Stack
WHAT RUNS THIS PLACE
This entire site — and everything behind it — runs on a ThinkPad T440p from 2014. No cloud. No subscriptions. Just a laptop that refuses to die.
Here’s everything, laid bare.
THE HARDWARE
ThinkPad T440p — The Server
This is the backbone. A 2014 business laptop sitting on a shelf, running 24/7.
- CPU: Intel Core i7-4810MQ (4 cores, 8 threads)
- RAM: 16GB DDR3
- Storage: 256GB SSD
- GPU: Integrated (Intel HD 4600)
- Power draw: ~15W idle
- Monthly cost: ~€5 in electricity
People throw these away. I run my entire digital life on one.
It’s quiet, it sips power, and it handles everything I throw at it. The keyboard is still better than most new laptops, but that’s a different rant.
Gaming PC — The Heavy Lifter
For the stuff the ThinkPad can’t do — local AI, image processing, anything GPU-intensive.
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5500
- GPU: AMD RX 6600 (8GB VRAM)
- RAM: 32GB DDR4
- Power draw: ~60W idle
- Role: Local AI, Ollama, batch processing
Not always on. Boots up when I need muscle, sleeps the rest of the time.
THE SOFTWARE
Operating System
Linux Mint 22.2 Cinnamon on both machines. It just works. No tweaking, no fighting the OS — install it and get on with your life. If you’re coming from Windows, this is the one I’d recommend.
Web Server
nginx 1.24 — Serves this site as static HTML. No PHP, no Node, no application server. Hugo generates the pages, nginx hands them to your browser. That’s it.
This Blog
Hugo — Static site generator. I write markdown files, Hugo turns them into HTML. No database, no CMS, no login page to get hacked. The entire site is a folder of files.
The design is custom — no theme, no framework. Just HTML and CSS I wrote myself, inspired by Teenage Engineering’s product design. Monospace type, green accents, hardware-panel aesthetics.
Docker
Most services run in Docker containers. It keeps things isolated and reproducible. If something breaks, I nuke the container and start fresh. The ThinkPad runs docker compose and doesn’t complain.
THE SERVICES
Immich — Photo & Video Backup
My Google Photos replacement. Every photo from my phone backs up automatically to the ThinkPad over the local network. Face recognition, search, shared albums — it does everything Google Photos does, except it doesn’t sell my face to advertisers.
n8n — Automation
Workflow automation, self-hosted. Think Zapier but it runs on my hardware. I use it for notifications, backups, and gluing services together. The visual editor is genuinely good.
Ollama — Local AI
Large language models running locally on the gaming PC’s GPU. Currently running Qwen 2.5 14B. It’s not GPT-4, but it’s private, it’s fast enough, and nobody’s reading my prompts.
More to Come
I’m always testing new stuff. If it works well enough to recommend, it’ll get a guide on this blog.
THE NETWORK
Nothing fancy. Home internet, a basic router, and a Wireguard VPN for when I want to access things remotely. No static IP — I use a dynamic DNS service.
The ThinkPad sits on the local network. Services that need to be public go through nginx with proper TLS. Everything else stays internal.
THE PHILOSOPHY
This stack exists to prove a point: you don’t need to rent someone else’s computer.
The cloud is just someone else’s server, with someone else’s rules, at someone else’s price. I spent less on this entire setup than one year of Google One + iCloud + a VPS would cost.
Is it more work than clicking “Sign up” on a cloud service? Yes. But I own my data, I control my infrastructure, and my monthly costs are a fraction of what they’d be otherwise.
The ThinkPad draws 15 watts. That’s less than a lightbulb. It hosts my photos, my automations, my blog, and it does it all without breaking a sweat.
Total monthly cost: ~€5.
No subscriptions. No price hikes. No “we’re updating our terms of service.” Just a laptop on a shelf, doing its job.
WANT TO BUILD YOUR OWN?
You don’t need to copy my stack exactly. Start with one thing:
- Got an old laptop? Install Linux Mint. See if it still runs.
- Want your photos private? Set up Immich. It’s the single best self-hosting win.
- Curious about local AI? Ollama takes 5 minutes to install.
You don’t need to do everything at once. Pick the thing that bugs you most about Big Tech, and replace just that one thing. Then see how it feels.
I’ll be writing guides for all of this. That’s the whole point of this site.