I am trying to use my old laptops for self-hosting. One has a 6th gen Intel Core i3 (4GB ram), the other has an 11th gen Intel Core i5 (8GB ram). I have previously tried both ubuntu server and desktop but couldn’t get it to work well. For the former I found it difficult to remote ssh and the latter I had difficulty installing Docker containers. (I’m not very good with the command line)
I would like to find an OS that is easier to setup with less of a neccesity for the command line (I would still like to learn how to use it though, I don’t want to get rid of it entirely!). I’ve heard of CasaOS, is that a good option? It seems quite easy to use. What about other alternatives?
I’m not trying to be unhelpful. My advice would be to steer into the terminal. Bite the bullet. I use arch and alpine for my servers but Fedora would be fine (but SELinux can be a pain with bund mounts)
Probably just go with Fedora with btrfs for snaps. It has lots of support and is a common choice for servers
How do you troubleshoot Alpine? The one time I tried (later needed to use Debian because the OS was not supported) I could almost only find ressources in conjunction with containerization.
Honestly, I’ve had little trouble. The Gentoo Wiki and Void Handbook have a lot of overlap with OpenRC and musl, respectively.
While the documentation could be improved, the overall experience has been quite good and very stable.
Maybe just a matter of skill issue with another distro (faimily).
Oh well. Maybe another time ;)
Yeah
kind oftotally agree. Trying to self host without using the terminal would be like trying to drive a car without touching the steering wheel with your hands. It’s possible but dangerous and cumbersome.Don’t let it scare you. Get something installed to let you build some VMs to play around without worries (Virtualbox, VM Workstation, parallels), and install a distribution like Debian, Ubuntu, Mint and start to play. To self host all you really need is learning some basic file manipulation (move,copy,remove), how to edit text files (vi,emacs,nano), and the basic directory structure. That will get you 90% of the way there. When you see things like awk, sed, grep ask an AI to explain it, they are actually useful for that. These sort of commands start getting into advanced things like output redirection and regex which can be EXTREMELY confusing. Heck I have a CS degree, been in IT for almost 30 years, and I’ve been using Linux since the mid 90s and some of that still confuses me. So basically don’t fret if it’s too confusing, you are totally not alone. Play, screw up, try to fix it, curse, read a lot, try again, realize it’s toast, start over. Honestly I think I just described my job 😂
yunohost
The command line is an exceptionally useful tool, you may want to spend a little time getting familiar with it and common command line tools that would probably make self hosting almost anything easier.
It’s like wanting to learn to play guitar but not learning how to restring and tune it, sure it’s not necessary but you’re going to be overly dependent on others to do something you could learn for yourself with a little time and patience, and it will probably broaden your perspective on what you can do once you do get familiar with how to pipe commands together and combine basic tools into something more sophisticated and complex.
I ended up installing Debian since Yunohost can’t install and my old laptop doesn’t meet the hardware requirements of TrueNAS Scale
By the way, you can still run the Yunohost installer ontop of your Debian install… If you want to… It’s Debian-based anyway so it doesn’t really matter if you use its own install media or use the script on an existing Debian install. Though I feel like adding: If you’re looking for Docker… Yunohost might not be your best choice. It’s made to take control itself and it doesn’t use containers. Of course you can circumvent that and add Docker containers nonetheless… But that isn’t really the point and you’d end up dealing with the underlying Debian and just making it more complicated.
It is a very good solution if you don’t want to deal with the CLI. But it stops being useful once you want too much customization, or unpackaged apps. At least that’s my experience. But that’s kind of always the case. Simpler and more things automatically and pre-configured, means less customizability (or more effort to actually customize it).
Ah got it. I’ve installed debian since yunohost had issues installing for whatever reason. Weird.
I misread that as “self-loathing” and the answer was obvious.
I went with Truenas Scale and was pleasantly surprised it needed no command line kung fu
TrueNAS scale seems like the perfect option, the only downside is that my old laptops don’t meet the hardware requirements
Like RAM?
Not that important. I ran it with ¼-½ of the recommended RAM (1GB RAM per TB)I tried installing an ISO and it black screened. weird.
Mint or Ubuntu is like Windows but better.
The learning curve might be a little high in some regards, but you may want to try NixOS. There are quite a few services ready to enable and customize for self-hosting, and the design makes updating packages fairly simple.
To be clear, NixOS is not a “simple” solution, but it does work well for self hosting.
NixOS doesn’t have a curve, it’s a fucking wall 😆
😄 Sometimes it’s hard to remember the differential
How is that useful to OP who asked for something “without terminals”? Unless that was a joke.
Because I’ve been using Arch Linux for 15 years and live in the terminal, but even though I like the idea of NixOS, it’s not only scary because it is alien and I have neither motivation nor enough free time to learn a parallel world and gain non-transferable skills for a niche solution. And that with being interested in what NixOS is doing.
I would say it is horrible advice to a novice, unless you want to scare people away from learning terminals and configs and managing an operating system without GUI tools.
I’m not interested in arguing. You’re welcome to your opinion as well.
Multiple individuals noted the value of diving into non-GUI server administration, and I wanted to share a tool that could be of interest down the road.
Fair enough. I’m sure NixOS is a great tool, like Haskell is a great programming language (in fact my previously favorite language with a special place in my heart that taught me most about properly structuring and thinking about code).
I just wanted to put it into perspective, because not everybody wants to go into THAT deep end. But anyway, it’s all good.
On a side note, your first sentence is something that I have never seen being said ever by anyone on Reddit. Yeah respectfully agreeing to disagree is also a perfectly fine option.
Well said and thanks for expanding on the topic. It’s great to get more information out there and give others extra perspective.
I find Haskell fascinating too - it really changes your expectations of programming languages!
Keep in mind the reason why people generally dont run desktop environments on a server is because unessential software uses more resources and increases the chance of a system crash. I would highly reccomend learning how to use a terminal and installing fish (shell) is a great place to start.
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What? Am I supposed to lie? For advanced tasks such as running server grade software you need to use a terminal, this is the case for every single operating system. FreeBSD, MacOS, and yes even Windows require knowledge of the terminal for advanced tasks such as running server grade software.
User asks specifically how to do terminal based things without using the terminal. Fuck you, specifically.
Windows has IIS which has a UI
There’s a reason that’s not very popular outside of corporate intranets.
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We’re talking about servers here. Linux is the market leader in server software by an absolutely enormous margin.
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I mean if that’s what you think, I can tell you don’t work in the industry. Desktop editions generally have more than just a “prepackaged GUI” on top of a server edition.
- Server editions generally have text based installers. This might not seem like a big deal, until you’re installing on a system that doesn’t have any graphics, just a serial console.
- They almost always have an easy way to do headless and network installations.
- They sometimes have additional security modules, like SELinux, different kernel boot parameters, or even different kernel versions. (Although this is less common nowadays.)
- They’re also missing an audio server (different than a GUI), and usually a print server.
- They can often be GBs lighter, which makes a difference when you’re installing on virtual machines with limited disk space.
- They sometimes use different file systems by default (like Fedora used to).
- They might create different swap setups.
- They usually have very different network defaults. Like, desktop editions usually have a firewall, whereas server editions usually don’t (or it’s not enabled by default).
- Server editions often include terminal tools that desktop editions don’t.
- They’ll sometimes have a different network manager (Ubuntu Server uses systemd-networkd while Ubuntu Desktop uses Network-Manager).
- Server editions almost never come with userland file mounting tools like gvfs.
- Sometimes (like in Fedora) a server edition will come with remote management solutions like Cockpit.
- The home directory skeletons will be vastly different on a server vs a desktop.
That’s just off the top of my head. I’m sure there are plenty more I could find.
Now, since you seem like you might accuse me of it, note that I did not say that a server edition and a desktop edition can’t be swapped back and forth by installing and removing packages and changing a bunch of config. They can. But, it’s not “just” some GUI stuff that makes a desktop edition, and it’s not “just” the lack of a GUI that makes a server edition. They are usually quite different.
Source: I’ve been a professional Linux server administrator for 16 years. But don’t take my word for it. Try it yourself. Install Ubuntu server, then run
sudo apt install ubuntu-desktopand see if it’s exactly the same as installing Ubuntu Desktop.Removed by mod
Desktop? This entire discussion is about server software
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Yeah but all self hosting software is TUI, I mean sure you can use a GUI but at the end of the day you’ll need to use a terminal emulator to acturally run the software so there isnt much point in the overhead
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This is Lemmy, not the other place. Please be kinder. No need to abuse people trying to help, especially when OP did mention they wouldn’t mind learning if its easy enough.
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OP also said they’re willing to learn the terminal:
I would like to find an OS that is easier to setup with less of a neccesity for the command line (I would still like to learn how to use it though, I don’t want to get rid of it entirely!).
They’re essentially asking to start with a working and well-known platform that any Joe Regular can use. In car terms, this would be akin to the Chevy 350 V8. Pretty much every car guy knows that engine and how to make it run well without needing to rebuild the entire thing right off the bat.
Ubuntu. Many will disagree but, Debian flavors are a way smoother experience from the start and Ubuntu has a ton of community support. You’ll rarely find an issue no one found and solved before you.
Ubuntu has gone downhill a lot in the last decade. I no longer can recommend it. Yes there is a large community, but they make too many questionable decisions and so doing anything “different” will be hard.
Yeah, I don’t recommend settling on it, but I stand by learning on it. It will be the most frictionless. It’ll ease you into resolving hairy problems in a way that is less discouraging, because they’re not quite as hairy.
Anything but Ubuntu for the most part
Mint, Fedora, Rocky or whatever else
Would absolutely not recommend fedora as a first distro.
Fedora better than Ubuntu in a lot of ways
Also with Fedora 42 there is a entirely new installer so it is much easier to setup.
It is a testing ground for new features. It is literally one of the worst beginner distros. Shit breaks constantly. That is not good for beginners. Just because you like it doesn’t make it good for beginners.
We’re not talking about what distros are good. We are talking about what is good for beginners.
Have you even used Fedora recently? It is well tested and focused on being beginner friendly. That wasn’t always the case but it changed a few years ago.
I’m done arguing. Not gonna respond to whatever fedora fanboy nonsense to follow.
Ubuntu holds around 30 percent of the Linux desktop market. Fedora sits around 1 to 2 percent. Ubuntu focuses on Long Term Support stability, massive community documentation, seamless hardware driver support, and minimizing breakage for new users. Fedora deliberately pushes bleeding-edge kernels, experimental libraries, and rapid changes that regularly introduce breakage. Beginners do not need the newest kernel version or experimental features. They need stability, predictability, easy troubleshooting, and access to a massive community when things go wrong. Fedora is excellent for intermediate users who know how to fix their own problems. It is irresponsible to recommend a testing ground distro to someone who is still learning how to use the terminal.
If Fedora were actually a good beginner distro, it would dominate beginner spaces like r/linux4noobs, It does not. Fedora is respected, but it is not designed for beginners. Even Fedora’s own documentation assumes technical competence that a first-time Linux user will not have.
It is objectively not a good distro for beginners. Not even Fedora thinks it’s a good distro for beginners. Your arguments make no sense. I certainly don’t care to hear anymore of them.
Good day.
It is ok to admit you are wrong. Fedora wasn’t always the project it is today and at one point it was purely for testing. I get the impression that you’ve either never used Fedora or haven’t used it in a very long time.
https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/
Not everyone needs the latest stable of everything. That’s ok but I also didn’t just list Fedora. It is just a option to consider if you want a up to date system that’s well tested.
Windows Server 2022
Maybe you might find home in one of those NAS ootimized distros like Openmediavault, truenas, unraid. If not CasaOS or old good Debian with portainer.
I’m all for command line, but I’m the kind of person who needs a dashboard, otherwise I forget everything. OMV has a solid dashboard and has been really good for me.
Umbrel OS
Unraid is great for beginners.
Beginner here (to Linux and networking anyways), running Unraid for about 18 months now. Fully agree, it’s been great for actually getting up and doing useful things quickly and relatively pain free.
Eventually I would like to try working backwards and getting things running on a more “traditional” server environment, but Unraid has been a great learning tool for me personally.
It’s like… Maybe some folks learned to overhaul an engine before they got their driver’s license, but lots of people just need to a car to get to work and back today, and they can learn to change their oil and do a brake job when the time comes.
Does Unraid still use JBOD with a single parity disk or have they moved to a sane drive layout?
Still the same but afaik they now somewhat support running zfs
Other than ZFS as someone mentioned already, they also offer dual drive parity now. IMO it’s a good balance to also allow a very flexible and easily expandable array.
Not going anywhere near unraid so long as your (very expensive) license is tied to a USB stick.
your (very expensive) license is tied to a USB stick
Not true. You can link it to your Unraid.net account using Unraid Connect: https://docs.unraid.net/account/link-key/
Sure, it’s not perfect, but still the best option for beginners.
FWIW I’ve been using Ubuntu desktop with CasaOS for a couple of months now to host Nextcloud, Jellfin, Immich and a few other bits and bobs with absolutely no issues at all so far!
