McGarrah Technical Blog

Jekyll Website Optimization for GitHub Pages - Part 2

· 11 min read

In Part 1 of this series, we covered the foundational optimizations for Jekyll sites on GitHub Pages. Part 2 dives into advanced analytics, performance monitoring, and the lessons learned from running a technical blog with 100+ posts.

Homelab Storage Economics: Ceph vs Single Drive Costs

· 6 min read
Real-world cost-per-GB analysis of distributed Ceph storage versus single-drive solutions in a homelab — the same infrastructure investment framework applies at any scale.

Debian Linux Oh-Crap Moment in the Homelab

· 17 min read
I renamed /usr to /usr-root as root. On a live system. Here's the recovery — and what the mistake teaches about operational discipline.

Essential CLI Tools for Linux System Management

· 4 min read

After years of managing Linux systems - from my Dell Wyse 3040 Proxmox cluster to various VMs and containers - I’ve accumulated a collection of command-line tools that I reach for constantly. These aren’t exotic utilities, but rather the practical tools that help me figure out what’s actually happening when systems misbehave.

Most of these came from those “why is this server slow?” moments where you need to quickly diagnose CPU, memory, storage, or network issues. Here’s what I actually use and why.

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