Welcome, 2026! This year I’m going to get my hands a little dirtier by shifting from theory-heavy exploration into something more concrete: real hardware, real experiments, real mistakes—and the lessons that come from all of it.

This year started with three repurposed Lenovo 720q Tiny PCs. They’re not new; in fact, they’re e-waste from my job, since they’re too old to upgrade to Windows 11. But they are more than capable of becoming something useful! 

So I did what any Linux enthusiast with curiosity and a desire to set up a home lab would do. I turned them into a Proxmox cluster.

Why a Proxmox Cluster?

I’ve written about Linux systems from the perspective of a daily driver: desktops, workflows, tools, and configuration. But increasingly, my curiosity has shifted more towards infrastructure—how systems run behind the scenes.

Proxmox sits at an interesting intersection:

• Linux-based
• Open source
• Widely used in homelabs and
• Powerful enough to do real work

Rather than reading about Proxmox in the abstract, I wanted to learn it the only way that really sticks: by building something real and seeing what breaks.

The Cluster: Small Machines, Big Lessons

The cluster itself is modest:

• Three Lenovo 720q Tiny PCs
• Repurposed hardware instead of new purchases
• Low-power draw
• Quiet enough to live outside a data center
• Just complex enough to be educational 

I plan to write about

• Initial setup and configuration decisions
• Storage choices and mistakes
• Networking confusion
• Clustering quirks
• Backup strategies
• Updates that go smoothly—and the ones that don’t
• Things I wish I’d known earlier 

This won’t be a polished “how-to guide from an expert.”
It will be a learning journal—documenting what works, what doesn’t, and why.

Learning Proxmox the Honest Way

There’s a lot of Proxmox content online. Much of it assumes:

• Prior virtualization experience
• Comfort with enterprise terminology
• A willingness to gloss over mistakes

That’s not how I learn, and it’s not how I want to write.

This year at Einstein’s Saloon, you’ll see:

• Incremental progress
• Honest missteps
• Configuration experiments
• Rebuilds
• Revisions
• “I broke this, and here’s what I learned” posts. 

If you’re curious about Proxmox but intimidated by it, this series is for you.

Expanding the Scope: 3D Printing Joins the Saloon

Alongside virtualization, another hands-on tool has become a bigger part of my daily tech life: 3D printing.

While it may not look like traditional Linux territory at first glance, 3D printing fits naturally into the same mindset:

• Open-source software
• Tinkering and iteration
• Hardware meets software
• Learning by doing
• Solving real problems with tools you control 

In 2026, I’ll be writing about:

• How I’m using my 3D printers
• Practical projects
• Lessons learned from failed prints
• Workflow tweaks
• 3D modeling
• How open-source tools fit into the process
• Why 3D printing isn’t just a novelty

I won’t be writing about flashy figurines, but about useful, repeatable outcomes—the same philosophy that drives everything else here.

What Einstein’s Saloon Will Be in 2026

This year, the site will lean into:

• Real systems, not hypotheticals
• Learning in public
• Repurposing hardware
• Open-source infrastructure
• Practical experimentation
• Honest documentation 

Less “perfect setups” and more “here’s what actually happened.”

Einstein’s Saloon remains the genius bar for the free and open-source community, but in 2026, the genius will look a little messier.

Looking Ahead

If you’re interested in

• Proxmox without the enterprise gloss
• Building useful systems from leftover hardware
• Watching someone learn infrastructure from the ground up
• Practical Linux-adjacent projects
• 3D printing with purpose 

Then you’re in the right place.

Pull up a stool; let’s build, break, and learn together in 2026!