Written 9 Sep 2026. This is a how-to, not a product card.

Photos and movies are not the first service

Immich, Jellyfin, Nextcloud, and Home Assistant are later. The first useful thing on the leftover box is house-wide ad block.

Lab plan’s service chips include those names so you can jot RAM guesses. That is a notebook, not a shopping list and not the weekend path.

Why they wait

Photo libraries and movie folders want a lot of disk, a lot of RAM, and a backup you already trust. Home Assistant wants devices you already own. Nextcloud wants HTTPS you have not set up yet. The leftover box can do Pi-hole on a tired CPU with a small disk.

If the house cannot SSH to the box, a media stack will fail in a louder way. Finish SSH from the couch, then the ad block, then a folder the house can open.

How to use the chips

In Lab plan you can add Immich or Jellyfin as a planned service so headroom looks honest. Do not tick the weekend path for them. They are not on the eleven-note start path. Learn the first-service idea in ByteRush if you want the cards first.

What next

The first useful thing: house-wide ad block. The two lists: Stuff I have is not the feed. Rooms: how the three sites fit.

Skip

Skip buying a GPU or a NAS so movies work this weekend. That is a GPU can wait and a NAS can wait.
Skip treating a Plan preset as an install guide.
Skip Home Assistant before the leftover box has a stable house number.

Sources

Weekend order: start-path.json. First service: the first useful thing.

Also on this topic

The first useful thingHouse-wide ad block on that computer. No Raspberry Pi. Stuff I have is not the feedPlan notebook and ByteRush quiz are two lists. A file shareA folder on the old PC. You don't need a NAS for this. A NAS can waitA folder on the leftover box is enough. A Synology waits.