Virtualisation

Proxmox is one of those tools that looks more intimidating than it is. The installation is straightforward, the web interface is clean, and within an hour of starting you can have your first virtual machine running. This guide walks through the full process from scratch. What you’ll need A machine to install Proxmox on (dedicated hardware or a repurposed PC) A USB drive (at least 2GB) for the installer A network connection (wired preferred for the install) A separate machine to access the web interface from Proxmox runs best on dedicated hardware — it’s a Type 1 hypervisor designed to be the only thing running on the machine. Don’t install it alongside another OS. ...

When you decide to build a homelab around virtualisation, the first real decision you face is which hypervisor to run. It sounds like a technical detail but it shapes everything that comes after — how you manage VMs, how you access the interface, what features you get for free, and how much you’ll be fighting the platform instead of learning from it. I evaluated three options seriously: VMware ESXi, Microsoft Hyper-V, and Proxmox VE. ...