-based image and cloud-init.