11mo ago

Which OS do you use for your homeserver?

Edit: wow, this is a never ending comment section!

207 comments

Debian for all things.
- Debian all the way
  
  Second that. I'm glad RPis are finally supported.

Debian

Unraid
- same

NixOS
- I just heard of NixOS for the first time because of this thread. Looked up some videos on it, and my jaw hit the fucking floor.
  
  I really liked https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGVXJ-TIv3Y - step by step, with examples and great explanations. Warning: it's long, but I watched it in one session.
- Same here. I came for the integrated ZFS support and stayed for the declarative config.
- how is nix better than debian for servers?
  
  Declarative configuration of services and the rest of the entire system, and everything that brings with it.
  Want to test some new service, or make changes to an existing one, but don't know if you want to keep it? Sure, just temporarily switch to the new configuration, you can always switch back to the old one and everything will be back as it was.
  Have multiple servers and want to share configuration between them? Absolutely, just import the same file from both. I have a git repo storing configurations for 10 machines and a huge part of it is shared configuration.
  Want to use one service's endpoint (such as a socket path) in another? Sure, just use the socket path configuration option for the first service in the configuration for the second, such as here. This works since everything is a single tree of options which all the service configuration files are then generated from, so interpolate stuff as you wish.
  Checks for configuration correctness during build of the system (NixOS options are type checked during evaluation, and then during the actual system build there's more checks, like nginx config has to succeed nginx -t, otherwise the system build fails and you can't switch to it)
  Want to spin up a VM to test changes before putting it on the actual target? There's a builtin command (nixos-rebuild build-vm) that makes a script that starts a QEMU VM with your configuration running in it. It's as fast as building the real system, so a couple seconds if you're making small changes.
  Setting up services is also often as easy as putting services.foo.enable = true; in your configuration. And, if you remove that line, the service is gone, so you're never left with "the random package or file you installed once to test something and has been forgotten about". That's the biggest thing it has over any kind of imperative solution IMO.
  I feel like even if I want to distro hop again and end up putting something else on my desktop, NixOS is going to stay on my servers indefinitely. It's pretty much a perfect fit for servers.
  
  It isn't, it's just different. I use NixOS because of stupid easy rollbacks, which is great for experimenting in production, and its declarative nature, which is great in a server setting.
  
  Everything is declared, from packages to configuration, and then I can put it in a git repo locked to versions. If something breaks on updates, you have free rollbacks. Which means you can't screw up too much. Also it has almost all the software.

Proxmox (debian) on the hosts, and Debian for all the VMs and Containers.
Just nice and easy to use, supported by basically everything, and a minimal install uses like 30MB of RAM.
I also have an OSX VM because that's literally the only way you can test a website in Safari (fu Apple).
- Love proxmox. Been using it for nearly a decade and while it has its pain points it has been rock solid for me for the past 4 years.
- You don't need Safari unless it's for Apple Pay integration or something. WebKit is open source. Use Epiphany or some other browser that uses it.
- when vendors pull this kind of crap ill simply not test on their software.
  
  It's more that like 60% of my web traffic is Safari so I want to make sure it works for those people.

Debian.
- This is the way!
- Ditto.

Debian

TempleOS
- The way God intended.
  
  I have just learned about Ubuntu Christian Edition.

Three HP ProLiant servers running ProxMox cluster. Each box has a VM for Portaiber, as well as mismatch of VMs running Home Assistant OS, OpenWRT, Ubuntu, Windows and Debian, along with a Windows file server that connectes to four cheap NAS running Ubuntu LTS with a combined 20 mismatched hard drives by iSCSI and borgs them together with Storage Spaces.
It's a fucking mess, if I'm honest.
- I love this so much

Debian. It is rock solid. If software doesn't support Debian, chances are it supports something Debian based. You never have to worry about an update breaking your computer. It is the perfect "it just works" distro for a server.

Debian.
Stable, well documented, easy to install. I do not need anything else right now.

Debian

Ubuntu LTS, with all my services in Docker containers.
I know Ubuntu gets a lot of (deserved) hate for some of the shit Canonical pulls, but for now, I like Ubuntu and it works for me.
When I rebuilt my server at the beginning of the month, I was gonna jump to Debian, but my god the Debian website is obtuse. After looking at the site and trying to determine what to download to get Debian with non-free (I’m unfortunately working with an NVIDIA card), I decided to go with Ubuntu. I needed a smooth rebuild process and with Ubuntu I know exactly what I’ll get when I download the LTS server.
Edit: grammar
- It's always best to use whatever distro you're most comfortable with. Especially if you're going to install stuff in containers/VMs so the repos of the base distro don't even matter that much.
  
  Exactly. That’s ultimately why I skipped Debian and went with Ubuntu
- I went with Ubuntu server and was pleasantly surprised when it offered to pull my pubkey off my github profile for ssh. A nice touch that I haven't seen in other servers flavors of various distros.
  
  That’s pretty cool!
- After looking at the site and trying to determine what to download to get Debian with non-free (I’m unfortunately working with an NVIDIA card)
  FWIW, Debian 12 now includes non-free firmware in the installation media by default and will install whatever is necessary.
  I agree that the Debian website has its weaknesses, but beyond finding the right installer (usually netinst ISO a.k.a small installation image on https://www.debian.org/distrib/) there isn't much of a learning curve. I started out with Ubuntu too, but finally decided that enough was enough when snap started breaking my stuff on desktop.
  
  The inclusion of non-free by default was what was unclear to me from the website. Knowing that now, I’ll likely give Debian a spin next time I need an install.

Arch Linux. I am so used to it I just can't live with any other OS
- I am super impressed with Arch on my home servers. People seem to think "rolling" means "unstable" but the only issues I've had were due to some weird hardware incompatibility with my motherboard. Once I replaced the mobo my system has been rock solid AND reasonably up-to-date (I do use LTS kernel).
  
  I felt the exact same way. So many comments online told me that running Arch as a home NAS was insane, but after the Jupiter Broadcasting guys did it without much issue, I decided to give it a go and was pleasantly surprised. I think if most of your stuff is running in Docker and you have BTRFS snapshots for your root filesystem, the system's pretty much bullet proof. The rolling updates also mean you'll never have huge upgrade cycles that are a pain in the ass to migrate to. You're always just dealing with small manageable fires instead of large complicated ones and that's a plus.

Synology DiskStation Manager.

Proxmox for the the hosts, Debian cloud imagen for the VMs and docker inside

Ubuntu Server with docker/docker-compose on top.
So many guides for Ubuntu specifically makes reading up on something a lot easier and it works just fine.
- "Ubuntu" 🤢

Arch because why not.
- This is the correct response

NixOS, I find the config very easy and quick
- I've just dipped my toes into it, but I imagine migrating to another machine to be just gorgeous..

NixOS

OpenMediaVault
Good OOTB customizations, works on Pi, and easy to extend with plugins (Docker/Portainer is pretty much all I needed).
- Same

Truenas
Thought it would be more popular. I'm outnumbered hard

Ubuntu 22.04 server. It works well enough for my purposes and until it doesn't I don't see a reason to switch distros.
- Proprietary 🤮
  
  Yeah, well it works for me.
  
  I didnt realize. Do you have more info on this?

Just to be controversial, macos. It's nothing fancy, just the arrs and Jellyfin running on an old MacBook air.
- Wouldn't Linux be easier to manage and better in terms of performance?
  
  Maybe, but I'm not a huge Linux user and every time I dip my toe in I run out of tinkering time. Plus I had the Air laying around and it all installed so easily.

Proxmox with Debian LXC containers. The most natural transition from Raspberry Pi OS which is a Debian flavor
- Same. Haven't had the need for full blown VMs at all. Passing through the iGPU for transcoding took a bit of time to figure out, but works great. I do have an Arch LXC container for some apps without a deb repository, though, to keep them updated through AUR.

Unraid, mostly due to the flexible arrays.
- Same here, when I made mine I had a whole mix of different sized drives so it made sense. I like not having to worry about drive size, as long as they are smaller than the parity drives.

OpenBSD for all of them.
- bsd fam
- How is the OpenBSD experience? I have 2x4TB hard drives in my Libreboot server (Dell T1650 motherboard), can I easily setup RAID 1 through the OS?
  
  Hey @Zeon,
  Any chance you still have that libreboot t1650 rom still? I’ve bought your exact setup instead of the rtx 2080 super I have rtx 2070 super founders edition. If you don’t have the rom it’s fine I can build one but just wanted to see the specifics on your rom.
  
  OpenBSD is the most pleasing expérience I've had with an OS. It's fully contained and has all the tools you need without needing to install anything (eg a DNS, HTTP, SMTP servers, a proxy, a good firewall). All config files look alike and use the same keywords for the same things, making it straightforward to configure everything.
  And regarding RAID 1, I've never done it myself, but it totally works out of the box (as well as full disk encryption).

Pi OS. It's a Pi4 after all.

I'm running FreeBSD I actually like it a lot.
I picked it for zfs. A lot of the ways things work seem cleaner and simpler than on Linux and zfs is awesome with the copy on write snapshots and filesystem compression and all that. I like rc.conf and pf is way nicer than iptables and even when you upgrade it automatically makes a snapshot so you can rollback.
Sometimes I do need to patch and compile things because people seem to not know freebsd exists but that's really the only downside.
- Same here for the same reasons (although I started with FreeBSD 4.x) and have adapted to ZFS and Jails over the years.
  The POLA (Principle Of Least Astonishment) when it comes to changes is awesome too.

Windows 7
- Win7 and Win10.

My DIY NAS runs Arch
LTS kernel
BTRFS snapshots on root fs
4 drive NVMe array using ZFS raidz1
podman for my docker containers
It's been working fantastically so far.
- I'm currently running something similar, what services are you running and do you use anything in addition to podman to manage your container (cockpit, systemd-units or similar)?

TrueNAS formerly known as FreeNAS

Debian Bookworm

Currently I am using Arch Linux. I am in the process of switching to NixOS.

I too proxy my moxies, but run various OSes within them (via VMs or containers).

Hyper-V / ESXi for host. Mostly windows with some Ubuntu server.

Depends on what you want to do with it. But for most things Debian or Fedora (Server edition) work fine.
- i hear bad things about it, how does fedora server compare to debian?
  
  It's much more up to date and in my experience works fine.
  
  Cockpit was east harder than Proxmox for me.

Proxmox VE with Alpine Linux guests
- lxcs are just great. love alpine on proxmox.
  
  Actually, most of the guests are VMs (instead of LXCs) because many services I host are most easily deployed via Docker Compose and Docker in LXCs requires workarounds I don't fully understand thr implications of.

Ubuntu server, I want to switch to debian but I don't know if it'll be worth it
- That's the boat I'm in, I swapped my laptop from kubuntu to Debian which is solid for me. Server has a lot setup on it that I could move but for now Ubuntu server works, not really feeling the push to change.
- I'm running to servers as hosts for docker. One with Ubuntu and one with Debian. So far I haven't noticed a meaningful difference

Host is Proxmox, with Ubuntu LTS VMs.

I've got a homemade NAS running unRAID and my arr suite/Jellyfin/qbittorrent, and an orangepi running the orangepiOS (flavor of Ubuntu I think?) Which handles home assistant and associated containers .

I went for a much simpler approach lately as I downscaled my hardware for efficiency.
I run NixOS on the bare metal. It gives the system management a declarative approach, just like kubernetes would. On top of that, I run libvirt as a hypervisor. In other scenarios I'd use tinyvmm and cloud-hypervisor, but I found qemu way better for the variety of homelab workloads and libvirt is pretty straightforward.
Some vms have pci passthrough, e.g. my routeros vm gets a bunch of NICs directly, some have various funny network topology. Libvirt used to be a pain in that regard, but it's actually fine with NixOS because you manage both sides of the networking stack in declarative configuration.
I run NixOS on the vms too (now for the sake of easy upgrades), and I have a bit of a split between running services natively (systemd is very good about “containerizing” things nowadays) and using docker (mostly because of laziness, e.g. Elastiflow was easier to deploy this way). Finally, I have a single dokerized Ubuntu that's more like a VM (as in, I never had a dockerfile for it, it's fully stateful) running the matter home automaton bits because I gave up on properly containing the matter python stack and went for an easy way out.
Now, a word about alternatives.
I used to run Ubuntu. No more. Upgrading the OS is always a huge pain even if everything is in docker. I want my OS to be managed in a config file and be able to easily roll back to the previous state. I used to run k3s, but even though it is much thinner than k8s, it is still very much ram hungry and I just don’t want to pay for that. Besides, complex networking is often non-trivial due to how its networking works, and multus is a world of pain. I used to run different hypervisors for the VMs (kubevirt, tinyvmm, a bunch others). I went way back to libvirt mostly because it’s straightforward in tuning very specific qemu bits I cared for in the homelab. I have some cpu overprovisioning, so I want to make my quotas set up extremely precisely, sacrificing the right workloads.

Debian + Docker.

Ubuntu LTS, but in the process of replacing it with Debian
- What benefit do you expect to get from this switch? Just wondering why there are so many Debian over Ubuntu in this thread
  
  There has been some technical decisions over the last few years that I don't think fit my needs terribly well; chief of these is the push for Snaps - they are a proprietary distribution format, that adds significant overhead without any real benefit, and Canonical has been pushing more and more functionality into Snap
  I previously chose Ubuntu over Debian because I needed more up to date versions of things like Python and PHP, with Docker this isn't really a concern any more, so slower, more conservative approach Debian takes isn't as big of an issue

Windows Server 2016.
Nah just joking, Ubuntu Server 23.10
- But there is an ubuntu server oddnumber.not-04?
- I'm a Linux sysadmin who had to deploy a few server 2022's at work recently for a special circumstance. Was tasked with making a gold image and couldn't find much to strip from the install out of box. Just print stuff I turned off I think. I have to say I am quite impressed with it half a year in, I never even have to reboot them. They are a breeze to admin. Don't bash it till you try it.
  
  I have tried it tbh. It's not as bad as people make it out to be, I was just making a joke.
  It's just much more resource heavy than those headless Linux servers. Maybe windows server can be headless too, but I haven't looked into it much
- I wonder how many peeps blocked you before they reached line 3.. :-)
  
  0? Nobody is "team windows" it's just a necessary thing that exists. Talk to windows SMEs, they aren't even brand loyal. I administered Windows servers for years and I am quite indifferent to it.
  There's a team apple, team Linux, but no team windows I promise. Unless you are that one person that bashed their head against something in a very special way. Have you ever seen someone apply a windows decal to their car or water bottle for example?