I’m looking to turn an old laptop into a home server. What distros make sense to use for that? Use a server dedicated distro like Ubuntu Server or is a regular desktop environment like Mint fine too?
Edit: TL;DR use Debian
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Debian, imho. I use it on all my servers except for a few work-related use cases that actually require Centos
A desktop environment is only useful if you plan to sit by the server to do stuff and you don’t like the terminal, otherwise it’s just a resource hog.
Personally I also use Debian on my home server and other distros around the house, but if you are new to Linux and just want to get going you may want to look into Unraid or OpenMediaVault.
Next steps are learning about containers and docker. It makes everything home server much easier in the long run and both suggestions above do it out of the box.
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Debian still exists today because of the stability provided by older-but-perfectly-fucntional packages. Older ≠ bad
Not everyone needs an atomic OS. Not everyone wants to use containers for everything. Because while those have value, they also add a layer of complexity and an additional learnung curve.
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You’re right–like I said, an atomic OS has its benefits, and containers are great. They’re just not a place I would point a beginner.
It’s easy for those of us with more experience to forget what the learning curve is like. Sure, there are a handful of people out there who would enjoy starting out with Alpine or Arch, but there’s good reason most people start with Fedora or Mint or Ubuntu.
And possibly more clock-cycles, leading to higher energy usage.
And maybe even more RAM.
Ubuntu or Debian. I’m using Ubuntu and it has never failed me.
Personally I just throw Debian my servers. It’s a rock.
Second this. Everything I have runs on Debian or OpenWRT.
Yes, Debian is slow to change or break. Slow to change sucks on the desktop pretty often. But on servers not breaking and not changing is typically what you want.
Slow to change sucks on the desktop pretty often.
Subjective opinion there.
I like Debian on the desktop. It does what I need, gets out of my way, and minimises surprise changes in the software I use. In other words, it respects my time.
If I were new to unix admin (as OP appears to be) I might try something like openmediavault for a home server.
Opinions by their very nature are subjective.
As someone who’s used Debian for 30 years though. Waiting years to use a new feature of an app was a common and painful experience in many cases. Nothing to do with stability. Though absolutely this is thankfully getting to be a bit outdated with the proliferation of flatpak etc.
I’m running proxmox and then in the containers either debian or alpine. Because one is reliable and the other is small. Then I’m running one on ubuntu because it’s having a amd graphics card and rocm is only optimized for ubuntu for this specific one.
Just started with proxmox 5 months ago, best decision I ever made.
My next big thing is running GPU passthrough for Plex, but I haven’t gotten to it. So Plex languishes on an old mini PC until I get my act together.
Proxmox GPU passthrough is not something I’m looking forward to.
Anything really. Just use Docker/Podman or LXC and then the base OS won’t matter.
- Ubuntu is still fine
- Debian I have personally used and it is good
- I used openSUSE Slowroll for a while as well
- Fedora server is just as good as RHEL derivatives IMO
Next thing I am looking at is secureblue for Fedora CoreOS. Security matters and a rock solid base with hardened defaults is really nice. It also is Atomic and because it is effectively just CoreOS, you install it with a JSON file (I think). Using the provided example butane file it took like 30 seconds to install. Now I need to customize it further.
I recently installed Fedora Server 43 and ran into dozens of problems with Docker and SE Linux. Not sure if others have had similar problems, but I ended up switching to Yunohost (but I don’t like it much).
What issues are you having with Yunohost?
It’s super-convenient for installing apps that are already part of the ecosystem, but installing unvetted apps is less so. When they say you’re on your own they really mean it. I don’t like the workflow of being able to maintain some apps through the web portal, and then having to SSH to the machine for all my custom apps.
I’d prefer a middle ground between Yunohost and, say, bare-metal Debian. But I think I’m just going to have to get stuck in and take the long way around to proper hosting. It’ll take longer, but I’ll learn more.
Ah that’s good to know. I’ve only ever done regular Debian, and was considering trying yunohost to give an easy way of managing some of the applications, but maybe I won’t
My servers run good ol’ debian. It’s boring in the best way. A desktop environment is rather unusual for a server but you do you.
what kind of server?
The kind that is beginner friendly, where I can host some stuff like Jellyfin, some storage, git or similar, etc. Just for me and friends/family to access.
That’s the only question that matters.
Fedora or Debian, but it depends on what you’re going to be using it for.
Maybe you want a NAS OS instead? Maybe a media system like Open Filevault? If just runnings VMs and Containers, maybe something geared towards that.
Fedora does have some nice preconfigured stuff like Cockpit and several helper automations by default. Yes, they can be installed on Debian, but it’s extra steps.
debian, because snap isn’t required on servers.
use NixOS it’s perfect for it
there is nothing special about debian
good luck
I use Ubuntu Server on my home servers. Been running it on them for years without issue. I know Canonical/Ubuntu get a lot of hate in the linux community, but for server side things, I think it’s great.
- If you use an LTS (24.04) version, you can get super long term security updates, meaning you don’t have to worry about a full os upgrade for 10-15 years (via the free Ubuntu pro).
- It’s super solid, boring, and dependable, which is what you want out of a server os
- If you need it, there’s a TON of documentation/support information out there for Ubuntu.
Same. I also find it faster to get set up and operational.
I’ll join the circlejerk: If you search online for “How to do X on a Linux server?” chances are most results will be for Debian.
It’s basically the default vanilla Linux server OS.As a complete beginner who had minimal Linux experience at the time, I put OpenMediaVault (Debian based) on my server. It has been absolutely fantastic, I can’t recommend it enough.
I highly recommend openmediavault as well. Been using it for all my servers. After you get it installed, just make sure to install the omv-extras plugin so you can use docker/docker-compose from the UI (if you want).
Gives you a nice web GUI and is Debian based so you can dive into the CLI if you want.
Just be aware that you shouldn’t modify some files that are managed by Openmediavault (like the fstab) and never install a desktop environment or you’ll break openmediavault.
