Welcome to NorthstarGeek
Welcome to NorthstarGeek, the home of random information related to topics revolving around Home Assistant and home automation, laser Engraving, household tech and other things I’ve found helpful over the years.
Check below for the latest and be sure to have a look at the other topics!
Laser Engraving Posts – December 2025
Slower Winter – Perfect for Laser Engraving As we approach the Christmas season, I have found that I have a bit more time on my hands. Crazy, I know! Seems that lots of folks find themselves busier this time of year than any other! I think spending some time out in the garage laser engraving is good winter therapy. Especially with a much better heating system than I've had in the past!Anyway, with my new …
ProxmoxVE – Installation
In my previous writing I went over some of the pre-req's for getting a bootable copy of ProxmoxVE onto a USB stick. Now that you have your bare metal ready to go, be sure that you have the option to change the boot order or select your USB as a temporary boot device. Check your manual on how to do this or hop onto your search engine of choice for the steps needed. I'd cover …
ProxmoxVE – Pre Install/Setup – Part 2
Optimal Hardware on a Budget When i first looked into setting up a homelab and went down the home automation route, I really wanted high end hardware capable of running a massive amount of VMs and not worry about allocating RAM, CPU and storage. While I was able to get my hands of some HP DL360's (Enterprise Server Hardware) I soon realized the cost of running even one of those units in the form of …
ProxmoxVE – Pre Install/Setup – Part 1
Proxmox, What Do I Need? So you've chosen to setup Proxmox! Glad to hear it! Let's take a look at the prerequisites and get to you up and running with your ProxmoxVE install: Download the Promox VE ISO from Proxmox's website – This link will get you there: https://www.proxmox.com/en/downloads You'll need an empty USB stick or DVD to "burn" the Proxmox ISO image onto. A 2GB USB stick should work well for this. Alternatively, you …
Proxmox and Home Assistant – A Virtual Environment?
https://www.proxmox.com/en/ Preface! Before I get too far ahead of myself here, I wanted to bring attention up to a key piece of my home "infrastructure":ProxmoxVE So What is Proxmox and How Does That Help Me? Proxmox is what's called a hypervisor. If you're not familiar with what a hypervisor is, I'll give a brief explanation.Hypervisors are a piece of software that is capable of running directly on computer hardware, much like Windows, Linux or MacOS. …