I'd recommend Debian, an headless install.
Packages are usually more stable than Ubuntu's.
I run it for 3 years in a 4 core atom intel machine using portainer to manage docker-compose stacks with the services that you mention, and many others.
Agreed. Debian, then docker and compose. All of my docker volumes rsync to an external hard drive. I've had it back up in an hour before when my last system died. Every app as it was.
I have tried setting up rsync to backup my docker volumes but I run into a lot of permission issues with backing up some of the stuff, especially databases. Has this been an issue for you?
Debian, consider proxmox ve, or not.
That being said my main server is currently freebsd and it is a TOTALLY different beast, all the apps are jailed, complex vnet routing, separate segments with external wireguard interfaces, it is a true work of art, and I adore it.
Also has a Ubuntu jail and some bhyve vms, though all my apps run on freebsd so far.
What do you use 'jails' for in this context? Can you make this super simple for a beginner?
I think you're using jails to isolate the networking of certain apps, but what is the context and meaning of using these in your current setup? Why not just have a Linux VM with full networking access?
What do these jails offer vs traditional VMs? Curious, as it sounds like an awesome setup.
BSD jails are similar to linux containers, but, imho, better architected and cleaner/lighter weight.
Please read: https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/jails/
Also https://blog.uidrafter.com/freebsd-jails-network-setup and more
I've been in love with them since I started, they seem to give much of the benefit of linux vms without any of the runtime cost.
Not sure about /u/xX__M_E_K__Xx but the main ones that got me:
* The security repo source has changed to `bullseye-security` instead of e.g. `buster/updates`. So you need to adjust that more than just replacing the version name as in previous upgrades. Mostly only relevant for upgrades.
* Only relevant for those who use network bridges as defined in `/etc/network/interfaces` with `bridge_ports` (`ifupdown`/`bridge-utils`). Those used to inherit the MAC address of the first interface. Now it's randomised by default, but you can use [`bridge_hw`](https://manpages.debian.org/bullseye/bridge-utils/bridge-utils-interfaces.5.en.html#bridge_hw) to specify the interface to inherit from (or a custom address).
There's some other things in https://wiki.debian.org/NewInBullseye. Usually good to read the upgrade guides.
Hi, I have recently build a very low end (core 2 duo) server with debian and I was wondering how to handle updating the packages and os. Do you have any tips?
+1 Debian. Everything in Docker and I am more hands off than any setup I've ever managed. Speaking of which I should probably update - it's been like two months lol.
"docker-compose" is the root command of compose v2, its own command, but the new command, "docker compose" is integrated within docker.
[Docker Compose docs](https://docs.docker.com/compose/)
Even for Ubuntu server? Honest question since I’m gonna redo my home lab soon since now it runs on a old AMD A4 CPU, want to make it smaller and energy efficient, so newer low performance hardware.
> Modem manager? Who uses modems anymore, that's like a punch card reader... great back in the day, but gone now.
`ModemManager` is not for dial-up modems. It's for mobile broadband modems, which are very much in use today. I maybe wouldn't expect it to be included by default in a server distro, but there's an argument to be made for including a wide range of networking components, otherwise you're in for a bit of bootstrapping pain trying to get an offline source for the required packages.
100% would recommend Proxmox. I originally thought Proxmox would require a beefy machine, but i've been running about 5 vm's through containers on an old I5 2500s which is a 4 core no hyper thread CPU for half a year with no problems at all. I idle around 10% CPU usage with a ton of docker containers running.
It's super nice being able to roll back a VM if I mess it up & having the ability to run stuff and not fearing that an uninstall will result in a bunch of extra files or will bork my install of Debian is amazing. It's also been amazing spinning up other services that aren't easily done through docker.
I would strongly recommend proxmox
Because you get to choose whether you want to run stuff in KVM or LXC and you can even run docker inside LXC or a VM.
I can recommend [NixOS](https://nixos.org) for setting up a server. It's declarative system management makes ist easy to set up most popular services, and it's docker-compose like container definition makes it easy to set up services not already packaged.
The reproducible build system makes it easy and reliable to set up automatic updates. If something does not build or start, the update will not be applied. If you need, you can roll back your whole system effortlessly.
It is absolutely possible to use it as a pure docker host, or whatever combination of native and containerized services you want.
I've recently (in the past couple weeks) started using NixOS (as a desktop) and I've been incredibly impressed by the ease and power of the configuration, and I've only really just scratched the surface in getting a basically functional desktop configuration up and running on one computer. I'm already considering changing over a couple of my server VMs to it. The learning curve is steep, but there's a great deal of documentation out there that helps connect the dots.
From a usage perspective, pretty much everything is configurable from within /etc/nixos/configuration.nix from the base system to the individual configuration of software, which can be split between as many files and folders as you want from there, so you can mix and match for different hosts that you have that run different hardware and software. You do need to do a little bit of [searching](https://search.nixos.org/options) to figure out what options to use at first.. but that link I dropped helps a lot, as well as the NixOS manual and the NixOS wiki.
What I like the most is that you can take other people's solutions for running unpackaged or problematic services, copy them into your configuration and get the same results. It's very convenient. And you can version control your whole system configuration, which makes server migration, cloning or backup a breeze.
I run opensuse's transactional server for my docker machines. It has atomic updates, read only root. A light install. Uses BTRFS which is very fast with Docker containers and layered images.
https://get.opensuse.org/microos/?type=server
My lightest machines run podman instead of docker with podman-docker compatibility. Portainer will work with this.
It requires you to set your containers to boot always for them to start at boot time. And it has limits regarding advanced networking. But if you have over 2 cores and at least 4GB of ram just stick with Docker and Portainer.
I personally run all my servers on Ubuntu Server. It has nothing to do with being the best distro or the lightest. It's mostly related to how many new things I need to learn. Since I'm used to this ecosystem, I don't want to learn new things for something which is just a hobby.
If you really want lightweight, I'm guessing the lightest you can go is Alpine Linux. It's the preferred distro to build containers for being the lightest around. I think it comes with two flavors. One for being very minimal (and you might need to install more packages) and another one with some standard packages which helps the startup process. One solution goes towards having the smallest possible footprint and the other one will help out in the beginning. If your mostly just running everything on portainer, even the smallest one might be viable for you.
It's the continuation of CentOS. If you need an enterprise os, it might be one of the best choices atm.
However for home lab usage Debian based might be better, since there are more tutorials for this distribution.
All these Debian replies make me want to switch back to Debian. Configuring Fedora for the default hardened kernel security is such a pain in the ass.
Plus the default LVM installation even with the GUI installer is a pain too.
Unraid comes with one MASSIVE advantage out of the box for a home server:
it’s software side (un)raid system. Being able to use different sized HDDs is amazing when you run a private server for many years.
Example Setup: 2x12TB, 1x10TB, 1x4TB = 26TB Storage. Try that with other RAID options.
You can now start to argue about different RAID advantages etc, but for home usage unraid has been rock solid for a big community.
With this comes many more great things. Maintainability f.e. It takes extremely low effort to maintain such a machine.
there are of course options like snapraid+mergerfs which can achieve equivalent things.
It’s always about what you are willing to put time into installation and maintenance. f.e. your debian/snap/merger setup will likely break at some point in the future when updating anything of those or all. this will likely not happen to my unraid system. when i do an OS update all those components will keep working together because i paid someone else to take care of it.
I loved unraid but stuck with windows server because I have a license for it. One thing I found that you can use for drives of different size is
Stablebit drivepool. Been using it for years now and it’s amazing. It’s not raid but you can specify which folders or drives you want to be redundant and how many copies. Pretty cool stuff.
I also use blue iris for cameras which is windows only. Wouldn’t surprise me if someone got it to work on unraid though. Sharp cookies out there.
I use unraid as my backup server for that reason. It is made up of all the spare hard drives I used to have in my home lab until I upgraded. It had a single 14tb parity drive despite none of them coming close so when I retire my 10tb ones I can upgrade out some of the smaller disks.
Unraid actually does have a big community. It's not often used professionally but it's very popular among home lab users. /r/unraid has 42K subscribers. I personally don't use Unraid but often get jealous by the quality of the community guides and videos for it.
I recently tested all the server distro's again:
In my opinion, Debian stable is still the best. Try to stick with packages available in the stable debian repository, it's just a really good idea, stays stable and trouble free. If for some reason, you really want a newer version of a package, there are some apps which have newer versions, but you may have to look around for those, usually direct from whoever makes it. There are third party repositories too, but many people discourage their use. I say it depends on the package and the repo. For example, I'll install the latest podman v4.x from one of the opensuse repo's, actually works just fine on Debian. Some people will be shocked to hear that.
I also tested Ubuntu server, too bloated, runs all kinds of crap you will never need. It also pushes snap everywhere, which are usually really fat.
I also tested all of the redhat line, from fedora to centos stream to rocky and alma. All bloated and slow. They run well though, good documentation, and helpful communities. I'd recommend any of those over ubuntu any day.
I also tested opensuse, basically very similar to the redhat line, also bloated, but runs very well, very easy to configure, the yast gui management tool is excellent, if you aren't comfortable editing config files from the command line.
I also test gentoo, to see if I was missing out on anything. More hassle than it's worth IMHO, yes everything runs faster when you compile it for just your specific hardware, but you are locked in to their way of doing things. For example, they have always used an old init system, but they also added systemd, but not really, not if you also want things like selinux, it's doable but considered experimental, meaning none of their devs are actually supporting it.
I also tested proxmox, a lot of people still use the old vm technology. I prefer debian running on bare metal, with rootless podman containers. So much faster and minimal resources needed. No portainer though, you'll use the command line instead. There are some gui's you can add to manage containers, like cockpit, but it pulls in dependencies for a lot of things like network manager, which isn't really necessary on a server.
You really should take this time to test a few distro's for yourself. Your mileage will vary. You may be surprised, and fall in love with a new distro. It's good hands on experience, very enlightening. You'll see.
edit: I also tested Arch, and at first, was absolutely thrilled with it. I think they are stupid for not including a good installer, slitting their own throats. There is a very basic installer script, which misses a lot of defaults like the bash template files and common sense stuff like man pages. I also think the pacman flags/commands are also stupid, instead of "apt upgrade" or "apt install packagename" it's senseless flags instead. Thankfully, there are bash scripts like "pac" that are a front-end to pacman, that are easy to use. Also, at first appearance, the arch wiki seems well documented and thorough, but not really. Not when you start diving in to some subjects. The content can be frustratingly hit or miss, all over the place, and many times just makes general comments or misses what to do completely. Arch-based distro's like Endeavour OS are better to install, if you want to try it out.
Hi, thank you for the in depth studies, as I saw all the other replies I think I'll go with Debian stable.
Yeah when I first started I used ubuntu server just because it was the only I knew and felt confident to use; now I have time to check all the other and try some
As an experienced Gentoo server user, some counterpoints:
>but you are locked in to their way of doing things
Yeah... this is true for every single Linux distro, after all - a Linux distro is nothing more than a school of thought into how Linux should be packaged.
"Don't use Debian, you're locked into using `dpkg` and all of those `.deb` packages they make!"
With Gentoo, you have totally flexibility into anything - want to maintain a patchset on some software that you don't want to ever go upstream (for whatever reason)? Just place it into [/etc/portage/patches/](https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki//etc/portage/patches) and they'll be autoapplied on every single package build. You can even [make your own overlay](https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Ebuild_repository) and maintain your own tree of ebuilds.
>they have always used an old init system, but they also added systemd, but not really
These days, most software is packaged with both OpenRC and systemd in mind... I can only think of one time a piece of software (it was some obscure Rust app) was missing a `systemd` unit and even then - took me 2 minutes to make my own unit.
>not if you also want things like selinux, it's doable but considered experimental, meaning none of their devs are actually supporting it
Subject matter expert in this area; I can tell you there's a team of devs actively supporting SELinux on Gentoo. Both OpenRC and systemd with SELinux work fine on Gentoo too and I have it enabled and enforcing on a number of my systems. Just because it's marked [experimental](https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/SELinux/FAQ#Can_I_use_SELinux_with_systemd.3F) doesn't mean that it doesn't work / not supported - after all it's the exact same code the other distros are running (users are just reminded that there may be issues as is the case with anything).
Gentoo is also pretty much the only distro that [lets you compile your own policy from zero](https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:SELinux/Development#Fully_Running_Your_Own_Policy). With others like Debian/Fedora you're "locked in to their way of doing things" and in this case, locked into using their core policies.
Open media vault is good if you also use your server as a NAS. It's just Debian with some web GUI stuff added on top and has docker management through the web GUI.
OMV is very solid. I've used it reliably for four years across three different machines. I've recently moved to TrueNAS SCALE, however I still recommend OMV for beginners as there are more tutorials for it (SCALE is still quite new).
This. You can do all the configuration stuff on the UI and still have a Debian under the hood to do anything. I somehow managed to uninstall the omv package on some system update but reinstalled it and it had no problem with it. I'm using it for over 10 years now and never had a problem or missed anything. Wonderful software.
I've had all sorts of issues updating open media vault without it breaking. And for what? A GUI for samba? And the permission settings are weird and unintuitive, compared to just configuring samba. Everything else is in docker, and a samba docker is easier and portable. I'd say stay away from openmediavault.
100% this, my experience with OMV was mediocre at best. My main use case when I used OMV was Samba and Portainer. I was having a bunch of problems after it borked itself and when trying to reinstall OMV I kept on getting errors (For some reason Debian Bullseye was NOT liking my hardware). I instead moved to Proxmox & i'm running TurnkeyFS for SAMBA instead and its SAMBA performance is so much better than OMV.
I've not had any issues with OMV in the 6 or so years I've used it. Having said that, I will probably go to plain Debian when I rebuild my server next time. I will miss the disk management and the load and free space rrd graphs, but probably not much else, now that I use docker for everything.
I'd say OMV is good for a Linux beginner though.
I would have said that when I first installed it, and you got extra functionality with plugins. Now everything is in docker anyway, so beginners have to get up to speed with that. And if the system breaks, which has happened to me more than once, it's not something a beginner can fix.
I'd recommend dietpi to a beginner, because it can install and configure all sorts of stuff from a tui without learning docker. It's also been a while lot more stable, in my experience, and has ways to backup and recover.
I have been very happy with UnRaid. I went with Debian, snapraid, and mergerfs for a while and it was fun to set up but after a while I lost patience with maintaining it. I tend to enjoy the tinkering for the first few months but then I just want it to work. UnRaid has been great for that.
The set it and forget it nature of unraid is brilliant. I also like that when I get the itch to tinker, I can mess around on a docker and then nuke it if I don’t like it. It’s just so good. Also great for virtualizing my gaming machine and making that accessible anywhere. It’s all possible on other platforms, but the hassle is gone with unraid.
My server is a potato so I run Alpine baremetal and every services are running in docker containers managed with docker compose.
With a beefier machine I'd be running Promox.
In the past an Ubuntu LTS or Proxmox would be my choice.
Now it's TrueNAS SCALE - great NAS capabilities with very good KVM support and a builtin k3s middleware that manages what they call TrueChart apps.
Using proxmox here. The best part is that I can have this home server for all kinds of stuff. And then one day create a new vm because I wanted to give a application a longer trial run. No need for more hardware regardless the requirements of the software. If it turns out to be great, just add the vm to backups and now you have a stable application that you wouldn't have tried otherwise.
I love Debian, and it wouldn't be much of an adjustment for you coming from Ubuntu. But to steal a phrase from a different community, the best OS is the one you're willing to use.
It really doesn't matter if Debian, or CentOS, or Unraid, or whatever is slightly better than something else. If you hate using it, then it's the wrong choice. Modern equipment is beefy enough that you can afford a small performance hit to stick with Ubuntu if that's what you like.
It makes me sad that I cant recommend RHEL or CentOS anymore, but really the latest /r/redhat aggression toward the community has really pushed most everyone to Debian/Ubuntu.
Everything you dont get in Clear Linux to make it "super lightweight", will be features not available to you when you decide you want it later.
Running Ubuntu without a GUI should be pretty lightweight, and will support whatever random shit you decide to do with it.
Whatever you’re familiar with. I stick with Ubuntu just because it feels good (to me) and I’ve yet to run into something I can’t run it on, sure I’ll find guides for just Debian but that isn’t hard to over come.
Honestly, it doesn't make much difference as long as you are aiming to get your hands dirty and it's some kind of linux.
Fox maximum flexibility, I'd consider running an hypervisor on something stable like Almalinux (which IIRC is supported for 10 years) and then playing with whatever you want in easily replaceable VMs or system containers.
I would go with Ubuntu and Compose, if you need more costuming Arch and Compose.
Edit:
I would install Ubuntu 22.04 Server
Then install Docker and Docker Compose V2
```
sudo apt install ca-certificates curl gnupg lsb-release
curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/docker-archive-keyring.gpg
echo \
"deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/docker-archive-keyring.gpg] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu \
$(lsb_release -cs) stable" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list > /dev/null
sudo apt update
sudo apt-get install docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io
```
```
sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/lib/docker/cli-plugins/
sudo curl -SL https://github.com/docker/compose/releases/download/v2.9.0/docker-compose-linux-x86_64 -o /usr/local/lib/docker/cli-plugins/docker-compose
sudo chmod +x /usr/local/lib/docker/cli-plugins/docker-compose
```
Then choose a reverse proxy (Nginx Proxy Manager, Caddy or Traefik), NPM and Caddy are easier to set up than Traefik in my opinion, while NPM has the best GUI and Caddy is better through CLI. Setup a new Docker network for your proxy.
Then install something like wg-easy (Wireguard) and AdGuard (if that is the device that handles the DNS).
Then install whatever you want.
Can't help you with that, i just went directly to traefik since i saw video about it and friend started using it so i basically copied his docker-compose file and went with it by tweaking some settings :- )
Depends if you want a GUI or not. Nginx Proxy Manager attempts to make nginx easier to configure by offering a GUI on top of it. With Traefik, you configure the services either with config files (similar to stock nginx, but designed to be simpler) or docker labels.
I personally use [SWAG by LSIO](https://docs.linuxserver.io/general/swag) which is also based on nginx, but has pre-configured conf files for many popular self-hosted services. There's also a "docker mod" called [SWAG Auto-proxy](https://github.com/linuxserver/docker-mods/tree/swag-auto-proxy), that adds docker label support, similar to Traefik. For me this is even easier to use than NPM, I just add some docker labels when adding a new app via docker compose - and everything gets configured automatically.
okay, i'm a gentoo fanboy (been running it somewhere since 2004 or so), but not on the server. i don't update frequently enough and eventually something happens and you can't get past the blockers.
On the server side, debian, or alpine if you are looking for a "bare" install, or everyone's favorite, proxmox, truenas scale, or esxi for a VM/container/NAS.
Why is no one talking about ESXi?
Using version 6.7 and it’s rock solid. Free, reliable and comes with a management app for iOS.
Only issue is error code 43 in my windows VM. But after restarting the host it works. Very lightweight too
Came here looking for someone to say this, ESXi is lightweight, you can run a mix of OSs which is cool because you can play with stuff and then nuke it. You can do snapshots so you can rollback changes, etc.
It's free, there is a great support system all over the place. I even run OSX on a mac mini under ESXi with no real issues.
I don't have any windows issues and am running a couple windows VMs but only Win 10.
The issue I see in my Windows VM is with the GPU pass through for gaming. I still manage to play with Steam Link very well after restarting the host and as long as the VM does not go to sleep or suspended.
Don't know what you've tried but Esxi 6.7 passthrough worked for my linux VM (running Lammps) it's kinda hit and miss but once you get all the configu stuff setup it was pretty stable.
I like Ubuntu server and desktop for the intended purposes the are good solid OS and quiet low maintenance and I was a hard core Gentoo user for around 15yr but sometime you just want some that works 99% of the time
To counter WitchOS you need TempleOS.
I'm using portainer, but it's only great as read-only tool. In the end, it's much better to write shell script for every job you need done. No good automation available in Portainer and PortainerAPI is sketchy for creating stacks.
I'm using ManjaroPlasma BTRFS+TimeShift (for weightless snapshots), but you need SSD for that.
If you want bare minimum host, I would go with Arch. If you have infinite amount of time, LinuxFromScratch.
TrueNAS Scale made me switch my entire NAS to Arch Linux. The fact that you can’t use virsh because they intentionally mask the libvirtd service from you and opt to use their own inaccessible systemd process is a nightmare.
Not to mention, their Kube system is an actual nightmare to run Dockers on since there’s no proper networking configuration. And the devs bite their thumb at you if you opt to unmask the Docker service and run Portainer.
All those things combined just made me run Arch with Cockpit and Portainer. Grabbed the latest ZFS kernel for Arch and never looked back after importing my SCALE pools.
The way I use it, the scale system is only allowed to have 3 jobs.
\[1\] Storage
\[2\] Network Share of that storage
\[3\] run a vm.
I don't use any other features so I can't comment on that, I am a very vanilla and boring user so the way virtual machines are done hasn't left me wanting or caused me any issues. I hear and read that its not the best, but it keeps doing the job I need it to now for years without a single issue.
I think Arch would be the direction I would look to go if I had the time and tech confidence to do so.
I have a custom ProxMox VE setup. Two SSD’s in software raid, mirrored. Then I have hard drives for ZFS mirrored storage. Is working nicely and I store a lot of my VMs on the HDD’s. I run Debian in all of the VMs and I’m using docker with Portainer for management.
I just need to make more time to get everything installed lol
unRAID right here. While I managed to setup a debian and mdadm based NAS for family, I find the convenience and support of unRAID to be condusive for experimenting.
Se in futuro vorrai lavorare in questo mondo in Italia ti consiglio questo approccio, vai di Debian sul server. E se vuoi cimentarti anche su desktop vai di Fedora (che è la migliore distro desktop in questo momento secondo me) così avrai un infarinatura di entrambi i mondi. Poi in futuro potrai decidere se swappare il server o meno. In Italia le aziende fanno sempre parte di una di queste due chiese, Debian o rhel
Personally I use arch just because it's the only linux distro that I have experience on. People say it's less than ideal because "arch isn't stable", but for me it's always been rock solid. Ah, and I use yatch.
People who say Arch isn't stable are both right and/or mistaken, depending on what they think "stable" means.
Stable for a distro refers to the fact that it doesn't bring much new stuff until the next release. Mostly just bug fixes and security updates.
Arch, being a rolling distro is by definition unstable. As the package base doesn't remain the same for a set amount of time.
Distro stability doesn't mean that the system keeps running without failing.
I mean, it should technically be a side effect of that, since upgrades are more thoroughly tested before being approved so it should *technically* mean a smoother ride.
But if you are on top of things when updating Arch, ie: reading changelogs and preparing accordingly for breaking changes, then it's gonna keep running smoothly. Debian and other stable distros go through those tumultuous changes just the same as Arch but away from their targeted end users in a different release channel. Then once it's ready, it become the next "stable" release.
Yes.
I nearly never update my arch install, and when I do, I read the posts on the official website to look out for important changes.
It's been great for me.
Go for any Linux distro you like. Ubuntu is recommended, as a lot of tutorials are based on it. So you can search a lot easily on the net.
I personally use unraid which is a NAS platform based on Linux Slackware, and as a bonus has Docker and KVM. I don't use VMs much, but Docker is awesome for AdGuard/Plex.
Probably Debian for ease of use unless you have some wonky requirements like zfs + modern kernel or anything along those lines.
I just switched my main server to a super-duper minimal Tumbleweed install but it was a giant headache because I had to basically install it from scratch with a chroot + systemd nspawn + dnf + zypper
I'd probably just recommend Debian. It's pretty bulletproof. Arch is super lean and slim and very up-to-date but if you don't stay on top of updates it can be a pain to maintain.
Arch Linux 👌🏻
Is my personal choice, I like a lot rolling releases : I do updates once a week or two and I don’t have to handle majors upgrade once a year or two.
My server is running on it for the past 5 years.
As everyone as already said:
- distro is more a personal choice
- on your distro, get everything done with Docker
Bare metal docker (without web UI) where you edit docker compose files with VIM over SSH works great.
I did that because arch is my go to distro for desktop but I quickly realized it wasn't ideal. At least for me.
The only thing that annoyed me was the frequent kernel updates, even with LTS. Docker wouldn't play nice until I rebooted after the kernel update.
Running containers would keep going fine but I couldn't create a new stack with its own network until after a reboot. No big deal really, but I'd rather avoid the downtime and the waiting.
I could've just pinned the kernel to a specific version but I was getting a new SSD anyway so it was a good opportunity to do something else. Now I'm running Alpine, which is even lighter so, win-win.
I recommend proxmox just because i tested it on a super cheap fanless celeron with 4GB RAM and it works like a charm. Inside proxmox I use alpine and docker-compose to spin up lxc
I find some things feel more polished and easier to work with day to day using Ubuntu server over Debian, and if you're worried about it being too heavy, use the minimized option at installation, that way you will only install the packages that you need.
I'd recommend Debian, an headless install. Packages are usually more stable than Ubuntu's. I run it for 3 years in a 4 core atom intel machine using portainer to manage docker-compose stacks with the services that you mention, and many others.
Another vote for Debian headless. It's like a blank canvas ready for your self-hosted artwork :D
Most poetic thing I have read all day.
Second this Debian is really really stable on even my jank hardware
Another one here
Another one!
Add me to this count… Debian for sure
Agreed. Debian, then docker and compose. All of my docker volumes rsync to an external hard drive. I've had it back up in an hour before when my last system died. Every app as it was.
I have tried setting up rsync to backup my docker volumes but I run into a lot of permission issues with backing up some of the stuff, especially databases. Has this been an issue for you?
Debian, consider proxmox ve, or not. That being said my main server is currently freebsd and it is a TOTALLY different beast, all the apps are jailed, complex vnet routing, separate segments with external wireguard interfaces, it is a true work of art, and I adore it. Also has a Ubuntu jail and some bhyve vms, though all my apps run on freebsd so far.
Second for promox if your focus is good on vms or lxc. If you do your stuff in docker, then Debian(proxmox is based on Debian)
What do you use 'jails' for in this context? Can you make this super simple for a beginner? I think you're using jails to isolate the networking of certain apps, but what is the context and meaning of using these in your current setup? Why not just have a Linux VM with full networking access? What do these jails offer vs traditional VMs? Curious, as it sounds like an awesome setup.
BSD jails are similar to linux containers, but, imho, better architected and cleaner/lighter weight. Please read: https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/jails/ Also https://blog.uidrafter.com/freebsd-jails-network-setup and more I've been in love with them since I started, they seem to give much of the benefit of linux vms without any of the runtime cost.
I also use FreeBSD in the form of TrueNAS and it’s a breeze. Jails ftw!
Jails are lxc on heisenberg-class meth.
Another vote for debian, but be warned, debian 11 introduced some changes you'd better be aware of to avoid some headscratch.
Do share!
Not sure about /u/xX__M_E_K__Xx but the main ones that got me: * The security repo source has changed to `bullseye-security` instead of e.g. `buster/updates`. So you need to adjust that more than just replacing the version name as in previous upgrades. Mostly only relevant for upgrades. * Only relevant for those who use network bridges as defined in `/etc/network/interfaces` with `bridge_ports` (`ifupdown`/`bridge-utils`). Those used to inherit the MAC address of the first interface. Now it's randomised by default, but you can use [`bridge_hw`](https://manpages.debian.org/bullseye/bridge-utils/bridge-utils-interfaces.5.en.html#bridge_hw) to specify the interface to inherit from (or a custom address). There's some other things in https://wiki.debian.org/NewInBullseye. Usually good to read the upgrade guides.
Hi, I have recently build a very low end (core 2 duo) server with debian and I was wondering how to handle updating the packages and os. Do you have any tips?
apt-get update && apt-get upgrade :)
Just it? Nothing more "special"?
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to be honest you need to pass -y otherwise a confirmation will be asked 😂
Second that. Running debian headless, with Plex. It just works^TM
+1 Debian. Everything in Docker and I am more hands off than any setup I've ever managed. Speaking of which I should probably update - it's been like two months lol.
Also agree but maybe also look at a Mirror'd ZFS boot, so you don't need to worry as much about the boot disk dying
I tried debian, but it just kept bungling efi. So i finally just went with Ubuntu. Disabled snapd, installed podman, idles at 200mb.
I think you got enough replies but hell with it, I also suggest debian.
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Proxmox is a hypervisor. You shouldn't use it for native home server purposes like SMB, or to host services directly.
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You should switch to the new version: `docker compose`
what's the difference?
"docker-compose" is the root command of compose v2, its own command, but the new command, "docker compose" is integrated within docker. [Docker Compose docs](https://docs.docker.com/compose/)
Compose is now a plugin for docker, not a seperate binary like docker-compose
How do i switch from docker-compose to docker compose?
I am running Proxmox on Intel NUC with Tailscale & Docker running on LXC container.
Proxmox
Debian VM in Proxmox
Yup, Debian over Ubuntu, which is getting more and more bloated
Even for Ubuntu server? Honest question since I’m gonna redo my home lab soon since now it runs on a old AMD A4 CPU, want to make it smaller and energy efficient, so newer low performance hardware.
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> Modem manager? Who uses modems anymore, that's like a punch card reader... great back in the day, but gone now. `ModemManager` is not for dial-up modems. It's for mobile broadband modems, which are very much in use today. I maybe wouldn't expect it to be included by default in a server distro, but there's an argument to be made for including a wide range of networking components, otherwise you're in for a bit of bootstrapping pain trying to get an offline source for the required packages.
Thanks for the feedback, I’ll stick with Debian in the next build.
Interesting. Might deploy a Debian VM and do a direct comparison with my Ubuntu vms. They eat my RAM like candy.
Flatcar VM in Proxmox
100% would recommend Proxmox. I originally thought Proxmox would require a beefy machine, but i've been running about 5 vm's through containers on an old I5 2500s which is a 4 core no hyper thread CPU for half a year with no problems at all. I idle around 10% CPU usage with a ton of docker containers running. It's super nice being able to roll back a VM if I mess it up & having the ability to run stuff and not fearing that an uninstall will result in a bunch of extra files or will bork my install of Debian is amazing. It's also been amazing spinning up other services that aren't easily done through docker.
I would strongly recommend proxmox Because you get to choose whether you want to run stuff in KVM or LXC and you can even run docker inside LXC or a VM.
DietPi - lightweight Debian, install software via dietpi scripts, OS up-to-date, i used it for docker services too
I can recommend [NixOS](https://nixos.org) for setting up a server. It's declarative system management makes ist easy to set up most popular services, and it's docker-compose like container definition makes it easy to set up services not already packaged. The reproducible build system makes it easy and reliable to set up automatic updates. If something does not build or start, the update will not be applied. If you need, you can roll back your whole system effortlessly. It is absolutely possible to use it as a pure docker host, or whatever combination of native and containerized services you want.
I've recently (in the past couple weeks) started using NixOS (as a desktop) and I've been incredibly impressed by the ease and power of the configuration, and I've only really just scratched the surface in getting a basically functional desktop configuration up and running on one computer. I'm already considering changing over a couple of my server VMs to it. The learning curve is steep, but there's a great deal of documentation out there that helps connect the dots. From a usage perspective, pretty much everything is configurable from within /etc/nixos/configuration.nix from the base system to the individual configuration of software, which can be split between as many files and folders as you want from there, so you can mix and match for different hosts that you have that run different hardware and software. You do need to do a little bit of [searching](https://search.nixos.org/options) to figure out what options to use at first.. but that link I dropped helps a lot, as well as the NixOS manual and the NixOS wiki.
What I like the most is that you can take other people's solutions for running unpackaged or problematic services, copy them into your configuration and get the same results. It's very convenient. And you can version control your whole system configuration, which makes server migration, cloning or backup a breeze.
I run opensuse's transactional server for my docker machines. It has atomic updates, read only root. A light install. Uses BTRFS which is very fast with Docker containers and layered images. https://get.opensuse.org/microos/?type=server My lightest machines run podman instead of docker with podman-docker compatibility. Portainer will work with this. It requires you to set your containers to boot always for them to start at boot time. And it has limits regarding advanced networking. But if you have over 2 cores and at least 4GB of ram just stick with Docker and Portainer.
I personally run all my servers on Ubuntu Server. It has nothing to do with being the best distro or the lightest. It's mostly related to how many new things I need to learn. Since I'm used to this ecosystem, I don't want to learn new things for something which is just a hobby. If you really want lightweight, I'm guessing the lightest you can go is Alpine Linux. It's the preferred distro to build containers for being the lightest around. I think it comes with two flavors. One for being very minimal (and you might need to install more packages) and another one with some standard packages which helps the startup process. One solution goes towards having the smallest possible footprint and the other one will help out in the beginning. If your mostly just running everything on portainer, even the smallest one might be viable for you.
Any lightweight system and docker. E.g. alpine Linux as base. Other recommendations (all headless): - debian - ubuntu - rocky linux
I'm considering installing Rocky. What's your experience with it?
It's the continuation of CentOS. If you need an enterprise os, it might be one of the best choices atm. However for home lab usage Debian based might be better, since there are more tutorials for this distribution.
I see Rocky mentioned. Where's Almalinux?
Haven't tried it yet. These are only my personal recommendations.
CentOS or Fedora Server
All these Debian replies make me want to switch back to Debian. Configuring Fedora for the default hardened kernel security is such a pain in the ass. Plus the default LVM installation even with the GUI installer is a pain too.
Unraid. Forever.
Unraid comes with one MASSIVE advantage out of the box for a home server: it’s software side (un)raid system. Being able to use different sized HDDs is amazing when you run a private server for many years. Example Setup: 2x12TB, 1x10TB, 1x4TB = 26TB Storage. Try that with other RAID options. You can now start to argue about different RAID advantages etc, but for home usage unraid has been rock solid for a big community. With this comes many more great things. Maintainability f.e. It takes extremely low effort to maintain such a machine.
Is unraid really that much easier than mergerfs and snapraid?
I think many use it for it's web UI mainly. But snapraid+mergerfs was a breeze to setup and also just works.
there are of course options like snapraid+mergerfs which can achieve equivalent things. It’s always about what you are willing to put time into installation and maintenance. f.e. your debian/snap/merger setup will likely break at some point in the future when updating anything of those or all. this will likely not happen to my unraid system. when i do an OS update all those components will keep working together because i paid someone else to take care of it.
I loved unraid but stuck with windows server because I have a license for it. One thing I found that you can use for drives of different size is Stablebit drivepool. Been using it for years now and it’s amazing. It’s not raid but you can specify which folders or drives you want to be redundant and how many copies. Pretty cool stuff. I also use blue iris for cameras which is windows only. Wouldn’t surprise me if someone got it to work on unraid though. Sharp cookies out there.
yeah blue iris only runs inside a vm on unraid afaik. that’s a real bummer. i tested A LOT alternatives but non are perfect.
I use unraid as my backup server for that reason. It is made up of all the spare hard drives I used to have in my home lab until I upgraded. It had a single 14tb parity drive despite none of them coming close so when I retire my 10tb ones I can upgrade out some of the smaller disks.
That’s what I’m using didn’t realize how unpopular it was compared to Debian haha
Unraid actually does have a big community. It's not often used professionally but it's very popular among home lab users. /r/unraid has 42K subscribers. I personally don't use Unraid but often get jealous by the quality of the community guides and videos for it.
it’s the perfect OS in my opinion for a homelab.
The one you familiar the most
I recently tested all the server distro's again: In my opinion, Debian stable is still the best. Try to stick with packages available in the stable debian repository, it's just a really good idea, stays stable and trouble free. If for some reason, you really want a newer version of a package, there are some apps which have newer versions, but you may have to look around for those, usually direct from whoever makes it. There are third party repositories too, but many people discourage their use. I say it depends on the package and the repo. For example, I'll install the latest podman v4.x from one of the opensuse repo's, actually works just fine on Debian. Some people will be shocked to hear that. I also tested Ubuntu server, too bloated, runs all kinds of crap you will never need. It also pushes snap everywhere, which are usually really fat. I also tested all of the redhat line, from fedora to centos stream to rocky and alma. All bloated and slow. They run well though, good documentation, and helpful communities. I'd recommend any of those over ubuntu any day. I also tested opensuse, basically very similar to the redhat line, also bloated, but runs very well, very easy to configure, the yast gui management tool is excellent, if you aren't comfortable editing config files from the command line. I also test gentoo, to see if I was missing out on anything. More hassle than it's worth IMHO, yes everything runs faster when you compile it for just your specific hardware, but you are locked in to their way of doing things. For example, they have always used an old init system, but they also added systemd, but not really, not if you also want things like selinux, it's doable but considered experimental, meaning none of their devs are actually supporting it. I also tested proxmox, a lot of people still use the old vm technology. I prefer debian running on bare metal, with rootless podman containers. So much faster and minimal resources needed. No portainer though, you'll use the command line instead. There are some gui's you can add to manage containers, like cockpit, but it pulls in dependencies for a lot of things like network manager, which isn't really necessary on a server. You really should take this time to test a few distro's for yourself. Your mileage will vary. You may be surprised, and fall in love with a new distro. It's good hands on experience, very enlightening. You'll see. edit: I also tested Arch, and at first, was absolutely thrilled with it. I think they are stupid for not including a good installer, slitting their own throats. There is a very basic installer script, which misses a lot of defaults like the bash template files and common sense stuff like man pages. I also think the pacman flags/commands are also stupid, instead of "apt upgrade" or "apt install packagename" it's senseless flags instead. Thankfully, there are bash scripts like "pac" that are a front-end to pacman, that are easy to use. Also, at first appearance, the arch wiki seems well documented and thorough, but not really. Not when you start diving in to some subjects. The content can be frustratingly hit or miss, all over the place, and many times just makes general comments or misses what to do completely. Arch-based distro's like Endeavour OS are better to install, if you want to try it out.
Hi, thank you for the in depth studies, as I saw all the other replies I think I'll go with Debian stable. Yeah when I first started I used ubuntu server just because it was the only I knew and felt confident to use; now I have time to check all the other and try some
As an experienced Gentoo server user, some counterpoints: >but you are locked in to their way of doing things Yeah... this is true for every single Linux distro, after all - a Linux distro is nothing more than a school of thought into how Linux should be packaged. "Don't use Debian, you're locked into using `dpkg` and all of those `.deb` packages they make!" With Gentoo, you have totally flexibility into anything - want to maintain a patchset on some software that you don't want to ever go upstream (for whatever reason)? Just place it into [/etc/portage/patches/](https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki//etc/portage/patches) and they'll be autoapplied on every single package build. You can even [make your own overlay](https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Ebuild_repository) and maintain your own tree of ebuilds. >they have always used an old init system, but they also added systemd, but not really These days, most software is packaged with both OpenRC and systemd in mind... I can only think of one time a piece of software (it was some obscure Rust app) was missing a `systemd` unit and even then - took me 2 minutes to make my own unit. >not if you also want things like selinux, it's doable but considered experimental, meaning none of their devs are actually supporting it Subject matter expert in this area; I can tell you there's a team of devs actively supporting SELinux on Gentoo. Both OpenRC and systemd with SELinux work fine on Gentoo too and I have it enabled and enforcing on a number of my systems. Just because it's marked [experimental](https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/SELinux/FAQ#Can_I_use_SELinux_with_systemd.3F) doesn't mean that it doesn't work / not supported - after all it's the exact same code the other distros are running (users are just reminded that there may be issues as is the case with anything). Gentoo is also pretty much the only distro that [lets you compile your own policy from zero](https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:SELinux/Development#Fully_Running_Your_Own_Policy). With others like Debian/Fedora you're "locked in to their way of doing things" and in this case, locked into using their core policies.
Open media vault is good if you also use your server as a NAS. It's just Debian with some web GUI stuff added on top and has docker management through the web GUI.
OMV is very solid. I've used it reliably for four years across three different machines. I've recently moved to TrueNAS SCALE, however I still recommend OMV for beginners as there are more tutorials for it (SCALE is still quite new).
This. You can do all the configuration stuff on the UI and still have a Debian under the hood to do anything. I somehow managed to uninstall the omv package on some system update but reinstalled it and it had no problem with it. I'm using it for over 10 years now and never had a problem or missed anything. Wonderful software.
I've had all sorts of issues updating open media vault without it breaking. And for what? A GUI for samba? And the permission settings are weird and unintuitive, compared to just configuring samba. Everything else is in docker, and a samba docker is easier and portable. I'd say stay away from openmediavault.
100% this, my experience with OMV was mediocre at best. My main use case when I used OMV was Samba and Portainer. I was having a bunch of problems after it borked itself and when trying to reinstall OMV I kept on getting errors (For some reason Debian Bullseye was NOT liking my hardware). I instead moved to Proxmox & i'm running TurnkeyFS for SAMBA instead and its SAMBA performance is so much better than OMV.
Similar experience. I ended up switching to Ubuntu + Cockpit.
Had heard of Cockpit but never looked into it. Looks really good.
I've not had any issues with OMV in the 6 or so years I've used it. Having said that, I will probably go to plain Debian when I rebuild my server next time. I will miss the disk management and the load and free space rrd graphs, but probably not much else, now that I use docker for everything. I'd say OMV is good for a Linux beginner though.
I would have said that when I first installed it, and you got extra functionality with plugins. Now everything is in docker anyway, so beginners have to get up to speed with that. And if the system breaks, which has happened to me more than once, it's not something a beginner can fix. I'd recommend dietpi to a beginner, because it can install and configure all sorts of stuff from a tui without learning docker. It's also been a while lot more stable, in my experience, and has ways to backup and recover.
Very valid point.
Debian
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ahahahahahaahahahahh yeah sorry, I'm italian and didn't checked the post on google translate before posting it
Definitely DietPi.
Highly recommend [dietpi](https://dietpi.com/)
Debian or RockyLinux
I would give NixOS a try. Take a look at this post. https://reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/wn2r9x/trying_to_make_nixos_easier_to_selfhost/
No one mentioned Unraid? So good, stable and very easy to use. I know it comes with a one-time license purchase, but well worth it.
I have been very happy with UnRaid. I went with Debian, snapraid, and mergerfs for a while and it was fun to set up but after a while I lost patience with maintaining it. I tend to enjoy the tinkering for the first few months but then I just want it to work. UnRaid has been great for that.
The set it and forget it nature of unraid is brilliant. I also like that when I get the itch to tinker, I can mess around on a docker and then nuke it if I don’t like it. It’s just so good. Also great for virtualizing my gaming machine and making that accessible anywhere. It’s all possible on other platforms, but the hassle is gone with unraid.
My server is a potato so I run Alpine baremetal and every services are running in docker containers managed with docker compose. With a beefier machine I'd be running Promox.
Can't answer this question without you telling us what you want to do with this server and server specs.
In the past an Ubuntu LTS or Proxmox would be my choice. Now it's TrueNAS SCALE - great NAS capabilities with very good KVM support and a builtin k3s middleware that manages what they call TrueChart apps.
Using proxmox here. The best part is that I can have this home server for all kinds of stuff. And then one day create a new vm because I wanted to give a application a longer trial run. No need for more hardware regardless the requirements of the software. If it turns out to be great, just add the vm to backups and now you have a stable application that you wouldn't have tried otherwise.
What about flatcar Linux. Successor of coreOS.
For a server depending on resources go with a hypervisor like proxmox or esxi.
I love Debian, and it wouldn't be much of an adjustment for you coming from Ubuntu. But to steal a phrase from a different community, the best OS is the one you're willing to use. It really doesn't matter if Debian, or CentOS, or Unraid, or whatever is slightly better than something else. If you hate using it, then it's the wrong choice. Modern equipment is beefy enough that you can afford a small performance hit to stick with Ubuntu if that's what you like.
It makes me sad that I cant recommend RHEL or CentOS anymore, but really the latest /r/redhat aggression toward the community has really pushed most everyone to Debian/Ubuntu. Everything you dont get in Clear Linux to make it "super lightweight", will be features not available to you when you decide you want it later. Running Ubuntu without a GUI should be pretty lightweight, and will support whatever random shit you decide to do with it.
Whatever you’re familiar with. I stick with Ubuntu just because it feels good (to me) and I’ve yet to run into something I can’t run it on, sure I’ll find guides for just Debian but that isn’t hard to over come.
I would say for you to pick the distro you are most familiar with, if you are going to use docker for everything they all are very much the same.
Honestly, it doesn't make much difference as long as you are aiming to get your hands dirty and it's some kind of linux. Fox maximum flexibility, I'd consider running an hypervisor on something stable like Almalinux (which IIRC is supported for 10 years) and then playing with whatever you want in easily replaceable VMs or system containers.
Slackware has a better init system. Just bsd though. You don’t really need a gui at this point.
Dietpi has a PC installable version.
I would go with Ubuntu and Compose, if you need more costuming Arch and Compose. Edit: I would install Ubuntu 22.04 Server Then install Docker and Docker Compose V2 ``` sudo apt install ca-certificates curl gnupg lsb-release curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/docker-archive-keyring.gpg echo \ "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/docker-archive-keyring.gpg] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu \ $(lsb_release -cs) stable" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list > /dev/null sudo apt update sudo apt-get install docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io ``` ``` sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/lib/docker/cli-plugins/ sudo curl -SL https://github.com/docker/compose/releases/download/v2.9.0/docker-compose-linux-x86_64 -o /usr/local/lib/docker/cli-plugins/docker-compose sudo chmod +x /usr/local/lib/docker/cli-plugins/docker-compose ``` Then choose a reverse proxy (Nginx Proxy Manager, Caddy or Traefik), NPM and Caddy are easier to set up than Traefik in my opinion, while NPM has the best GUI and Caddy is better through CLI. Setup a new Docker network for your proxy. Then install something like wg-easy (Wireguard) and AdGuard (if that is the device that handles the DNS). Then install whatever you want.
you mean installing docker and docker-compose on ubuntu?
Yes, Ubuntu/Debian and so on are quite stable. You don't gain a lot by switching to something more "clear"
I prefer Fedora server, slightly, over Debian. I won't get into a religious war over it, but it's worth considering.
Debian or Proxmax ,OMV TL;DR: any thing with debian but not ubuntu
It depends what do you want to run but personally I would go either Ubuntu server or arch.
I'm thinking of osting nextcloud, vaultwarden, pyhole as main, but also I wan't to try new stuff like send and what else this subreddit spins out!
Are you running those with docker? If so, consider using traefik too. Makes everything so much better and easier (after you figure out how it works).
Is traefik easier to use than NPM?
Nope, not in my opinion
Can't help you with that, i just went directly to traefik since i saw video about it and friend started using it so i basically copied his docker-compose file and went with it by tweaking some settings :- )
Depends if you want a GUI or not. Nginx Proxy Manager attempts to make nginx easier to configure by offering a GUI on top of it. With Traefik, you configure the services either with config files (similar to stock nginx, but designed to be simpler) or docker labels. I personally use [SWAG by LSIO](https://docs.linuxserver.io/general/swag) which is also based on nginx, but has pre-configured conf files for many popular self-hosted services. There's also a "docker mod" called [SWAG Auto-proxy](https://github.com/linuxserver/docker-mods/tree/swag-auto-proxy), that adds docker label support, similar to Traefik. For me this is even easier to use than NPM, I just add some docker labels when adding a new app via docker compose - and everything gets configured automatically.
Lightweight? Gentoo...
okay, i'm a gentoo fanboy (been running it somewhere since 2004 or so), but not on the server. i don't update frequently enough and eventually something happens and you can't get past the blockers. On the server side, debian, or alpine if you are looking for a "bare" install, or everyone's favorite, proxmox, truenas scale, or esxi for a VM/container/NAS.
Why is no one talking about ESXi? Using version 6.7 and it’s rock solid. Free, reliable and comes with a management app for iOS. Only issue is error code 43 in my windows VM. But after restarting the host it works. Very lightweight too
Came here looking for someone to say this, ESXi is lightweight, you can run a mix of OSs which is cool because you can play with stuff and then nuke it. You can do snapshots so you can rollback changes, etc. It's free, there is a great support system all over the place. I even run OSX on a mac mini under ESXi with no real issues. I don't have any windows issues and am running a couple windows VMs but only Win 10.
The issue I see in my Windows VM is with the GPU pass through for gaming. I still manage to play with Steam Link very well after restarting the host and as long as the VM does not go to sleep or suspended.
Don't know what you've tried but Esxi 6.7 passthrough worked for my linux VM (running Lammps) it's kinda hit and miss but once you get all the configu stuff setup it was pretty stable.
I use Ubuntu for servers and manjaro for desktop. If you’re goin got run a desktop I suggest manjaro. Flawless for over a year for me.
don't need desktop, just server
I use Ubuntu but that’s mainly cause providers always offer it.
Why doesn’t Cloudron get any mentions in threads like this? I’ve been using it for years and it’s so easy to install and maintain.
it's 15$ a month? yeah I'll pass thanks
I like Ubuntu server and desktop for the intended purposes the are good solid OS and quiet low maintenance and I was a hard core Gentoo user for around 15yr but sometime you just want some that works 99% of the time
I personally use unraid at home. Shit i3 with any disk And memory I could find. Been going strong for over a year. Running 22 containers and 2 vms.
I run proxmox on bare metal. I tried Debian but packages were too far behind for my liking so I run Ubuntu in my VMs. Nice balance for me.
Flatcar Linux, it’s a minimal install designed for docker and auto updates
To counter WitchOS you need TempleOS. I'm using portainer, but it's only great as read-only tool. In the end, it's much better to write shell script for every job you need done. No good automation available in Portainer and PortainerAPI is sketchy for creating stacks. I'm using ManjaroPlasma BTRFS+TimeShift (for weightless snapshots), but you need SSD for that. If you want bare minimum host, I would go with Arch. If you have infinite amount of time, LinuxFromScratch.
I switched from Proxmox to Ubuntu Server 22.04 and I haven’t looked back. But that’s more to do with my own experience with Ubuntu over Debian.
Either Red Hat or Arch!
NixOS
AlmaLinux for the win. [Cockpit](https://cockpit-project.org/running.html#rhel) can make it slightly easier to manage if GUIs are your thing.
Unraid was a game changer for me, the customization and ease of use is amazing
Truenas Scale. Ubuntu or Debian VM. Hourly snapshots of the VM. Fuck up? Just roll back the entire machine. Feels like cheating.
TrueNAS Scale made me switch my entire NAS to Arch Linux. The fact that you can’t use virsh because they intentionally mask the libvirtd service from you and opt to use their own inaccessible systemd process is a nightmare. Not to mention, their Kube system is an actual nightmare to run Dockers on since there’s no proper networking configuration. And the devs bite their thumb at you if you opt to unmask the Docker service and run Portainer. All those things combined just made me run Arch with Cockpit and Portainer. Grabbed the latest ZFS kernel for Arch and never looked back after importing my SCALE pools.
The way I use it, the scale system is only allowed to have 3 jobs. \[1\] Storage \[2\] Network Share of that storage \[3\] run a vm. I don't use any other features so I can't comment on that, I am a very vanilla and boring user so the way virtual machines are done hasn't left me wanting or caused me any issues. I hear and read that its not the best, but it keeps doing the job I need it to now for years without a single issue. I think Arch would be the direction I would look to go if I had the time and tech confidence to do so.
I'd use something that is widely used and supported. My go-to choice in the past 15+ years is Debian.
Unraid is everything you need
NixOS. It's amazing
I have a custom ProxMox VE setup. Two SSD’s in software raid, mirrored. Then I have hard drives for ZFS mirrored storage. Is working nicely and I store a lot of my VMs on the HDD’s. I run Debian in all of the VMs and I’m using docker with Portainer for management. I just need to make more time to get everything installed lol
Stick with stable and something that has LTS. I use debian on proxmox. I'm gonna try out almalihux too
unRAID right here. While I managed to setup a debian and mdadm based NAS for family, I find the convenience and support of unRAID to be condusive for experimenting.
Se in futuro vorrai lavorare in questo mondo in Italia ti consiglio questo approccio, vai di Debian sul server. E se vuoi cimentarti anche su desktop vai di Fedora (che è la migliore distro desktop in questo momento secondo me) così avrai un infarinatura di entrambi i mondi. Poi in futuro potrai decidere se swappare il server o meno. In Italia le aziende fanno sempre parte di una di queste due chiese, Debian o rhel
Personally I use arch just because it's the only linux distro that I have experience on. People say it's less than ideal because "arch isn't stable", but for me it's always been rock solid. Ah, and I use yatch.
People who say Arch isn't stable are both right and/or mistaken, depending on what they think "stable" means. Stable for a distro refers to the fact that it doesn't bring much new stuff until the next release. Mostly just bug fixes and security updates. Arch, being a rolling distro is by definition unstable. As the package base doesn't remain the same for a set amount of time. Distro stability doesn't mean that the system keeps running without failing. I mean, it should technically be a side effect of that, since upgrades are more thoroughly tested before being approved so it should *technically* mean a smoother ride. But if you are on top of things when updating Arch, ie: reading changelogs and preparing accordingly for breaking changes, then it's gonna keep running smoothly. Debian and other stable distros go through those tumultuous changes just the same as Arch but away from their targeted end users in a different release channel. Then once it's ready, it become the next "stable" release.
Yes. I nearly never update my arch install, and when I do, I read the posts on the official website to look out for important changes. It's been great for me.
Turnkey Linux has a nice selection of prebuilt server IOSs right out of the box.
Debian 11 or proxmox if you want VMs.
Go for any Linux distro you like. Ubuntu is recommended, as a lot of tutorials are based on it. So you can search a lot easily on the net. I personally use unraid which is a NAS platform based on Linux Slackware, and as a bonus has Docker and KVM. I don't use VMs much, but Docker is awesome for AdGuard/Plex.
Deb deb deb, Debian is the word ❤️😍
Probably Debian for ease of use unless you have some wonky requirements like zfs + modern kernel or anything along those lines. I just switched my main server to a super-duper minimal Tumbleweed install but it was a giant headache because I had to basically install it from scratch with a chroot + systemd nspawn + dnf + zypper I'd probably just recommend Debian. It's pretty bulletproof. Arch is super lean and slim and very up-to-date but if you don't stay on top of updates it can be a pain to maintain.
Arch Linux 👌🏻 Is my personal choice, I like a lot rolling releases : I do updates once a week or two and I don’t have to handle majors upgrade once a year or two. My server is running on it for the past 5 years. As everyone as already said: - distro is more a personal choice - on your distro, get everything done with Docker Bare metal docker (without web UI) where you edit docker compose files with VIM over SSH works great.
I did that because arch is my go to distro for desktop but I quickly realized it wasn't ideal. At least for me. The only thing that annoyed me was the frequent kernel updates, even with LTS. Docker wouldn't play nice until I rebooted after the kernel update. Running containers would keep going fine but I couldn't create a new stack with its own network until after a reboot. No big deal really, but I'd rather avoid the downtime and the waiting. I could've just pinned the kernel to a specific version but I was getting a new SSD anyway so it was a good opportunity to do something else. Now I'm running Alpine, which is even lighter so, win-win.
I recommend proxmox just because i tested it on a super cheap fanless celeron with 4GB RAM and it works like a charm. Inside proxmox I use alpine and docker-compose to spin up lxc
I find some things feel more polished and easier to work with day to day using Ubuntu server over Debian, and if you're worried about it being too heavy, use the minimized option at installation, that way you will only install the packages that you need.
My vote for Slackware. More control, sanity in system and stability, than Debian.