this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2023
53 points (96.5% liked)

Selfhosted

40329 readers
409 users here now

A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.

Rules:

  1. Be civil: we're here to support and learn from one another. Insults won't be tolerated. Flame wars are frowned upon.

  2. No spam posting.

  3. Posts have to be centered around self-hosting. There are other communities for discussing hardware or home computing. If it's not obvious why your post topic revolves around selfhosting, please include details to make it clear.

  4. Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or github here. Just post the link for folks to click.

  5. Submission headline should match the article title (don’t cherry-pick information from the title to fit your agenda).

  6. No trolling.

Resources:

Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.

Questions? DM the mods!

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

I want to make a server for hosting media through Jellyfin, and maybe some Nextcloud functionality. I prefer to use containers, but something like TrueNAS' extensions/plugins sound good as well. This is my first server, so I don't know what to choose. My possible options are:

  • Debian
  • Ubuntu
  • Fedora
  • TrueNAS Scale Which one should I choose? I am fine with using either Docker or Podman. (Edit: The server will be running on an old laptop with a single drive slot.)
(page 2) 15 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] 12bitmisfit@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Whatever you're most comfortable with. It's a simple enough ask that you can do it in Ubuntu server or Debian quite easily.

I would recommend at least using docker but you don't have to.

Truenas isn't very forgiving with drive configuration. I really like it but it isn't great for randomly adding drives here and there. Unraid might be a better choice for home usage. I have never had good luck with their built in app stuff but I've also never really tried past it not doing what I want.

I run truenas with a ubuntu server vm and docker some stuff in that. I also run proxmox on another server and a dev server running Ubuntu server that I docker things on.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] 8tomat8@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

From your list, I would go with Debian. Fedora is amazing but doesn't have LTS, so you'll need to update it manually quite often. You can use a script for automatic updates, but I rarely had it working smoothly. Ubuntu is just a joke with repository hell. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone but grandma or a child for the desktop, because of its simplicity. TrueNAS never tried...🤷

I would also look into Alpine and some Arch-based distros.

And yes, use containers, this will save you time eventually.

The only real requirement you have for the Jellyfin server is ffmpeg... But this thing runs everywhere

[–] hansl@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

TrueNAS did make it easy for me to manage my home lab, but I’m more of a software engineer than a devops. Debian if you’re comfortable with managing that.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] ninekeysdown@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I use RHEL/Rocky 8 for all my home server stuff mostly because i like my home server stuff boring and stable.

Since you were considering TrueNAS, maybe consider something like Debian/Ubuntu + CasaOS. That will give you a good base and webui to work with.

It's not going to be a lean as it could be but it should give you enough guard rails and hand holding to get you started. Then you can figure out the rest of your needs from there. If you don't like it you can always wipe it and try again with something else.

I'd stay away from the TrueNAS, Unraid, Proxmox, etc. mostly due to your hardware and that it's your first home server.

They're not bad at all, but a lot of the stuff is abstracted from you and since you're more than likely going to want to tinker with it having a standardized base install with a distro that has a lot of documentation is going to be very helpful.

[–] warmaster@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

For anyone considering CasaOS, I suggest you check out Cosmos Cloud. More or less the same thing but with turnkey automated security and VPN.

[–] ninekeysdown@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

That's really neat! Thanks!!

[–] surewhynotlem@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago

There's a jellyfin docker container. Get that going and then the underlying OS becomes important

[–] CCMan1701A@startrek.website 0 points 1 year ago

I went with bodhi.

[–] p5f20w18k@lemmy.world -3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Not seeing anyone suggesting unRAID… it’s perfect for this kind of thing (from experience). VMs, LXC, Docker & flexible storage options.

Has its own App Store built in as well🤷‍♀️

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments
view more: ‹ prev next ›