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What programming/technical projects have you been working on?
This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?
Pretending to be a python dev, making a package and cli to access bank details via an NZ based open banking gateway service.
https://github.com/jason-s13r/akahu-py
Because I wanted to try Bagels without the data entry.
Started to move my open source projects off of GitHub, GitLab, and BitBucket.
https://repo.autonoma.ca/
It's nice not being subjected to the whims, resource limits, and authentication rules of third-party hosts. A few programming projects of note:
Learning 3D modelling for my audio player project. Except for final assembly (which involves some soldering) and switching over from a Pi 3a+ to Zero 2W, this is the final step to get it fully functional. I originally started using OpenSCAD but quickly found it frustrating so switched to FreeCAD which has been a lot more user friendly and quicker progress. Hoping to have a file to send my friend for printing by middle of next week.
As an aside, since it is fully functional, I have been using it a bit. Been enjoying the warm weather sitting on my balcony listening to music. Images of my balcony listening setup
Right now I am working on a browser based virtual tabletop (For Dungeons & Dragons and other TTRPGs) and I am honestly surprised by how fast I am progressing with the visual part, considering I have never worked with HTML5 Canvas before and I have to look up everything JavaScript related again due to not really writing code in years.
It has been less than 5 days, starting from "how tf do you draw a rectangle?", and it's already in a state with working fog of war, grids, etc that, if I started to do the server side part today, could easily replace the VTT my group currently uses in just a few days.
I am very much enjoying working on this. It's my first "work on it when I am bored and have motivation" project in years.
This is cool! Having an accessible way to do online tabletop games without making everyone buy Tabletop Simulator would be so helpful. Do you plan on adding game rules or keeping it more a simulation?
Well, this has become a way more interesting project than I initially thought. I'm basically working purely with things entirely new to me at this point.
At one point I finally decided on the backend part - I decided on writing a websocket server in Python for this to have some kind of realtime synchronization, ingame chat, etc.
Problem 1: I never used Python
Problem 2: Indentation syntax is killing my nerves, but I'm making it work
To answer your question though: I plan on having basic mod support (adding, deleting, updating objects, maps, shapes in order to build visual stuff on the canvas, as well as overall UI related functions), which can then be used for things like character sheets and rule related features.
My wife has a few old wordpress blogs that she's been paying to host and her current 3 year term is up at the end of this year. Last time it renewed I said that I was going to try to learn how to self host it in a homelab or something. I also want to move a few existing services I run on separate machines onto one setup (jellyfin, homeassistant, minecraft server).
I feel like I've learned a bunch of things associated with it but not exactly how to setup a homelab like this. Based on my first bit of research I was thinking about doing a proxmox cluser with a couple of Pi5's I have + a 1L pc and then maybe adding Pi's later on as needed... and sticking that all in a little 10" rack like the one from GeeekPi.
I think I need a sanity check or something here. I'm I headed in the right direction?
I'm not of much help on the setting up side of things, but just wanted to say that if time ran out on the hosting, I'd be happy to host you for free until you did get your home setup working.
Thanks for the offer. I do have roughly 6 months though. I think I can get this sorted by then... probably... as long as I don't put it off...
Honestly, for a couple of Wordpress blogs, a proxmox cluster is way overkill. If you want to do it to learn and try new things, it’s a great project, but only if your goal is learning. If you just want to host her Wordpress sites, throw the pi equivalent of Debian on one of those pis and call it good. If they really get that much traffic, you can separate it to one site on each pi.
Part of the goal is definitely just to learn, but if it was JUST the wordpress blogs I'd slap that on one Pi and call it good. As it stands I'd like to do the 2 websites, 1 ultra low traffic flask page I have (part of a whole other project), jellyfin, minecraft server... and maybe nextcloud at some point if I can convince my local union to move off of microsoft/onedrive.
Part of my goal is to have a setup where I can really easily setup a little projects and tear it down which is why I think something like proxmox sounds interesting.
Part of sanity check is... is doing a Pi cluster a good way to do this or should I just buy a bigger single machine and is proxmox a good way to achieve this. Another sanity check is cost: hosting was around 500 CAD last time (probably for more resources than we need at this point) so that's the budget I was thinking of doing this with and honestly thats not a ton of money once I start buying a little rack, mounting plates, etc for the pi cluster.
Honestly, and this is just my opinion, the pi cluster isn’t worth it (except possibly for learning). Raspberry pis are really cool, but I don’t personally think they make sense anymore for basic computing. If you want gpio, there isn’t really any alternative. But for basic computing, you can do way better. As you know, with a pi, you need the pi itself, a case, power supply, storage device, possibly an m.2 adapter, and in your case a rack. If you want more than a negligible amount of ram, that is going to add up to quite a bit. Just last year I bought a refurbished HP mini pc with 16gb ram and a 4 or 6 core ryzen for 157€ on amazon. With your 500$ budget, you can get a much more capable system. And the only thing a pi cluster will do better at is power draw.
The only thing you list that seems even remotely resource intensive is jellyfin (if transcoding) and a Minecraft server. If the Minecraft server isn’t very large, and you don’t need to transcode at the same time, all of that would probably run fine on a single pi through docker, and a single mini pc server would be way more than enough.
That’s just my opinion though. I’ve found that making things simpler usually makes me enjoy them more, and makes them less prone to breaking.
I do agree that pi's mostly don't make sense for most applications. The main reason I would consider it for this is because I have 3 Pi5's (I think I said I had 2 before but I actually have 3) plus the 1L PC. I do still need to buy propper storage though, but that's true either way I do this.
Oh! I missed the fact that you already have those! That changes the calculations quite a bit.
Something that could be interesting is just getting storage for the 1l pc, not the pis. Proxmox has a separate server OS that is designed to be a storage server for Proxmox VM machines to use. I think it can provide NetBoot images for those machines as well. Could be a fun project!