What OS should I use for self-hosting that doesn't require extensive terminal knowledge?
from scheep@lemmy.world to selfhosted@lemmy.world on 28 Apr 01:57
https://lemmy.world/post/28813990
from scheep@lemmy.world to selfhosted@lemmy.world on 28 Apr 01:57
https://lemmy.world/post/28813990
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?
threaded - newest
I can recommend you Debian, since it’s the “default” for many servers and has a lot of documentation and an extremely big userbase.
For web interfaces, I can recommend you, as you already mentioned, CasaOS and Cockpit.
I used CasaOS in the beginning and liked it, but nowadays, I mostly use Cockpit, where I have the feeling that it integrates the host system more, and allows me to do most of my maintenance (updating, etc.) quite easily.
CasaOS is more aesthetic imo, and allows you to install docker containers graphically, which is better for beginners.
I personally do my docker stuff mostly via CLI (docker compose file) nowadays, because I find it more straightforward, but the configuration CasaOS offers is easier to understand and has nice defaults
Thanks, that was really helpful :D
I’ll try CasaOS then, and later maybe I could move to Debian once I get better at the command line!
For what it's worth, CasaOS isn't actually an operating system. It absolutely works as an easy way to install and manage your self-hosted apps if you aren't comfortable with the command line, but you still need to have a working Linux installation.
Yunohost is kind of similar as far as making things easier, but it operates as a standalone OS, so might be more what you're looking for.
CasaOS isn’t an OS, it’s just the web interface you install afterwards you have Debian or whatever running
OHHH that’s why I couldn’t find out how to install it. Got it.
I would recommend trying out Cockpit (Github) and Portainer (Github).
Cockpit gives you a WebUI for Linux and Portainer gives you a WebUI for Docker.
Personally I usually run Debian Stable for servers, but choice of distro matters little if you run stuff as Docker containers.
thanks! Maybe I could check out cockpit and portainer too…
Might want to use dockge instead of portainer.
github.com/louislam/dockge
Portainer has… Weird issues.
Not knocking Dockge, but I have to say I was underwhelmed coming from Portainer. It obviously works for a lot of people, so I might just be ‘special’.
I mean its not really meant to be special. Just a good management frontend.
I meant that I’m special as in incompetent, not that the app was special.
Oh lol
What kind of issues?
Ive had several stacks just fail to deploy in portainer.
Copy pasting the composes then running them as vanilla yamls or in dockge they worked entirely fine.
Can’t remember the exact compose files but I remember they were Linux server containers. No idea what the issue is/was since its been years.
Generally, Linux Servers are best administered from a command line. At least in the beginning to set everything up. In turn they are faster on lower hardware as they dont even have a graphical desktop at all so need less resources. You could of course install a windows server OS. They can be fully administered through Remote Desktop and a GUI.
There are multiple projects to make self hosting more accessible (like casaOS). They automate many steps of the setup and then offer you a webUI for further steps. Maybe have a look here github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted?…
Woah, there’s a lot. Nice that there’s plenty of options!
I run my home media server ( and intel NUC i5, so nothing super powerful) running Ubuntu with CasaOS.
There’s tons of you tube videos to help with CasaOS for self hosting and not just the media side.
I think I only used the terminal to install CasaOS the rest is done from the web gui
Just from the handful of OSs I’ve tried, I’d suggest Ubuntu desktop again.
As for docker, I’d say to get docker and docker compose setup. Once you’re running in docker compose, adding machines is often as simple as editing some markup in a text editor.
But my final suggestion is to crawl before you walk before you run. Start slow in the terminal. Instead of using your file explorer, navigate directories using the terminal and then open the directory you need into the file explorer using the terminal.
Want a new file? Use
touch. Want a new directory? Usemkdir. Eventually, it’ll become annoying to open a file from your explorer when you could just open it from the terminal. Then, you’ll get annoyed with text editors and want to reduce your context switches by using vim.Also,
–helpis your best friend when trying to figure out commands. You got this! Feel free to send me a message if you wanna chat and have any questions when you’re ready to start dipping your toes. I’m far from an expert, but I’ve made some progress of my own and eventually we might learn a thing or two together.You can install some Linux distro and then install a docker management web UI like coolify. Requires little terminal knowledge. Though you should learn the terminal.
Try the Fedora Server distro, afaik it should come with Cockpit installed: fedoraproject.org/server/
The trade off with Fedora is that has a support window of only a year
There are also Rocky and Alma
Hey :) I’m not giving you any recommendations but want to give you my personal experience !
5 years ago I had absolutely no clue about Linux/CLI/networking/docker… You name it ! And I also wanted to repurposed and old laptop as a server.
The first distro I installed on my server was Debian ! Why? Because I remembered my brother said something along the line: “Every server infrastructure is run by Debian or a Debian derivative”. So this sounded like the perfect thing to install as a server distro :) !
5 years later I’m still running Debian on this old laptop and it’s going strong ! Never did it failed me except if I did something wrong over the CLI !
As you guessed it, you will need some degree of proficiency on the command line specially if you install your distro without a graphical user interface, which I would recommend… Yes, the CLI isn’t easy to beginning with and you will do some mistakes that will need a full reinstall of your system… But before you learn to move, you learn to stay up right on your legs and this involves a lot a failing !!
It’s not mandatory, you can install a lightweight GUI and take your time. There are a lot of application with good UI which will help you out ! However, not once did I regret to take the harder route and learned so many things along the way ! After this amount of time in the CLI, I can say I’m getting quite good In navigating my system, keeping it healthy and alive :p !
Okay, If it’s a matter of time I get it ! We only have 24h a day and most of this time is already spend at work/school, family time, friends, sleep, eat ! If you’re lucky enough to have 2 hours to spare to tinker arround, a UI is a good idea to keep a healthy balance between all your personal activities ! But keep in mind, both are thorny and have their fair share of issues and debug time.
Last words, have fun with your system :)
thanks for sharing your experience :D
If you’re afraid of the terminal, you won’t get far in self hosting. You should learn to use the terminal. It’s not as scary as people make it sound.
You mentioned having issues with SSH into your old server. You can install a desktop environment if it makes things easier for you, but you should still learn how to be proficient in the terminal. Proxmox might help. It lets you create and manage VMs through a web interface. It can be annoying if you’re not super familiar with networking though.
Self hosting is doomed until this isn’t the answer.
Yeah, this whole “Linux server” thing just isn’t going to take off.
Notice that it hasn’t amongst mainstream consumers.
You know what self hosted projects have been successes? Plex and Home Assistant. You know what projects don’t require the terminal? Plex and Home Assistant.
Notice that mainstream customers dont self host.
You’re viewing this through an incredibly skewed lense. The average person will never even consider self hosting nor will care, if anything the average person prefers cloud services. Who cares if server grade software is terminal only? Its good enough for the companies that sponsor these projects and its good enough for enterprise level users.
The only lens I’m viewing this through is one that dares to imagine that the Venn diagram of “computer users savvy enough to care about privacy” isn’t 100% contained within the circle of “computer users savvy with the terminal”.
Quite frankly your stance that the ‘average person’ doesn’t care, when this post is LITERALLY from an ‘average person’ who does, is the one that seems off base on its face.
This is literally lemmy, a (relatively) niche platform where somebody is asking about a (relatively) niche subject. I dont think anything about this is a average person. Also im viewing this through realistic lenses, enterprise software developers fund TTY server grade software and people like you who complain about that are very rarely the type of people who contribute or make software. Yeah sorry but imagining is worthless unless you can code and your complaints come off as entitled whining.
‘Average person’ was in quotes because it’s the language you used to describe someone not comfortable with the command line.
Yes, that’s what they said.
What? A niche technical hobby isn’t popular among mainstream consumers? Wow!
Mainstream consumers don’t know words “Plex” and “Home Assistant” either. There are already products that target these people. And there are products targeted at technical people. We need diversity.
Self hosting is just an extension of open source software. It’s only goal is being able to run your own backends of apps to not be exploited by major companies. It’s goal is not to be a niche technical hobby, if that’s your goal in its own right, then get a model train or a Warhammer set.
Yes, they do lol. It’s flat out weird to think that the only people who have ever heard of pirating are software developers and server admins who use the command line.
You got into Self Hosting for unreasonable ideological reasons
I got into self hosting to avoid AWS Fees
We are not the same
Good. Mainstream consumers don’t understand enough about networking and computer security to be trusted to self-host anything beyond desktop applications. And even that is debatable. They’re so bad at it that walled-gardens have become ubiquitous just to keep viruses from running rampant.
It isn’t, self hosting just isn’t for everyone, and it never will be.
Self hosting will always remain a hobby thing. Most people won't give the time need to properly admin their own system and an improperly admined system is a risk that you don't want to take with your precious data. I can't blame people for not doing this - there are ball games to watch, saw dust to make, kids to raise, and millions of other things to do with your free time such that you cannot do everything you might want to. Sure most people could learn to do this, but it isn't a good use of their time.
What the world needs is someone trustworthy and cheap enough to handle data for people who have better things to do. Which is why I have fastmail handle my email. I self host a lot of other things though because I don't know of anyone I can trust to do a good job for a reasonable price.
Self hosting isn’t likely to ever get to the point of “plug and play”. It’s inherently incredibly flexible and different people will do different things with it. Some people just want NAS. Some people want to build a router. Some people want to have a modest compute farm that they physically own. Some people want a virtualization playground. Or pretty much anything else you can think of, or some combination thereof.
For instance, I custom built a 2-tier + optane cached NAS running proxmox, and I have a handful of old thin clients I can spin up for doing Beowulf things when I feel like it, and I also have another repurposed thin client with an old enterprise-grade SFP+ NIC running pfSense as my router that can support up to 10g (futureproofing).
No. You really don’t want to self host unless you are pretty familiar with how these services work. Otherwise, you’re just setting yourself up to get hacked.
I mean what’s the point of “self” hosting then?
If you have to be a professional server administrator to host one of these services, then why even have a self hosting community as opposed to just a hosting community for server admins to discuss how to set and configure various services? Is this community dedicated to just discussing the uniqueness of managing a home server without a dedicated IP?
If you want to ride a bike, you need to learn to balance on a bike. That will never change. You don’t need to be a professional cyclist.
If you want to self host, you need to learn some basic administration, and that includes the terminal. That will never change. You don’t need to be a professional server administrator.
You might be able to get by with some hand holdy solution that offers a few things you can do, but just like riding a scooter is much more limited than riding a bike, using a turnkey solution is much more limited than setting up your own server.
Imagine wanting to self host but refusing to learn how to forward a port. There are just some things you need to learn. Like I said in my original comment, the terminal is not as scary as people make it sound. Right now, you are the person making it sound scary.
Imagine if OP asked: “I want to repair/maintain my own car, but I don’t want to open the hood or get under the car. What are my options?”
Obviously there would be some options, but those options would be very limited and not ideal. This is very similar. Self-hosting, like self-repair of a vehicle, requires some foundational knowledge and understanding of your specific hardware, usecase, and needs, as well as the knowledge and ability to bring those things to fruition. There is no single universal answer that applies to everyone, but those skills can be acquired by anyone.
I don’t think self-hosting is any more doomed than self-repair of a vehicle. It’s certainly not for everyone, but it can be satisfying, rewarding, enjoyable, and generally optimized for those who choose to participate.
A desktop environment is a waste of resources on a system where you’ll only use it to install and occasionally upgrade a few server applications. The RAM, CPU power, and electricity used to run the desktop environment could be instead powering another couple of small applications.
Selfhosting is already inefficient with computing resources just like everyone building their own separate infrastructure in a city is less efficient. Problem is infrastructure is shared ownership whereas most online services are not owned by the users so selfhosting makes sense, but requires extra efficiencies.
The least sanctimonious linux shithead
Name checks out
Edit: Comment was in wrong place, refiled as op level comment.
Could you recommend a source for learning how to use the command line? In the past I struggled with understanding the basic commands and the various flags. I’ve found it difficult to find good documentation, but I would like to learn
It’s been a long time since I learned, so I don’t remember exactly what I used, but at a cursory glance, this one looks good:
www.terminaltutor.com
Also, learning to read man pages will help a lot. Here’s an article on that:
itsfoss.com/linux-man-page-guide/
I do remember using “terminal cheat sheets” like this:
phoenixnap.com/…/linux-commands-cheat-sheet-pdf.p…
Thanks for the very practical resources!
TBF ChatHPT is probably your best bet
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I highly recommend O’Reilly’s Learning the Bash Shell in paperback form: www.oreilly.com/library/view/…/0596009658/.
The other responses you’ve received so far don’t offer much insight into the historical background and underlying mechanics of the shell, which are crucial to understanding the "Why?"s of command-line quirkiness.
Thanks for your reply. I agree the ‘why’ is important, for me that usually makes things more intuitive
A 20 year old paperback book seems like a bad choice.
It’s a 36 y/o language, mate. I still reference my copy all the time, and found it to be a great definitive resource when I was learning.
How many bash 4/5 features are you seriously using on a regular basis? What do you think is out-of-date?
Are you under the impression that that language hasn’t changed?
Bash has had some nice minor features and syntax sugar added, but the fundamentals are entirely the same. All the examples in the book work just the same today as they did when it was written.
What was added in 4.X or 5.x that you can’t live without? What do you think has changed that merits inclusion?
Since it seems like you don’t know much about bash at all, I promise the book will help you.
You can be someone who actually knows what they’re talking about instead of making embarrassing, snarky comments that expose your lack of education on the topic at hand.
Maybe you can be the kind of person who isn’t offended by questions and retaliates with personal insults. Just a thought.
You didn’t start by asking a question. You needlessly trashed a helpful suggestion from a place of ignorance, then asked a naive question defensively to mask a lack of knowledge.
That is rude and trollish behavior.
Yeah that’s what happened. Good luck being an asshole 🙄
This is a fun game approach to learning some bash basics.
It is not “scary”. It is complicated and requires special knowlege.
I wouldn’t call it complicated, but yeah, it’s special knowledge. So is all of self hosting.
You wouldn’t. A lot of tech people wouldn’t. But it is. I’ve found this out the hard way, after spending dozens of hours trying to figure it out. You’re not doing anyone any favors.
It’s not any more complicated than a GUI, it’s just that the dozens of hours you spent learning to use a GUI was a long time ago, and you don’t remember how complicated it was.
Also, you’re probably exaggerating, because dozens of hours is way longer than it should take to become proficient at the terminal. There are resources online that you can use to learn in a few hours.
This is utter nonsense. You do not need to learn to use a GUI. You just look at the available buttons and click the ones you need. And when you click them they do what they say, they don’t return a “command not found” or “undefined error” with zero diagnostic information. And they work the same regardless of what OS or distro you’re on.
The fact that you don’t understand this is why you’re not qualified to tell people that it’s “easy”.
Ok, so it’s been long enough for you, that you can’t even conceive of not knowing how to use a GUI anymore. Good for you, I guess.
Not that I’m using them, but what about these two?
www.truenas.com/truenas-scale/
www.proxmox.com/en/
hexos.com is also trying to be a low skill low effort version of truenas, but it does have a one time payment. I didn’t think you’d need a nas specific OS for just one storage laptop though, it’s more meant for large home storage servers.
Proxmox rox.
YUNOhost is designed for this. You can do almost everything graphically via the webadmin. Mine has been running for a couple of years and I’m very happy with it. I have email, XMPP (both of which were installed out of the box), a website, file sharing and a few other things. There are a tonne of apps available, including Fediverse instances, Nextcloud. It’s a very cool thing to have available for making self-hosting more accessible.
Early on sometime, I deployed Yunohost. At the time there were apps, but the catalog was sparse. I happened upon it again in a search for something else about a week or so ago. Wow! The devs have been really developing it at a cyclical rate. I was impressed. For someone just starting out and trying to get their toes wet, I could see Yunohost being a good starting point.
Half of the apps aren’t functional but yes, there are a lot.
YUNOHost iso is basically just Debian, but the one-click-install for various self-hosted things is it’s primary purpose. All done through web interface.
don’t go with server variants of the OS. they are intended for boxes that work without display and keyboard, which you have. instead, install any normal distro you’re familiar with. it’s infinitely easier to fix something with the full GUI at your disposal.
this is just your first install, you will iterate, and through that process you’ll get better and leaner, in terms of underlying OS. think of it as training wheels on a bike, you’ll pull them off eventually.
wired connection only, leave wireless turned off, and assign it a static IP address.
don’t do containerS, do one container first. figure out where you’re gonna store the compose files, where it will store data, how you will back that data up, etc. then add another. does it fit into your setup? do you need to modify something? rinse. repeat.
casaOS, aside from it’s murky background (some chinese startup or sumsuch, forgot?) doesn’t provide that path forward nor allows you to learn something, too much hand holding.
good luck.
ah okay, gotcha. So no CasaOS then. Lots of others suggest YUNOHost, is that fine?
Almost all of selfhosting is editing config files, setting permissions and starting/stopping services.
Setting it up so you can administer a server by desktop is probably as hard as learning how to edit config files from a terminal. Maybe harder.
Yep my thoughts. New selfhosters think the hard part of selfhosting is command line but that’s “kinda” like thinking that the hard part of math is writing numbers on paper. Terminal is just the medium, not the complex part. Navigating filesystem and editing files is easier on the desktop but changing permissions and managing services would be be extremely difficult for a newbie without using the terminal because (almost) every online tutorial uses terminal. OP would have to learn how to translate the terminal command to its desktop counterpart at which point they might as well use the terminal.
OP also has an XY problem. They asked for a system which does not require terminal usage but they should have actually asked for an easy to set up system. People are recommending things like Yunohost though, so it’s fine in the end.
Oh god, that… I recently realized that I’ve been fighting that concept with one of my cars for over a year now. Just this week, I finally figured out the right troubleshooting path 😂
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.
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.
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.
Jesus Christ, your obnoxious.
Blocked.
I was in the same spot about 3 years ago and I started with Unraid. Got me into docker and dipping my toes into command line stuff.
Honestly though you’re going to quickly outgrow your old laptops…
Unraid is great for beginners.
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.
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.
Not going anywhere near unraid so long as your (very expensive) license is tied to a USB stick.
Not true. You can link it to your Unraid.net account using Unraid Connect: docs.unraid.net/account/link-key/
Sure, it’s not perfect, but still the best option for beginners.
If you are mostly hosting files, open media vault has minimal command line, and it’s mostly administered through a web admin. It’s still fairly complex however, and I definitely recommend reading the manual thoroughly and sticking with easy tasks at first. www.openmediavault.org
I honestly would use a headless Linux system with docker compose. You can find premade docker compose files.
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.
Fuck every member of the linux community
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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Desktop? This entire discussion is about server software
No, the entire discussion is about a user that doesn’t want to deal with CLI to self host
There’s really no meaningful difference between linux desktop and server distros like there is in windows, people just run them without the desktop environment to reduce overhead.
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
I feel OP’s intent was to have as little CLI as possible, not necessarily an absence of it
We’re talking about servers here. Linux is the market leader in server software by an absolutely enormous margin.
It staggers me how dense you are, but the insight into how fanatics lose track of the plot is worth the pain of admission
The thread is about self-hosting with as little CLI as possible, and the only functioning difference between most ‘server’ and ‘desktop’ linux distros is just a prepackaged gui
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.
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.Son I’ve been an IT professional since before the internet had pictures and have spun up more linux hosts than you’ve had fap sessions.
There is no way to convert a Windows Server into a desktop compatible device without recompiling significant portions of the source code, and at that point all you are doing is recapitulating Windows Desktop
There are several ways, though not trivial, to do that with linux, in both directions. I’ve literally done it.
It doesn’t matter what extra packages get bundled with the distro that at a fundamental level all versions of linux are the same thing under the hood
So yeah, even though I specifically said you’d probably accuse me of saying something and specifically told you I wasn’t saying that, you still accused me of it. You should work on your reading comprehension.
Now, you said that a desktop edition is virtually the same as a server edition + a prepackaged GUI. I gave you plenty of reasons they’re not.
As an IT professional, you absolutely should know this. So far, the only skill you’ve shown any true mastery of is misguided condescension. So instead of arguing against a point I didn’t make, if you’d like to argue against my actual point, feel free. Otherwise, maybe realize you’re not as educated as you thought, and learn.
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.
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:
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.
Me either so I take a lot of notes about commands and command sequences. Also, I find that Grok is pretty decent at explaining commands. AI is a wonderful tool, but you also need to do your due diligence in ascertaining whether AI has given you the correct information. I would not copy/paste random commands into a production server, but rather I have a small test server for that kind of stuff. Once I have the command, tested, and understand the command, I can then use that in a production environment.
In as much as I love a good WUI, you will have to learn some cli, it’s just inevitable, especially in a headless environment. It may seem daunting at first because there are literally thousands of commands and command sequences. I honestly doubt if even the geekiest nerds on the planet know all by heart. For each command sequence, there are probably hundreds of ways to compose the same command. I would admonish you to download Notepad ++ and start keeping notes on the commands you use. Later on, the fun part is looking back on your notes to see all the commands you now know and what they do.
Writing down different commands on a note seems like a good idea. Thanks!
Windows Server 2022
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!
For what it’s worth given the age of this thread and disagreement going on in it, I would recommend Unraid.
Easy for a beginner, with enough to take you up to intermediate level: a web GUI for pretty much all the required terminal commands. It’s been around for years, is not going away, but instead getting updated. Works on any old eBay hardware and most of all, the community there are very supportive of beginners. There’s also lots of YouTube tutorials.
It ticks all the boxes for easy self hosting. It’s just not for Linux protocol purists.
EDIT: I’m learning a lot from this thread, and it’s interesting to see how tolerant people are for self hosting. I would add in my vote for Unraid: it allows me to be dynamic with the time I have for self hosting. I’m sometimes extremely busy and don’t have the time to keep my self hosting updated, so the web GUI is essential for basic maintenance. Then there are times when I do want to waste an afternoon trying something in terminal and learning more, and that’s when Unraid again comes to the rescue. I couldn’t self host with 100% terminal, and neither would I want to with 100% GUI. The best self hosting platform is one that can mix them up efficiently and effectively. I am keen to try some others mentioned here, as some look quite interesting. However NAS is a massive element of what I need for my homelab, so Unraid will stay for now.
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.
I personally use Debian. For your case, you can install lightweight desktop environments such as XFCE.
Honestly from my point of view after reading your post, you don’t have a terminal or operating system issue, it feels like you are new to self-hosting and don’t know how to start configuring from scratch.
Ideally you want to look for documentations or keep asking for online help. For example, with installing docker, you would want to refer to this: docs.docker.com/engine/install/. Welcome to system admin life, where you spend more time reading/understanding than configuring.
Personally, you can even use AI Chatbot to help you with stuff, just be specific on the system you are on, the goal you are trying to achieve and the problem you are tring to solve.
Which brings me to answer your next point about CasaOS: It exists so that you can skip most of the ‘system admin life’ step. It skips almost all the setup you would have needed to do on a fresh machine, and just leaves configurations. The downside is usually it eats up more resources than a self-configured install since it comes with redundant features you are unlikely to use.
TLDR; Pre-configured OS such as CasaOS is a solid choice if you just want to set it up and be done with it. If you are here to really learn about system admin stuff, then pick any of the Linux Operating system (Debian-derivatives recommended) with a lightweight DE.
Happy self hosting :v
Okay, so CasaOS is easier to set up (but uses more resources and I won’t learn sysadmin stuff) whereas using something like Debian is a bit harder to set up (but uses less resources and learn more!).
Think I might try CasaOS on my 11th gen laptop and plain Debian on my 6th gen laptop and see which I prefer
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.
I believe all of these are actually just running Debian as the actual OS underneath, but they give you a webui that makes deploying apps easier.
Of these three, I like the look of Cosmos the most. Seems to be security focused and comes with a reverse proxy and a built in SSO solutions. That’s something that’s usually a pain in the ass to set up yourself.
There’s technically that stupid ass LTT OS but I’m purposely leaving that one out.
Cosmos does look quite good. TrueNAS can’t run on my old laptops so HexOS was never really an option
I guess you could install cockpit (via Terminal, sorry, but it’s pretty straightforward and there are good guides). After that, you could use the cockpit web interface to deploy docker/podman containers. It’s a bit clunky sometimes, but it does the job purely in UI.
You can also manage updates, backups, etc via cockpit if you install the required modules.
As base, I’d use any stable Linux distro that’s reccomended for server use.
cockpit-project.org
for more info for those interested
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 😂
Mint or Ubuntu is like Windows but better.
I am very much a Windows user and my journey went like this:
Raspberry Pi with OMV -> SSH on OMV -> Mostly Terminal on OMV -> Docker + Portainer to deploy containers -> Transition to docker-compose -> Setup my own VM with Debian completely in the CLI (excluding the first setup of the VM)
I use Linux (primarily Debian because of Raspberry as I don’t like what I hear about Ubuntu) primarily for VMs and servers and Windows as the client OS
I love the command line. A terminal window is always open on whatever computer I’m using at the moment, even when I was running Windows.
But I also like having a dashboard to see what’s going on, all right in front of me. I have ADHD, and if I can’t see it, then I will forget it exists. I use command line to handle more granular tasks, and have various UIs to help me handle other things, like Proxmox (obvious), Dockge (docker stacks), OMV (NAS), Cockpit (all of my computers have this, really good for remote control), and a few other things I’m forgetting.
i tried CasaOS for a quick minute. its decent and just has the basics like setting up any disks and then has an app store. its really just a front end for docker and you can manually input the details of any docker containers that arent in the store
ive mostly been running docker stuff on my Synology nas. cant think of the model number now, 218+ i think, but any of the “plus” models will let you run docker. its very similar to Casa, no messing around with command line stuff. ive been self hosting for 10 years now and never touched the command line so i dont know what people are on about here saying you will have trouble
dietpi is another thing ive used on a few devices, mainly small SBCs and raspberry pi’s, but i think they might have a version that you can install on anything. its basically just debian, and it has a sort of a wizard that helps set up various things like set up disks and install apps. its headless though so no GUI unless you install one, and the wizard is run from the terminal but youre not having to type any commands at least
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!
I misread that as “self-loathing” and the answer was obvious.
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.
yunohost
Umbrel OS