Mini PC Home Lab
ASUS PN50

A small, always-on lab machine

Repurposed an ASUS PN50 mini PC as a dedicated home lab machine running Ubuntu. The goal was a low-power, always-available Linux environment for testing, learning, and running small services — separate from the main workstation so experiments wouldn't affect the daily driver.

Compact, low-power footprint

From USB flash to stable lab

• Flashed a Ubuntu installer to a USB drive and configured the PN50's UEFI BIOS to boot from it.
• Worked through TPM and Secure Boot settings in UEFI that were preventing the Ubuntu installer from loading.
• Installed Ubuntu and configured GRUB for a clean boot environment.
• Set up the machine for use as a persistent lab environment — configured SSH access, installed utilities, and verified network connectivity.
• Used Bash for post-install configuration scripting and system setup tasks.

What went wrong (and got fixed)

• The PN50's UEFI had Secure Boot enabled by default, which blocked the Ubuntu installer — required navigating BIOS settings to disable it and set the correct boot order.
• TPM configuration conflicted with the Ubuntu install process and required additional UEFI adjustments before the installer would proceed.
• GRUB needed manual configuration after install to ensure a clean boot without leftover Windows Boot Manager entries.

A dedicated, low-risk lab environment

Deployed a stable, always-on Ubuntu lab machine running on minimal power. Used for testing Linux configurations, running small services, and general learning — without any risk to the main workstation.