The family is in desperate need for some new budgeting software. The old standalone version of YNAB has started constantly causing corrupted writes and has very sluggish performance all of a sudden. I find it hard to accept that I should pay a monthly fee for software that doesn't really change, just for the privilege of managing my own budget. Plus it is only available on my desktop, making accessibility to everyone difficult to achieve.

Firefly III seems to be the most commonly recommended budget application around, although people do warn that it is complex. I'll give it a try and see if it works for our needs.

Verify System Requirements

They don't list any specific system requirements so something standard like 2vCPUs and 4GB of memory should suffice. I'll plan to run it in a Docker container since Firefly III does recommend that.

Create Virtual Machine

Steps performed on HV-03 via Windows Admin Center

• Navigate to Virtual Machines
• Click on Add and then New
  • Name: FIREFLY-01
  • Generation: 2 (Recommended)
  • vCPU: 2
  • Memory: 4GB
  • Network: Default External Switch
  • Storage
    • Click Add
    • Select Create an empty virtual hard disk
    • Size: 40GB
    • Select Install an operating system later
  • Click Create
• Select FIREFLY-01
• Click on Manage then Settings
  • Navigate to Disks
    • Click Add Disk
    • Select Use an existing virtual hard disk or ISO image
    • Select the ISO c:/images/debian/deb12.1
    • Click on Save disk settings
  • Navigate to Boot Order
    • DVD
    • Hard Disk
    • Network Adapter
    • Click Save boot order
  • Navigate to Security
    • Enable Secure Boot
    • Template: Microsoft UEFI Certificate Authority
    • Click Save security settings
• Click on Power then Start

Install Operating System

Steps performed on FIREFLY-01 via console
Well when I start up the virtual machine it locks up and crashed the host. Not this again! I'm using a new image....but that shouldn't be an issue. After rebooting the host the virtual machine locks the host back up again. So after a second reboot I delete the virtual machine and recreate it from scratch going through the same steps as above.

I'm out of time now for the day so I'll have to come back and install the operating system tomorrow.