These are in no particular order
- Routers for my local network
- Pihole adblock for my local network
- A self-hosted wireguard host for my personal use
- Nginx-proxy-manager for better domain names (such as server.local)
- A small game engine modeled after the Falling Everything engine
- A small math exercise generator for my little brother in python and c#
- A small 4-bit binary adder/subtractor
- Arduino diy remote controlled car
- Some minor websites
- a simple surrealdb database
- My linux config
In order to set up my WLAN for my home, I had to buy and set up my own router. Having been provided a static IP, I learned how set up my network. I first learned the different operation modes (Router | Access) and their purpose. Afterwards I was introduced into static IPs and some of the important parameters that surround it ( IP, subnet mask, default gateway, etc.). Having entered my static IP, I was introduced to the split between WAN and (LAN + WLAN). I learned of DHCP and it's importance in a network. I configured the DHCP server with an IP address pool and reserved some IPs for some certain devices, and then bound these devices to the corresponding IP.
In short I learned about: WAN, LAN, IP, subnet mask, default gateway, DHCP, router operation modes, IP reservation and IP binding
After having used my network for a while I came to know about local network wide adblocker (such as Pihole) that require no additional installation on the clients. I found out that Pihole acts as a local man-in-the-middle DNS server. At the time I was still quite unfamiliar with DNS servers, so this was a new and welcome exposure to networking. I initially set this up as a base application on my Raspberry Pi (but later moved to a docker container). While configuring the pihole (and setting it as the default DNS server on the DHCP server) I found out more about IPv4 and IPv6 while also learning about DNS filtering. The Pihole comes equipped with the handy feature of auto updating the filter list, given that you provide all the urls (source: firebog).
In short I learned about: DNS, DNS filtering, IPv4, IPv6
I eventually became got wind of docker as an virtualization tool, which I then wanted to integrate into my setup. I first learned what exactly a docker container is and how to compose one. Following that I used it to first install a gui docker container manager (portainer). I moved my pihole install into a docker container in order to learn more about docker and its inner workings. Having ported my pihole setup I began to look out for other container programs to install (these are covered in their respective sections).
In short I learned about: virtualization, docker, docker-compose, docker-stacks and environments using portainer as my docker manager
Having used docker for a while to host all sorts of servers I grew tired of entering a hard to remember IP and port. I looked into getting my own local (free) domain name up and running on my local network. I found and installed nginx-proxy-manager in my docker environment. I first set up some domains (e.g. pihole.local) on my pihole and then configured my proxy manager to redirect these request to the correct port. Although I did initially attempt to set up https support, I quickly realized that that would require an external SSL service which I had no need for. I also explored some of the settings that nginx provides (such as redirection hosts).
In short I learned about: port-forwarding, http and https, ssl, proxy, reverse proxy, 404 Hosts, redirection hosts
Afterwards I wanted to use my network setup even outside of my home and as such I had to use a VPN. I had the choice of using openVPN or wireguard. I ended up choosing wireguard because it is a newer protocol and it is easier on battery life.
In short I learned about: wireguard, VPNs
Previously I did not use git or any other form of source control. After having made a few projects I realized that source control is vital for a solid work flow. I used to simply clone a folder/directory to make any breaking changes. This made file management very difficult.
source control using git
I am not sure when exactly I got to know of rust but it has become my favorite coding language so far. I was searching for a fast lower level ahead-of-time-compiled language and rust happens to fit this criteria perfectly. I was previously considering using c++ for projects, although I wasn't happy with classes and inheritance. Rust boasts of many appealing attributes that any rust evangelist can preach by heart, but the most important one is the compiler and the compiler errors. I will keep using rust and will write some more about it here.
In short I learned about: rust, cargo, toml
Webgpu is the standard that wgpu uses. I am (as of writing this) working on a game engine and I recently decided to switch from one graphic library to my own library due to a lack of certain critical features. Although I did learn most of what I know through wgpu, webgpu and wgpu are very closely aligned. Wgsl was both the shader language for webgpu and wgpu. I personally found wgsl very tiresome and jarring to learn due to all the memory management that was needed.
In short I learned about: wgpu, wgsl
My first bits of code that I wrote were html and css.
In short I learned about: html, css
I learned python in this project
In short I learned about: python
I learned about c# after having made the simple python program that generated python scripts. I wanted to create a gui app that had the same functionality in another language. I even had the idea of selling this application (I never did though).
In short I learned about: c#
Bash scripting was and still is an absolute necessity my usage of linux
In short I learned about: bash
I am currently experimenting with surrealdb to create databases.
In short I learned about: surrealdb, surrealQL, sql
When I was younger I used MacOS because my father gave me his old laptop. Being a young child I wanted to play games on that laptop. Unfortunately this really wasn't possible on mac. I eventually ended up switching to windows once I received my current PC. Sadly over a few years of use and an evergrowing interest in tech my dislike for windows keept increasing. Searching for an alternative I stumbled upon linux.
My first distribution was arch linux. In my attempt to learn the fundamentals of linux I chose to build my linux system 'from the ground up'. This ofcourse was not the only reason as the arch wiki and AUR were extremely attractive features. Although I first struggled with the installation I eventually became somewhat proficient in the installation process. After a few months of sparce usage I kept running into package version conflicts, nvidia driver issues and all sorts of trouble. And as such I moved to nixos.
I am now using NixOS. The reason I switched was primarly due to stability issues on arch. I have recently been exploring the various linux communities. On my quest for a new linux distro I came across NixOS. NixOS promised incredible stability along with a large package repo. NixOS is configured using .nix files which use the nix language. Although I will not into great detail here one thing to note is that the nix compiler provides horrible error messages. The rest of NixOS is incredebly appealing.
In short I learned about: linux, linux file system, disk partitioning, locale, nixos, nix, nix-shell