Tech Stack - the "Why?"

For more than three decades in commercial IT I’ve watched the landscape transform—hardware leaps, ubiquitous broadband, cloud platforms, mobile-first usage, a permanent security mindset—and now AI accelerating everything again. In roles that manage tools, people, and processes, I’ve learned that good decisions only come from grounded, current technical understanding.

That’s why I’ve shaped my workflow around Linux and the cloud: hands-on, inspectable, and adaptable. I favour AWS for its maturity and breadth, and I value Google Cloud for its originality—choosing the right service for the job rather than buying into any single ecosystem.

I avoid vendor lock-in, aim for open standards and interoperability, and design systems as loosely coupled, independently deployable components that can evolve without drama.

Equally important, I treat my stack as a learning system: software and components where I can dig into the guts, understand how things work, and improve them. The result is a pragmatic, secure, and change-friendly approach—built to move fast without breaking the fundamentals.

Below is the hardware and free/open-source software I’ve used since switching to Linux as my daily driver in 2019, along with the reasons behind each choice.

Hardware & FOSS tools (2019—present)

A running log of what I use and why.

Year Tools / Hardware Reasons
2019 Ubuntu Desktop, GNOME, Firefox, VS Code, Git Beginner-friendly, great docs, stable packages.
2020 Local dev (XAMPP, Linux) Lean PHP stack; refactored sites to PHP with reusable components (SSI/includes); DRY, reproducible.
2021 Python + lab (VMware, GNS3, Cisco) Python 3 network automation with Paramiko/Netmiko (SSH/CLI); VMware+GNS3 lab for repeatable testing and faster rollouts.
2022 AWS; Docker/Compose; Terragrunt (DevOps) Containerised services on AWS; modular IaC with Terragrunt; env parity and automated CI/CD.
2023 Proxmox VE homelab cluster (VMware → Proxmox; Ubuntu Server) Migrated all local VMs off my work laptop into the cluster; standardised on Ubuntu Server for most VMs/containers—safer, centralized control with snapshots and backups.
2024 Proxmox security lab — virtual appliances: pfSense | Open vSwitch | Ivanti VPN; Ubuntu Server; Windows Server 2025; Windows 10; Kali Linux Ring-fenced environment to follow the cybersecurity analyst course; VLAN segmentation/firewalling, VPN access; Windows domain + client testing; Kali for offensive tooling; snapshots/rollbacks for safe experiments.
2025 AWS Lightsail (Ubuntu) | Laravel Sail | Nginx/Certbot | MariaDB Migrated from shared hosting to my own Ubuntu Lightsail instance; Dockerised Laravel (Sail) behind an Nginx reverse proxy with Certbot TLS; MariaDB backend; tighter server security and reproducible deploys.

Coding Projects — 5W + 1H

  • attendance (PHP)  •  WIP project - not completed
    Show 5W + 1H
    What
    Time & attendance tracker with PHP/Laravel.
    Why
    Learn CRUD, auth, and Eloquent fundamentals.
    Who
    Solo, feedback from friends.
    Where
    Nginx reverse proxy → Laravel Sail stack.
    When
    2024
    How
    Laravel, Blade, MariaDB, Sail.
  • “Guess My Number” (Vanilla JS)  •  Play the game
    Show 5W + 1H
    What
    Small DOM-based number guessing game.
    Why
    Practice events, state, and UI feedback in JS.
    Who
    Me, for learning & fun.
    Where
    Static assets from Laravel /public.
    When
    2025
    How
    HTML/CSS/JS, defer + cache-busting query.