Humble Homelab Beginnings
The centerpiece of my privacy efforts is my new home server (or homelab, if you’re a fan of those white coats). It’s a cute little Chuwi Larkbox X that’s running CachyOS (I really wanted to give Proxmox a try, but I had to accept defeat).
Now, I’ve been a full-time laptop nerd for ages. As I’m frequently on the go, I’m pretty used to a laptop-only setup, with no external displays and no keyboard/mouse combo. However, if I wanted to set up my glorious home server, I needed some peripherals.
Fortunately, I had a beautiful Keychron K2 keyboard lying around (from my mechanical keyboard masterrace days), and I borrowed my girlfriend’s corporate mouse. All fine, all dandy to get the pre-installed Windows superseded by my new friend, CachyOS.
If you want to install a new OS from a USB stick, you have to enter the boot menu, of course. For whatever reason, manufacturers cannot agree on a standard key combo to open this menu, so you have to look it up on the interwebs. Been there, done that, no worries: it’s just a quick search.
Well, a quick search revealed that it might be F7. Or F2. Or F2+Del. Maybe only Del. No, it’s Esc.
For me, however, it was none of the above. I just kept smashing through all the key combos I found on the internet with no success, and an ever-increasing fear that I might be stuck with Windows 11 forever. The horror!
That’s when I noticed my Keychron was in Bluetooth mode.