Home Lab Archives - The Random Admin

Finding Nimo

by David | Jul 31, 2025 | Home Lab, Information Technology

It’s a new day and a new shiny toy for us homelabers. Last month, the processor on my old laptop finally breathed its last. It was a good laptop, but it was ready to pass on. However, what made this crappy is my little Dell gave up as well. I had to rethink how I was going to do some of my services. So, I started looking. I wanted something small that could run one or two small Dockers. So let’s start finding nimo.

Nimo MPL2B

This little bad boy has made my day. My old laptop was a quad cord with 16 gb of ram. It ran my books and my search engine. Lets talk a little about this guy. Here are the stats

Intel 12th Gen N100 Processor
16 GB LPDDR5 Ram
512 GB Samsung hard drive.
2 HDMI, 3 usb, sd card, usb c, Ethernet port, and audio jack.
Windows 11 Pro (Yes Pro)

The stats are not super powerful, but I only paid 160 USD for it on a amazon sale. Now, what I like about this device is a little more than just what the device itself, but the company behind the device. This small computer has a metal shell, uses a real samsung hard drive. It’s put together very well. On top of all of that, it’s primary focus is education. They give big discounts to college students. So, lets set this bad boy up.

The setup

Alright, so first things first… we’re not rocking Windows 11 on this cute little box. Nope. We’re tossing that out and going full Linux. I mean, we’re homelabbers, right? This is the part where things got fun (and slightly annoying). But let’s make this easy for you, so you don’t spend your morning yelling at your BIOS screen like I did.

Step 1: Smack That F2 Key

Power that baby on and start slapping the F2 key like you’re trying to skip a YouTube ad. This gets you into the BIOS. For the Nimo MPL2B, that’s the magic key. Inside the BIOS, scroll around until you find the boot order section. You want to move USB to the top. If you don’t, it’s going to ignore your pretty flash drive like it owes it money. Save with F10 (usually), and let it reboot.

Step 2: Build That Boot Stick

Now you need to make your Ubuntu USB.

Head over to ubuntu.com and snag the latest Desktop ISO (I used 24.04 LTS because I like things that don’t break).
Fire up balenaEtcher (or Rufus or whatever you use).
Burn that ISO onto a USB stick like it’s 2005 and you’re making a mix CD.

Step 3: Boot and Install

Plug in the stick, boot the Nimo, and it should go into the Ubuntu install menu. If not, go back and double-check that boot order. Trust me, I’ve done that loop.

Choose “Install Ubuntu”
When asked about how to install it, pick Erase disk and install Ubuntu. I don’t dual boot—either we’re Linux or we’re not.
Choose your region, user name, and let Ubuntu do its thing.

Step 4: Reboot and Celebrate

When it’s all done, yank the USB out, hit Enter, and let it reboot into a clean Ubuntu desktop. This is where the magic begins.

OS Setup

Alright, let’s give your fresh Nimo MPL2B some love. We’re going to:

Update Ubuntu (because the install image is already out of date)
Install Tailscale so you can SSH into this little beast from anywhere, even grandma’s house.

We’ll do it step-by-step, and yes, you’re getting the PowerShell/terminal copy-paste magic too.

Step 1: Update and Upgrade Ubuntu

Open Terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T or just click that little black square of doom). Paste this in:

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

This fetches the latest package list and updates anything that needs it. The -y flag answers “yes” to all prompts like a good little automaton.

Step 2: Install Tailscale (aka VPN Magic)

Tailscale lets you connect to this mini-PC like it’s on your local network—even if you’re 2 states over, crying in a Starbucks.

First, add the Tailscale repo and key:

curl -fsSL https://pkgs.tailscale.com/stable/ubuntu/$(lsb_release -cs).noarmor.gpg | sudo tee /usr/share/keyrings/tailscale-archive-keyring.gpg >/dev/null
curl -fsSL https://pkgs.tailscale.com/stable/ubuntu/$(lsb_release -cs).tailscale.list | \
  sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/tailscale.list

Then update apt again and install Tailscale:

sudo apt update && sudo apt install tailscale -y

Now enable and start it:

sudo tailscale up

That command will open a URL in your terminal. Copy it, paste it in your browser, and sign in to link the device to your Tailscale network. Boom. Your Nimo is now part of the mesh.

Install Docker & Docker Compose

Now open a terminal and paste the code below. This will setup docker and set you as a user for the docker.

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y apt-transport-https ca-certificates curl software-properties-common gnupg
curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/docker.gpg
echo \
  "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/docker.gpg] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu \
  $(lsb_release -cs) stable" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list > /dev/null

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io
sudo apt install -y docker-compose-plugin
sudo usermod -aG docker $USER
newgrp docker

Now we have the docker setup, we want to make a search engine. I like the searxng. First we make the folder.

mkdir ~/searxng && cd ~/searxng

Next we start our compose.

nano docker-compose.yml

Now we write out compose for searxng.

version: '3'

services:
  searxng:
    image: searxng/searxng:latest
    container_name: searxng
    ports:
      - "8080:8080"
    volumes:
      - ./searxng:/etc/searxng
    environment:
      - BASE_URL=http://localhost:8080/
    restart: unless-stopped

Save and exit (Ctrl+X, then Y, then Enter). Now we can run it.

docker compose up -d

You can access it by going to your IP address on port 8080 or your tailscale ip. So, it should be like, http://localhost:8080.

There we have it. Your home lab with a search engine as the starting point. It’s not much, but it will grow. This little Nimo can’t run a corporate system, or a deep advanced AI, but It holds what I like to use. Since I’m the main user, I get to tell the user what I want to do with it. Even when sometimes that user can be overzealous. Don’t forget, you can get around the gnat using this setup as well if you have an external machine somewhere.

What can we learn as a person.

Alright. Let’s take a breather.

This little Nimo box? It’s cool, it’s compact; it’s cheap. And yeah, it runs Docker like a champ most of the time. But here’s where the wheels can start to wobble: expectations.

See, I caught myself doing it. I wanted this $160 mini-PC to replace my old laptop, my Pi-hole box, my local dev stack, and maybe cure my ADHD while it was at it. Did you know that bats arn’t blind? Wait wrong thing. Dang, no ADHD cure yet.

And that’s the trap. The Slow Burn of Expectation

It’s not always the big crashes that break us. Sometimes it’s the micro-disappointments. You expect your container to run. It doesn’t. You expect it to stay cool. It doesn’t. You expect it to be perfect—and suddenly, you’re annoyed at a tiny piece of metal because you needed it to be more than what it is.

That adds up. Day by day. Task by task. And eventually, those micro letdowns become something heavier: dread, frustration, that creeping “what’s even the point?” feeling that whispers depression.

The AA Folks Were Onto Something

There’s this line in the Serenity Prayer:

“Accepting the world as it is, not as I would have it.”

That hits. Hard. We can’t change the laws of thermals. We can’t make N100 CPUs act like Xeons. And no, we can’t Docker our way out of emotional burnout. Even though that would be amazing. Like the time i found a cold diet dr pepper in the back of the fridge, I mean, it was ice cold. Like Amazing… Anyways, squirrel.

But we can manage our expectations. We can say, “This box does this thing. And that’s good enough.” You get way more peace out of that than you do out of pushing it to failure. This is true for your friends, family, coworkers, politicians, even…. YOURSELF. Dumb ass brain, you hear me! wait can brains hear? Ghall my adhd won again. Nimo you failed me on this adhd stuff.

Let the Box Be a Box

Let this little Nimo machine be what it is: a budget-friendly, tinker-happy toy for nerds like us. It’s not your therapist. It’s not your fix. This Nimo just a cool piece of gear that does its job. if you don’t ask it to carry your whole mental load.

And just like the box, you should let You be you. We have expectations that people put on us, but some of us put expectations on ourselves that just are not realistic. So, look at your expectations, are they realistic? Or are you hoping to cure you… please insert 25 cents to continue… problems with something simple. We are humans, our problems tend to be more complex than running a docker command.