The Pixel device I have is from a family member and it is locked to Verizon, who won't unlock the bootloader. I'm sure there's a work around, but I didn't think it was worth the effort. PostmarketOS is rad though, I have it running on an ancient Windows Surface RT.
It runs inside Termux, which has a persistent notification to keep it open in the background. I believe I also extended the max phantom process to prevent it from being killed.
I agree that a VM or container doesn't add to the power usage for a homelab that's already running. I kinda did it for fun and being able to run it off solar. I had original plans to turn the lab off at night and then the phone could keep running from battery. But, the homelab became critical infra and has to be always on lol.
The requirement for Ethernet was just for bandwidth consistency. My WiFi network isn't the best.
So, uh, hi. This is my blog post. I'm just some guy that blogs and gets like 5 reads per post, so I'm a fish out of water here. I didn't even have a HN account until today.
To answer a some questions: 1. Still running on the Pixel. I never had a reason to change it. 2. It is on a residential internet connection because, well, I never planned on having any volume of readers. 3. I'm just some dude that does random projects at home after work. I'm not even in tech. I actually own a construction contracting biz.