Why I started homelab?

Homelab is cool, but why did I start it? The reason why I started is completely different from what I use it for today. Maybe the reason will again change in the future.

The Start

I’ve always been fond of my friend running his home automation setup with a bunch of smart lights, fans and other home appliances using Home Assistant running on an old Mac Mini. I was curious and jealous and wanted my own of something similar.

Luckily, I had a old yet powerful server that was given to me by my brother from his old office. It was Dell Precision 3630, with a i7 CPU and 16GB RAM. I knew it was way to powerful for a home assistant. And that day I flashed a Linux Mint on that. And it was a bad choice.

Why Home Assistant failed for me?