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
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
Anything really. Just use Docker/Podman or LXC and then the base OS won’t matter.
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