Sam Santana's Blog

Arch Linux Install: Disk Prep & Encryption

Sat, 25 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Partition your drive, set up LUKS2 full-disk encryption, and lay out BTRFS subvolumes for a new Arch Linux install.

Arch Linux Install: Base Install & System Configuration

Sat, 25 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Install the Arch base system, configure the bootloader, create a user, enable networking, and set up Snapper snapshots.

Arch Linux Install: Package Management & Core Services

Sat, 25 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Expand pacman with multilib and the AUR, and bring up audio, bluetooth, printing, and graphics drivers.

Arch Linux Install: Desktop Environment (KDE Plasma)

Sat, 25 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Install and configure the KDE Plasma desktop environment on top of your Arch Linux install.

Encrypting .env Files for Version Control with sops and age

Tue, 13 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Committing real secret values to git with sops and age: what each tool does, generating and backing up a key, encryption rules, a file naming scheme that fails safe, and using encrypted .env files with Docker Compose.

Organizing Docker Compose Files for a Homelab

Tue, 01 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A directory structure for Docker Compose that separates app data from configuration, shares environment variables across services, tracks the whole setup in git, and handles version updates without breaking things.

Fixing a Dead Trackpad on the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 (GA402R)

Thu, 30 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

How to fix a non-working trackpad on the AMD-only ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 GA402R by updating the chipset drivers through AMD Software Adrenalin Edition.

Building an Encrypted Arch Linux Setup

Sat, 25 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

An overview of this 4-part series on installing Arch Linux with full-disk encryption, BTRFS snapshots, and a KDE Plasma desktop.

GitOps in Practice: Automating My Blog Deployment Pipeline

Fri, 10 Jul 2026 06:32:04 -0700

I wanted a place to document my projects, things like Kubernetes clusters, Linux setups, and homelab experiments. Somewhere I could reference my own work and maybe help someone else along the way. I’d built personal sites with WordPress before and knew going in that it would mean ongoing maintenance: plugin updates, core updates, and the occasional breakage that had nothing to do with anything I wrote. For a simple technical blog, that overhead wasn’t worth it.