Latest posts
- Building a mini Homelab that fits in my carry-onAug 28, 2026jeff@jeffgeerling.com (Jeff Geerling)
I'm traveling to Chicago for VCF Midwest next month. I'll be demoing NTP time history on vintage Macs, with my own GPS-derived NTP service hosted on an Xserve G5, synced via NTP or a strange AppleTalk timing extension from the 1990s. So I built a little 'portable homelab' (pictured above) that supports 1-10 Gbps networking, can run off a small battery for at least an hour, switches between mult
- Debugging Ubiquiti's 5G Backup on AT&TAug 25, 2026jeff@jeffgeerling.com (Jeff Geerling)
For a mobile 'mini homelab' project I'm working on, I wanted to use 5G Internet as a primary 'on-to-go' connection, but still have the ability to plug in another Internet connection when I put the mobile rack I'm building in a fixed location. I'll have more on that project soon, but I figured this project was a good way to check out Ubiquiti's solutions, especially considering many of their sma
- Getting the Steam Deck LCD working on a Raspberry PiAug 20, 2026jeff@jeffgeerling.com (Jeff Geerling)
The BOE TV070WXM-TV0 LCD used in the original Steam Deck can be had for around $30. It's a serviceable 7" touchscreen with 400 nits of brightness and a resolution of 1280x800 (for a sharp 216 ppi). The specs are a lot nicer than the Pi 7" Touch Display, which costs twice as much, with giant bezels and half the resolution! Until today, the Steam Deck LCD didn't work with a Raspberry Pi. But the
- Hands-on with Raspberry Pi's CM5 Programming JigAug 19, 2026jeff@jeffgeerling.com (Jeff Geerling)
In the before-times, when Raspberry Pi CM5s were (relatively) affordable, I built a number of Pi clusters (example), and one of the most annoying parts of the build was flashing Raspberry Pi OS to all the Pis. One, two, or even three Pis isn't a big deal, but once you hit 4+, the process of plugging the Compute Module into a carrier board, plugging that into a computer, managing Raspberry Pi Im
- I'm excited for Intel after testing the XPS 13Aug 07, 2026jeff@jeffgeerling.com (Jeff Geerling)
Shortly after Apple launched the budget MacBook Neo, Dell announced their response, a new low-end XPS 13. Matching the Neo's current pricing, it starts at $699, or $599 with an educational discount. That discount is currently set to expire on November 2, and with the current component pricing insanity, I'd be surprised if we don't see a price increase on both laptops by next year. I ran the XPS
- Proxmox officially supports Arm, with some caveatsAug 05, 2026jeff@jeffgeerling.com (Jeff Geerling)
Proxmox today announced their Proxmox Virtual Environment is now available for 64-bit ARM. I tested it on my Ampere Altra Dev Platform—the same machine on which I've booted Windows on Arm the first time, messed with multiple GPUs, and most recently tested Houdini's native arm64 support. Install was easy, as the Ampere Altra uses UEFI / ACPI for its hardware, meaning Proxmox didn't have to tailo
- Getting 25 Gbps Thunderbolt Ethernet on my Mac StudioJul 31, 2026jeff@jeffgeerling.com (Jeff Geerling)
I've been using the built-in 10 Gigabit Ethernet on my Mac Studio for a few years. It works fine: I can edit 4K video straight off my NAS over the network, and run backups at around 1 GB/sec. But... I want more. I upgraded my rack and my NAS to 25 GbE a couple years ago, and wanted to upgrade my main workstation, too.
- Adding a backup Internet WAN on my OPNsense RouterJul 23, 2026jeff@jeffgeerling.com (Jeff Geerling)
AKA "Spectrum has gone down two weeks in a row and I'm sick of it". I've been borrowing a portable 5G gateway from my Dad for a few weeks, for testing... and two weeks in a row, I've used it as a backup Internet option, since my Spectrum Business cable Internet has gone down. And yes, I'd get AT&T Fiber if I had the option, sadly they don't yet provide service at my studio. So I'm stuck with on
- Open Sauce and GPS time were my summer AI AntisepticsJul 22, 2026jeff@jeffgeerling.com (Jeff Geerling)
In the midst of our AI slop revolution, traveling to the West coast for Open Sauce this past weekend was the perfect antiseptic for rising costs, summer heat, and online divisiveness. It's ironic, then, that I used Claude to vibe code my Tufty GPS Time Badge. Partly due to time constraints, and partly because I wanted to see if I could complete a personal project end-to-end, without editing a l
- QuadRF can spot drones and see WiFi through my wallJul 10, 2026jeff@jeffgeerling.com (Jeff Geerling)
The QuadRF (pictured above) a phased-array radio built around a Raspberry Pi 5 and an FPGA board with picosecond-level timing. It does advanced signal processing and beamforming. It can see WiFi through walls and track drones in flight. If the open source community can come up with something like this, just imagine what governments are capable of. When you plug a computer into a network, tools lik
- The Special Value Pi 4 was extremely short-livedJul 08, 2026jeff@jeffgeerling.com (Jeff Geerling)
The 'Special Value' Pi 4 pictured above is probably the rarest Raspberry Pi I own—even rarer than my blue special edition Pi. A Raspberry Pi reseller briefly listed a special 'value edition' Pi 4. But the product page 404's now. While it was up, my curiosity got the better of me, and now I have two 'value' Pi 4s. What makes them a 'value'? They're only certified to run at 1.25 GHz (retail Pi 4s ru
- Quickly apply LUTs (color grading) with ffmpegJun 26, 2026jeff@jeffgeerling.com (Jeff Geerling)
This is a quick post, mostly for my own reference. I've avoided LUTs and 'Log' video footage for years1, mostly because of the extra tiny bit of workflow involved. Like RAW photos, 'Log' footage retains the video sensor's full dynamic range, so you can pull more color and luminance information out of the footage later. But unlike photography, where RAW has been a thing for decades, and many workfl
- Framework's 10G Ethernet module exposes USB-C's complexityJun 24, 2026jeff@jeffgeerling.com (Jeff Geerling)
I've been following WisdPi's development of various 5 Gbps and 10 Gbps Ethernet adapters for the past couple years. They use newer Realtek Ethernet chips, which sometimes have performance quirks—most frequently encountered under Linux. In today's video, I tested the new WisdPi 10G Ethernet Expansion Card for Framework computers. It fits in any available Framework Expansion slot—even on the Framewo
- You can finally power on a Mac remotelyJun 12, 2026jeff@jeffgeerling.com (Jeff Geerling)
Apple FINALLY lets you turn on your Mac remotely, without having to press the power button. In the media, articles suggest it's a reaction to Mac mini power button complaints. While I agree the M4 mini's power button is in a really dumb spot, that's not why I care about this feature. The two bigger use cases for me have been a pain for years:
- I tested every IP KVM in my HomelabJun 05, 2026jeff@jeffgeerling.com (Jeff Geerling)
Since the PiKVM came out in 2017, there's been an explosion of IP KVMs. I've tested almost every one. But what are they good for? You can use Remote Desktop, Screen Sharing, or VNC to remote control a computer from anywhere on a LAN. And if you don't have a private VPN, you could use RealVNC, Raspberry Pi Connect, or wire up Tailscale or Pangolin for fully remote access. Those solutions are great,
- It's hard to justify buying a Framework 12May 29, 2026jeff@jeffgeerling.com (Jeff Geerling)
My nephew just graduated high school, and wants a laptop. When he decides what computer to buy, price (or more precisely, value) is the most important attribute. Apple's MacBook Neo upended the 'value laptop' equation—Apple's not supposed to be both the cheapest option and the best value... but it seems like that's squarely where the Neo landed for the good-but-cheap laptop category. My nephew
- Tuning in FM Radio on a 3D Printer HeatbedMay 28, 2026jeff@jeffgeerling.com (Jeff Geerling)
Pooch from Repkord dropped by my studio while he was in St. Louis, and asked a simple question: Can a 3D printer's heatbed act as an antenna? A fair question, as many an antenna is embedded in a PCB these days... and the traces on a PCB heatbed like the one used in Prusa's Core One look kinda like an antenna, if you squint the right way. Really, anything (or anyone) can be an antenna, given eno
- I patched iozone for better disk benchmarks on modern macOSMay 27, 2026jeff@jeffgeerling.com (Jeff Geerling)
A decade ago, I settled on iozone for disk benchmarking on all my systems. Tools like fio ('Flexible IO' tester) are a little more capable for raw disk performance testing, and other tools test network-scale filesystems better, but iozone gives me an easy overview of real-world disk performance across hard drives and SSDs, and runs on Mac, Windows, and Linux (and a smattering of other OSes). It
- News about Raspberry Pi 6 and Microcontroller DevelopmentMay 22, 2026jeff@jeffgeerling.com (Jeff Geerling)
On Thursday, three of the lead Raspberry Pi engineers hosted an AMA on the r/engineering subreddit. Raspberry Pi 6 One of the most interesting tidbits was on the Pi 6. Looking back at previous launches: 2012: Raspberry Pi 2015: Raspberry Pi 2 (+3 years) 2016: Raspberry Pi 3 (+1 year) 2019: Raspberry Pi 4 (+3 years) 2023: Raspberry Pi 5 (+4 years) Following that cycle, one would expect a Pi 6 3-
- Wi-Wi Is Wireless Time Sync at 1 nanosecondMay 19, 2026jeff@jeffgeerling.com (Jeff Geerling)
At NAB, I found a demo of Wi-Wi STAMP, a wireless time synchronization protocol that came out of Japan's NICT. Wi-Wi stands for Wireless 2Way interferometry, and it uses the 900 MHz band for picosecond-level time sync, and mm-level distance accuracy, in a tiny box, currently the size of a smartphone. The system is still in development, but existing prototypes have 20ps of phase synchronization