If you run a home lab long enough, this realization eventually hits you: a lot of your hardware spends more time idle than working. Servers sized for future growth, machines you planned to use for one thing but never quite did, systems that stay powered on 24/7 but barely break a sweat. Thanks to how […]
Rolling Network Racks: The Ultimate Upgrade for Home Networks
This article focuses on the benefits of rolling network racks for established or expanding home networks. If you’re looking for a comprehensive guide to building your first home lab, read my Home Lab Beginners Guide to Hardware article. Managing a modern home network or home lab often involves juggling multiple devices, cables, and upgrades. After […]
50 Top Observability and Monitoring Solutions – 2026
“A more targeted list that includes 50 server and observability solutions for 2026” Back in 2014, I compiled a list of top server and application performance monitoring solutions. Sharing that list publicly was a great way to gain feedback and recommendations on other tools available. Over time that list grew from 20 to over 100 server monitoring […]
Learn Linux: 4 Devices to boost your Linux skills (2026)
Ready to go on a journey that will take your Linux skills to the next level and beyond what theoretical learning can? The devices in this article will give you hands-on experience and change how you think and use Linux skills in real-life scenarios. What is the Linux Operating System? Linux is a free and […]
Free Linux Server Monitoring and APM solutions for SysAdmins
Today’s software applications require developers, testers, and SysAdmins to work together (DevSecOps) more seamlessly than ever before. A single line of code or poorly configured service can negatively impact your application’s performance, causing crippling slowdowns for end-users. This is where infrastructure and application monitoring comes in. Regarding Linux server monitoring, monitoring critical performance metrics of […]
Ubuntu LTS Support Extended to 15 Years
If you’re like me and value a rock-solid Linux setup that you don’t have to reinstall every couple of years, you’ll appreciate this news. I recently wrote about switching my daily OS from Kali Linux Rolling to Ubuntu 24.04 LTS (with Ubuntu Pro’s ESM) specifically for its long-term support benefits. That move meant I could […]
100 Top Observability Tools (+ Server Monitoring and APM solutions)
Looking for application monitoring and observability solutions? On this page, I’ve listed the top application performance monitoring (APM), infrastructure monitoring, and observability solutions to date. The listings are updated periodically as APM and observability solutions continue a rapid evolution. While I haven’t tested all of these solutions, I’ve used more than a third of them. […]
Linux Troubleshooting: These 4 Steps Will Fix 99% of Errors
I’ll admit, I hesitated a bit before writing this post. The whole point of this linuxblog.io and linuxcommunity.io forum is to bring together like-minded Linux users and professionals so we can troubleshoot, share ideas, and learn from one another. For a moment I thought, is it really productive for me to publish something that shows […]
80,000 GitHub Stars and I’m Just Finding This?! – Immich
Tonight, I stumbled upon Immich, a self-hosted photo and video management solution, and I’m blown away. With Immich, you can back up and organize all your photos and videos on your own server. It even promises AI-powered search of your media. Somehow Immich completely flew under my radar until now. Key highlights of Immich: Self-hosted […]
How to Install Docker on Linux and Run Your First Container
Docker is a platform for packaging and running applications in isolated units called containers. Each container bundles an application together with its libraries and dependencies, sharing the host’s Linux kernel instead of a full separate OS. In practice, containers are much lighter than traditional virtual machines, yet they allow you to deploy services (websites, databases, […]
