The hole does go through to the other side, right? So you probably already tried applying force from there? Perhaps you could try cooling it down (so it shrinks a tiny bit and hopefully gets loose)

I’ve actually been working my way through the proxmox-on-top-of-debian guide recently, but after installing the proxmox-ve kernel and rebooting, I was left with SSH disabled (connection refused) and no local console (more precisely no monitor output past “loading initial ramdisk”). I have so little time on my hands that troubleshooting is sometimes taking the fun out of it. Probably just going to re-install using the Proxmox ISO.

You seem like the right person to ask this:

What route do I go if I want to up my admin slowly so I eventually feel able to run pure Debian? Currently running Docker on Unraid with two minor VMs but looking to migrate away from Unraid with the intention to only run FOSS (and get a deeper understanding of everything under the hood).

I know that’s little information, all I need is a nudge in the right direction so I can figure things out by consulting documentation and forums.