Looking for a way to start Documenting some of the things I’m up too / challenging myself to use a new Linux Distro, I’ve decided to take a bit more pride in a domain name I’ve owned. dinohckr.com
If you haven’t seen it yet check it out Omarchy First Look
This blog is the Direct output of that test. But in order to not get bogged down I set a few highlevel rules.
- Should be static built/hosted
- Have something live ASAP
- No AI for build-out
1 Should be Static
This requirement cuts a lot of complex hosting decisions - and for something like this where it wouldn’t be needed from the get-go. Lets not get any Servers involved.
2 Live ASAP
Don’t let it Die on this laptop - when I eventually bork the system.
Part of this as well is to try an not “over-think” things.
3 No AI for Build-out
Part of this project for me is to put “Hands to Keyboard.” Alot of people will tell you to go touch grass, but sometimes you just need to actually create something with your finger tips as well.
I’m probably falling behind in the AI race but don’t break what works. I wanted to do what I love, and not fight with some LLM model for hours.
Astro was Perfect
This is what AstroJs was built for - so using the right tool for the job.
I’ve built several basic sites with Astro over the years, they seem to be the few side projects I have that might see the light of day… or at least spot on the public internet. So with this success for trying to have it live ASAP felt like the right way to keep it simple.
I really enjoy this theme
I didn’t write a single line of it… yet. I’ll probably modify somethings down the road. But right now initial Credits go to:
Theme panr :: Port Dennis Klappe
I was looking to share/document things and not looking to build anything from scratch. But being who I am, astro will be a good base if I do ever want to anything custom.
Astro also has a lot of “out-of-the-box” deployment options. Making either Github/Gitlab Plug and play.
Hosting
Github Pissed me Off
I’ve been wanting to play with Github Actions for some time, and having yet produced any code as dinohckr seemed like a good time to snag that handle.
Probably a limitation to new account ownership but I was unable figure out how to enable Actions into the workflow and kick off the deployment. Plus there was some weirdness with the Repo/Domain name structure that I was not accustomed too.
Unable to kick off any Actions I decided in order to deploy this I needed something different.
Gitlab Pages
Old Dogs Don’t learn knew tricks - Gitlab is the Devil I know
I do use Gitlab for my Enterprise work, but even from a personal perspective Gitlab Pages feels much more powerful than Github Pages, and you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to use it.
The big Callout I like from a general 1:1 comparison is that Gitlab even with personal Pages allows you to have a Private Repository and have a Public Static Site.
Plus overall the setup was straight-forward and simple.
I simply added the .gitlab-ci.yml from the Astrojs Docs because I choose to have a private repository I needed to play with some of the access settings to allow it to be Public facing.
The only hiccup was it was a CName redirect so I couldn’t use it as the root dinohcr.com apex route - This can be bypassed using a s3 redirect - but project for another day. blog.dinockr.com was born.