Linux

There’s this Polish Aero2 mobile network provider that offers a free, unmetered 512 kbps data plan, which is perfect for use as a failover link for your home router/server. And while my rather obscure, $10 Huawei USB LTE modem works out-of-the-box with Linux and NetworkManager, I struggled for quite a while to get it running under the FreeBSD-based OPNsense firewall. Turns out the modem’s peculiarities required a deep dive into tracing USB communication and its protocols to eventually get it initialized with a one-line command sending a raw USB message to device.

I bought a second-hand HP Z2 G9 W680 motherboard for less than 100 USD and within last 3 months had gained enough experience to share. Considering all other W680 motherboards cost upwards of USD 500 at this point, this turns out to be a fairly attractive solution to get a modern Intel system with low idle power consumption, PCIe Gen 5, and, most importantly, ECC memory support.