2023-2024 winter project planning

With my contracting season winding down, I’m starting to plan projects that I will do with my free time through the winter. We normally shut down our sprinkler/landscaping business from about Thanksgiving (US) to Valentine’s Day, which is about 80 days.

I’m in the Seattle area, so its cold and wet and not a season for outdoors stuff. I do some here and there, but for the most part I work on my various tech projects, spend time with family, and rest before the next construction season.

Here’s what I’m thinking for this winter:

• Convert all devices to Debian 12. Right now I have a mix of Mint and Ubuntu. I’d like to just move them all to Debian 12 stable so they are all the same.
• Dual boot my primary desktop with Crunchbang++ (Debian 12 base 😜) and HoloISO/ChimeraOS. I’d like to separate gaming from my other tasks and make the gaming side into a console-like experience. I don’t game often and I’d like to have the flexibility to play around with my non-gaming setup and leave the gaming side to just do that one thing.
• Get a new phone. Mine is officially EOL and as a business owner, security is very important to me. My phone is also my laptop with DeX mode and a lapdock. I need something with long term support, desktop mode, and is a reasonable process to change out the battery. So, another Samsung is in the cards.
• Configure my homelab to turn off at night. Wrote about this recently here Migrating back to the original Raspberry Pi B+.
• Get my Pinebook Pro working as a cold season workstation. My office is my shop/garage (contractor, remember) and in the cold season its freezing out here. I’d like to setup a low power workstation in my bedroom with the PBP and a portable monitor at a small desk, which is all stuff I already have. I need to figure out why my PBP suddenly stopped working with USB-C hubs and display out.
• Build a HTPC and get off Android TV. I’m done with the stupid ads and autoplaying videos on Android TV boxes. I only need access to my Plex library, Tubi, and YouTube. I think I pull this off with Android X86, Kodi, SmartTubeNext, and a web browser.

There’s also a bunch of other stuff, but it all relies on me suddenly having a lot more money (like replacing homelab hard drives with lower power, another Pi/SBC for SHTF build, replace my monitors). In the list above, the only purchase I have is a new phone which might be a stretch to buy in the offseason.

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