Virtual Home Lab - part 2

Here we are, albeit after some time, with the second article on how to create your own virtual home lab.

After an introductory and generic first article we will see today the solution based on ProxMox. In particular, the installation process together with a whole series of small tricks useful for solving various problems encountered.

We insert our USB hub with the mouse and keyboard connected on one of the front ports. On the other we connect the USB stick with Ventoy and the ProxMox ISO. Remember to connect the network cable to one of the interfaces. In our case we will use the 2.5Gbps one.
Let’s start the MinisForum H80 and press F7 so that we can choose the correct entry from the boot menu. ProxMox after the first initialization operations seems to get stuck on a similar screen:

Virtual Home Lab - part 1

This is the first in a series of articles dedicated to creating a a virtual home lab using as hardware a mini-pc, in this case a MinisForum H80.

We will see the tests done with 2 software solutions for virtualization. On the one hand the “open source” one with Proxmox VE, on the other the “closed” one of VMWare ESXi.

This is the lineup of the series:

• Part 1: introduction and overview of the HW and SW used
• Part 2: solution using ProxMox
• Part 3: solution using VMWare ESXi
• Part 4: choice, considerations and conclusions