Author: Christian Rakoot

Christian Rakoot, founder and author of Self Host Lab

Christian Rakoot is an industrial engineering and maintenance engineer who has been interested in computers since his first PC. It ran MS-DOS 3.22 on an Intel 286 with 4 MB of RAM, as best he remembers. Linux followed not long after, first Debian, then Mandrake.

He started programming in assembly, moved to Pascal and then Delphi, and later worked in C and the languages that came out of it. Small hardware kept his attention too, the Raspberry Pi in particular.

When fibre optic reached Madagascar more than fifteen years ago, hosting real services from home became worth doing. He has run mini PCs on Debian around the clock ever since, alongside Kimsufi servers for file storage and the applications that have no business sitting on a home connection. He prefers open source. None of his servers run Windows.

The History of Jellyfin: How an Emby Fork Became Self-Hosting’s Favorite Media Server

Jellyfin exists because Emby locked its next release behind a paywall. Here’s the real story of the December 2018 fork,…

July 17, 20266 min read
Raspberry Pi Homelab: What Actually Runs Well (and What Doesn’t)

A Raspberry Pi runs Pi-hole, Home Assistant, and a light OpenMediaVault NAS without breaking a sweat. Here’s the real hardware…

July 17, 20269 min read
The 3-2-1 Backup Strategy for Your Homelab: A Practical Guide

The 3-2-1 rule means three copies of your data, on two different types of storage, with one copy offsite. Here’s…

July 17, 202610 min read
TrueNAS vs Unraid: Which One Should Run Your Homelab NAS?

TrueNAS is free and built on ZFS for the strongest data integrity; Unraid is paid but mixes any drive size…

July 17, 20269 min read
Proxmox vs TrueNAS: NAS, Virtualization, or Both for Your Homelab

NAS software protects your files; a hypervisor like Proxmox runs everything else. Here’s how to decide between a dedicated NAS,…

July 17, 202610 min read
Jellyfin on iPhone: Which App Should You Actually Use?

Jellyfin actually has an official iPhone app, unlike Apple TV. Here’s how Jellyfin Mobile, Swiftfin, and Streamyfin compare on offline…

July 16, 20269 min read
Jellyfin on Windows 11: The Best Way to Watch Your Library

Jellyfin doesn’t have one obvious app for Windows 11 anymore, the official client is mid-rewrite. Here’s what actually works today:…

July 16, 20268 min read
Jellyfin on Firestick: Official App Setup and Alternatives

Jellyfin’s official Fire TV app installs free from the Amazon Appstore on any Fire TV Stick. Here’s how to set…

July 15, 20268 min read
Jellyfin on Android TV: Official App Setup and Alternatives

Jellyfin’s official Android TV app installs free from the Play Store on Shield, Chromecast with Google TV, and more. Here’s…

July 15, 20268 min read
How to Set Up a Jellyfin Server

Docker, Windows, or NAS: a complete, no-nonsense walkthrough for getting Jellyfin running, the hardware it actually needs, and how to…

July 14, 20268 min read