Yes, very possible. Cheaper even…but will require some elbow grease.
There’s a lot there. Feel free to skip to the security cameras section (linked above), look at the intro, watch videos etc. Rossman is GOATed for putting all this together. It’s written for the layman willing to roll their sleeves up.
Yep! I will mirror it here -
(Its empty rn / place holder only).
I had a bunch of prelim write-ups on r/LocalLLM and r/LocalLlama and r/homelab but they’re in the shadowrealm now due to reddit ban (fuck reddit)
I will also post it on @homelabs and @privacy here; I think my MoA design is worthwhile enough to maybe even merit a post on HackerNews…but I want to cross all T’s and dot all I’s before I get into that bar fight lol.
I’m exactly doing this atm. I’m running a homelab on a $200 USD lenovo p330 tiny with a Tesla P4 GPU, via Proxmox, CasaOS and various containers. I’m about 80% finished with what I want it to do.
Uses 40W at the wall (peak around 100W). IOW about the cost of a light bulb. Here’s what I run -
LXC 1: Media stack
Radarr, Sonarr, Sabnzdb, Jellyfin. Bye bye Netflix, D+ etc
LXC 2: Gaming stack
Emulation and PC gaming I like. Lots of fun indie titles, older games (GameCube, Wii, PS2). Stream from homelab to any TV in house via Sunshine / Moonlight. Bye bye Gforce now.
LXC 3: AI stack
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Llama.cpp + llama-swap (AI back ends)
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Qdrant server (document server)
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Openwebui (front end)
Bespoke MoA system I designed (which I affectionately call my Mixture of Assholes, not agents) using python router and some clever tricks to make a self hosted AI that doesn’t scrape my shit and is fully auditble and non hallucinatory…which would otherwise be impossible with typical cloud “black box” approaches. I don’t want black box; I want glass box.
Bye bye ChatGPT.
LXC 4: Telecom stack
Vocechat (self hosted family chat replacement for WhatsApp / messenger),
Lemmy node (TBC).
Bye bye WhatsApp and Reddit
LXC 5: Security stack
Wireguard (own VPN). NPM (reverse proxy). Fail2Ban. PiHole (block ads).
LXC 6: Document stack
Immich (Google photos replacement), Joplin (Google keep), Snapdrop (Airdrop), Filedrop (Dropbox), SearXNG (Search engine).
Once I have everything tuned perfectly, I’m going to share everything on Github / Codeberg. I think the LLM stack alone is interesting enough to merit attention. Everyone makes big claims but I’ve got the data and method to prove it. I welcome others poking it.
Ultimately, people need to know how to do this, and I’m doing my best to document what I did so that someone could replicate and improve it. Make it easier for the next person. That’s the only way forward - together. Faster alone, further together and all that.
PS: It’s funny how far spite will take someone. I got into media servers after YouTube premium, Netflix etc jacked their prices up and baked in ads.
I got into lowendgaming when some PCMR midwit said “you can’t play that on your p.o.s. rig”. Wrong - I can and I did. It just needed know how, not “throw money at problem till it goes away”.
I got into self hosting LLM when ChatGPT kept being…ChatGPT. Wasting my time and money with its confident, smooth lies. No, unacceptable.
The final straw was when Reddit locked my account and shadow banned me for using different IP addresses while travelling / staying at different AirBNBs during holiday “for my safety”.
I had all the pieces there…but that was the final “fine…I’ll do it myself” Thanos moment.
I get where you’re coming from (and why) but am of the “rip the bandaid off clean in one go” school of thought.
A smaller start (like using that RPI to self host Jellyfin server for your home) puts you on the road to sovereignty straight away. A Pi 4 costs what…$60 (plus $30 for power supply and SD card)? Hell, use an old laptop.
Once you have one thing running, your on the right path for the next and the next.
Doing it on the cloud I think is paradoxically harder and ultimately self defeating.
Don’t get me wrong - if you need the cloud (say, you need to rent a H100 for a few hours to fine tune your LLM), I’m all for it. But if sovereignty is to goal - and the gateway drug is a SBC and a few days / weeks of self learning…you may as well start eating the elephant. IMHO and YMMV of course.