02 Mar 2026

As I purchased the Lenovo ThinkCentre as my home server, I noticed that the disk was wrong: 256GB instead of 512! I complained with the supplier and they sent me the right one, so now I have a spare SATA SSD with Windows 10 Pro installed.

I knew that this kind of mini PC can handle more than one disk, and that the NVME that eventually sits on the bottom is faster then the SATA, so I bought one at a local retailer (480GB). My idea was to install the system on the fast disk, and to use the slower for backups.

My system of choice is of course Ubuntu. You download the ISO image of the system on a USB device, plug it in the computer and reboot it. You must be sure that the USB device is first in the boot sequence (check your BIOS). In my case, as I have two disks, I put the USB as first bootable device, the NVME as second and so on.

With the USB plugged in, the system it holds will be in charge. From there you can test your machine (see if everything works) or install Ubuntu permanently. I targeted the NVME for the install. Once the process is complete you reboot the machine and unplug the USB, so the installed system takes control of the machine. If something goes wrong you replug the USB and start over.

Ubuntu is a very friendly operating system, you can do almost everything with a graphic interface, but if you are experienced enough, you can use the terminal. In my case I changed the name of the backup disk with the "Disks" application, then I fired up the terminal to change write permissions to the disk, so that any user can write stuff on it:

sudo chmod ugo+rw /path/to/your/disk

Just to remember: this command assigns (+) (r)ead and (w)rite permissions to all (u)sers, (g)roups and (o)thers for a given folder/disk.

04 Feb 2026

While cleaning up my web host account I accidentally destroyed the database of this website, so navigating to digitalkOmiX.com threw a 500 error. Fortunately my web host makes automatic backups, so I just emailed the support team and I received a response within minutes. The *.dump file was uploaded to my account, ready to be restored. A brief explanation of "how to fix" was provided, all by email.

First I had to recreate the database with the same name of the deleted one, along with it's user. Upon creation a new password was issued, so I had to copy/paste it. Accessing my account via SSH in the same directory where the *.dump file was uploaded, I restored the Postgres database with the following command:

pg-restore -U <database user> -d <database name> file.dump

I was prompted for the new password and the process worked seamlessly. Next I had to update the same password in the configuration file of the application that managed the database. I restarted the server and the website was back online!

Huge thanks to the (((Opalstack staff! 

30 Jan 2026

I already have a homelab, but it sits in my studio, so I'll call it StudioLab. It's made from a small HP we had at work, RAM 16 GB, two SSD respectively 512 and 256 GB. It's too big and noisy to stay at home, but suitable for a work environment. It has Proxmox installed, here I learned to use VMs and Linux containers. Actually there is a LXC for a name server (BIND) and a VM with an Immich instance, other stuff is just shut down. The machine is remote controlled via a Tailscale VPN.

29 Jan 2026

I'm building a homelab! First you need a machine: I bought this refurbished Lenovo ThinkCentre M710q Tiny, 16 GB of RAM and a 512 GB SSD. It's a very cute computer, small and quiet. Just one screw and you can access all the internals, on the bottom there is also place for another drive, a NVMe SSD (maybe I'll buy it and install the OS there to speed it up). It comes with Windows 10 Pro installed, but I'll swap it with Ubuntu 24.04. Of course they messed up with the shipment (the SATA SSD is half the size), and I'm waiting for the replacement.

26 Jun 2025

La settimana scorsa è venuto a mancare mio padre. Era un fisico teorico, per il suo contributo alla ricerca potete cercare qui:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesco_Guerra

Papà era molto giovane quando io ed i miei fratelli siamo nati. Abbiamo avuto il privilegio di condividere con lui tante esperienze di prima mano: i primi viaggi all'estero, le prime puntate di Star Trek... Aveva una capacità di concentrazione straordinaria, riempiva fogli e fogli di formule mentre noi nella stanza a fianco distruggevamo i soprammobili a pallonate.

Io ed i miei fratelli siamo nati sotto due Soli, uno molto caldo, quello di mia madre, uno un po' più freddo ma molto luminoso, quello di mio padre. Si sono spenti entrambi, ma ne sentiamo ancora il tepore e ne siamo illuminati.

25 Apr 2025

Una trincea in Ucraina