While bitcoind is still syncing I've started with the mempool backend and electrs following the steps from https://github.com/mempool/mempool/tree/master/backend
Unfortunately there is no simple mempoold to just download and run, I also need to install rust first (in addition to nodejs and npm) to run the backend installer, more bloat :(
electrs that I copied over from the old disk is v0.10 from 2023 and there have been many updates:
https://github.com/romanz/electrs/blob/master/RELEASE-NOTES.md
It looks like the old one will probably not work with bitcoin core v28 so I’ll need to compile the latest one
Compiling electrs by following steps on: https://github.com/romanz/electrs/blob/v0.10.6/doc/install.md
But instead of doing it on the NUC, I'm doing it on a virtual machine, installed with the same Debian .iso file that I used on the usb stick for the NUC. I'm doing this with UTM: https://mac.getutm.app
This way I can just copy over only electrs and don't need all the mess of packages required to build it on the NUC. It would have been great if I could do this with nodejs/npm stuff too but I don’t think that’s possible.
Fulcrum > electrs.
I haven’t heard about this one, is it compatible with Mempool blockchain explorer?
It is. But just noticed this. Seems nostr:npub18d4r6wanxkyrdfjdrjqzj2ukua5cas669ew2g5w7lf4a8te7awzqey6lt3 is running electrs so that might be the better choice if mempool space is your primary concern vs a performant wallet or other software you want to connect to your electrum server. There may be other factors to consider too.
I tend to say "dont fix it if it aint broke" but dont heed my own advice 
🤦♂️ thats their own fork of electrs, but still they forked electrs and not fulcrum
the new electrs build is ready, the docs said the build would take ~20 minutes, I didn't measure it but left it running in the background and it took longer than an hour.
bitcoind is still syncing in the background, blocks are at june 2024 now, will probably be finished by tomorrow. After that I will start electrs with a fresh sync too.
I took the latest lightning lnd from https://github.com/lightningnetwork/lnd/releases/tag/v0.18.3-beta
At first thought I copied wrong version because the file dates are jan 1st 2020, but after checking —version it says 0.18.3-beta. Probably the machine used to build it has the wrong date or maybe needed for deterministic builds, I never looked in to how thats done.
I think we set a default timestamp iirc
bitcoind has finished its sync, now I can start electrs. I wasn't sure how slow the sync would be so I tried it first from scratch but it was going very slow, would probably take days, so instead I copied over the data from my old disk, which was around 50 GB.
With bitcoind running, electrs running, I can start the mempool backend and my now local block explorer is working:
now I should also be able to start lightning lnd but I was getting errors:
[ERR] LTND: unable to create partial chain control: unable to determine if bitcoind is pruned: unable to detect bitcoind version
I vaguely remember nostr:npub18ams6ewn5aj2n3wt2qawzglx9mr4nzksxhvrdc4gzrecw7n5tvjqctp424 posted about a special config flag and after some digging around that was it:
nostr:note18lz63u08tdtxslhznayxw6sq6f7t0mu4vtt6fd6lvfxek0h29d9qtgf8hm
lnd can’t connect to bitcoin core v28 without it, after adding the flag the problem went away and my lightning channels are back online.
Now time to get the BitAxe lottery miner connected, I can't connect it directly to my bitcoin node, it needs something that does stratum protocol in between. A few options I found: public-pool, ckpool, stratum SRI.
public-pool seems easy to use but needs nodejs
stratum SRI looks way too complex for solo lottery mining, I don't understand anything on the docs
so I'm trying out ckpool, it has instructions specifically for solo mining which I'm following: https://bitbucket.org/ckolivas/ckpool-solo/src/solobtc/README
I'm doing it the same as with electrs, building it in the virtual machine so I can keep the NUC clean.
Following the steps, I kept getting stuck on the ./configure command. For some reason this line in configure breaks it: PKG_PROG_PKG_CONFIG(). I'm not sure what it does but the only way I could continue was by removing it.
This resulted in 4 files, I think only 1 is needed for solo mining but I copied all 4 to the NUC just to be sure.
I pointed ckpool to bitcoind, and the bitaxe miner to ckpool and all looks good:
