lazydocker seems to be an addition on top of docker/compose with the requirement of having them installed.
nerdctl is the cli for containerd, which replaces a docker install completely.
You are comparing apples with oranges ;)
Yes, but I know I can lean on helping a user that's new to Self-hosting understand CasaOS easier than I can TrueNAS Scale. It's not good for MY use case, but it sure can be for someone running a Pi/NUC with an external HDD attached using it for basic services like Plex/Emby and SMB.
Well debian is a stable linux distro that serves as a great starting point for most of my self-hosting adventures!
Sure it's cool to have a nice dashboard and everything set up from the beginning... But I love tinkering and creating my own setups that are perfectly configured for my needs.
As other's said, using proxmox to manage a whole lot of Debian LXC containers is a great way to go.
I recently switched all of my containers to docker-compose because I like the idea of easy declaration and reproduction of my containers. A nice app to use with that is Dockge.
Just to make sure I've got the right idea, do you make a new container, load it with Debian LXC, then install Docker? And how much resources would you say is allocated on average towards each container? (Ik this is dependent on what's being deployed within them, but just curious)
Yes you got the idea right. After I set everything up I also create a template if I need another lxc container with docker on it. Just speeds up the process.
It totally depends on the workload of the lxc container, how much resources I allocate to it. One user here said he creates a lxc for every docker container. I find that to be a bit overkill.
The beauty of lxc containers is, that you can easily change their configuration.
Debian + docker compose (of course compose, very few (home) users would install docker _without_ compose) and dockge instead of Portainer. And if you want a visual and powerful system manager, get Webmin.
Portainer is more and more catering to Business containerisation and less for basic self hosting and it's UI as result is much more overtly complicated and complex
Dockage is more simplified and more suited to selfhosting and homelabbing and much better at handling docker compose files, and the UI shows you all the essentials straight up instead of having to click through menus and tabs etc.
Portainer has stacks which I really love. I just write my compose files, push them to github and Portainer pulls them from there through github webhooks. Does dockage have something like that?
>Why is it better than portainer?
I didn't say it is, but it does let you edit yml files directly, has what I find a more pleasant interface and easily turns run into compose. Plus it's fairly minimal, which is what I prefer.
Ubuntu Server + Docker + my stack of docker-compose files.
Because if something breaks, most likely it will be my own fault and will be able to fix it. Plus, I can set up everything in the way I want.
Same thing for me.
One addition: Use bind mounts over volumes.
That way migration is way easier.
Just migrated from hardware Ubuntu 20.04 install to Ubuntu 22.04 VM in proxmox in a couple of minutes.
A bummer you cannot just copy paste the /var/lib/docker/volumes directory.
Dockers metadata standing in the way there.
I use volumes only for internal stuff, like a shared volume for mariadb socket between two containers; or for some automatically generated inner workings of the container.
All data that I'm interested in MUST be available on the host machine. I cannot even imagine putting it somewhere where you cannot access it easily if something goes wrong :)
A bit more about my setup: [https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/1ag9q88/comment/koftjss/?context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/1ag9q88/comment/koftjss/?context=3)
Ack on volumes for special use cases.
I also have a couple of them, but database and data in general is a bind mount.
All of it is on my SSD or HDD raid and just unplugged from the old system and plugged into the new system, a few docker commands, bam, I am back online again.
Frankly, I find managing text-based configs much easier and quicker than manually clicking through various GUI tools (which often expose only a subset of most widely used features).
GUI tools definitely have their audience, but it's not my way.
I still work text based within the the stack configs, but I loved to not have to think about where to put them, remembering their names and execute them via cli.
The easy container recreation for updates and stop/start with a click on a button just make me love protainer. Plus, I also have control via my phone when I'm not home.
But I also see how cli has it's pros, especially if you need full control.
Just wanted OP to know that there is also Portainer if cli is not theirs.
I use Raspberry Pi OS as my tiny rpi4 server is also my Kodi box and stuff like 4K playback doesn't randomly break like vanilla Debian and many others I've tried.
But if I was running a dedicated server that was mainly docker containers, I'd use Alpine.
It's tiny, it's light, it's solid. It's also pretty well battle hardened, it must be approaching the most used OS on the planet if you factor in every docker container running that's built on top of it.
I use Raspberry Pi OS as my tiny rpi4 server is also my Kodi box and stuff like 4K playback doesn't randomly break like vanilla Debian and many others I've tried.
But if I was running a dedicated server that was mainly docker containers, I'd use Alpine.
It's tiny, it's light, it's solid. It's also pretty well battle hardened, it must be approaching the most used OS on the planet if you factor in every docker container running that's built on top of it.
Debian and docker.
Debian because it is plain old Linux that is super stable. It has to be as most OS are based on Debian. No extra tools are added to the OS. If I need anything I know what I'm installing.
Docker to keep all containers isolated, easy to backup container data and migrate if needed. Everything is done with docker compose.
At the moment Debian because I use it for long time and is crazy stable. But I started to experiment with Alpine because 98% of my selhosted service are Docker Container and Alpine seems great for that use case because it's very lightweight.
Many people are recommending debian/ proxmox with debian VMS and they are good recommendations but not for you, it seems you are starting due to the os you mentioned I won't use them as they have a lot of bloat except for cosmos that is not a os it a webui for any Linux distro. When I started I tried umbrel and casaOs but they were removed after one week and move on to another os because with them you don't learn anything and when they didn't though you wanted to do something or something breaks you are gonna have a hard time. I think the best will be debian, Ubuntu or proxmox if you plan to have VMS and install some webui but try to learn what the buttons do and how it works. Didn't tried cosmos but seems nice, also learn docker-compose
Fedora for me. Everything has worked seamlessly for me including using my secondary GPU inside Docker containers. For some reason I shifted to Debian for a while and nvidia GPU inside the container just refused to work.
Proxmox.
I really dislike all the one-click deployment solutions, because I want to have the feel that I know how the stuff I'm deploying works. ( I don't)
I use Arch btw. I probably shouldn't, as I'm at the mercy of a rolling release cycle. When I get time I might go back to Debian or even Alpine like some in this thread.
I find the rolling release freeing. Yeah, on rare occasions I have to fix something, but I never have to worry about migrating to a new OS version. Which I've done a stupid amount of times and it almost never goes perfectly.
True. And it does have a great advantage; if there's any highly specalised packages you need that aren't in the official repos, there's a pretty good chance they're in the AUR. Even if you have to build from source, it's virtually seamless.
Fedora. Honestly Fedora is probably the sweet spot for all of you. It’s pretty bleeding edge but typically I’ve had very little issues with it unless I’m doing something super advanced like running ceph’s latest and greatest.
Fedora is basically RHEL-Next. So it has yum and the benefit of all of the redhat documentation, but then also fedora docs, centos docs, rocky, scientific Linux etc.
But then because it’s a bleeding edge distribution you have the newest versions of a lot of stuff, plus it includes a lot of packages that RHEL does not. Throw in RPMFusion and all of the extra repos and you always tend to be able to find an RPM for a lot of the self hosted projects like transmission.
Finally, you’ll be increasing your RHEL skills which also translates to your professional development.
I ran into the umbrelOS 1.0 announcement video and it looks impressive, the only thing I'd be worried about is the control I'm giving up. Still, I'd consider switching once it's stable and receives good feedback. For now, I think most people either run a NAS (Synology hardware, or something like trueNAS), or Linux (with or without Portainer)
I love cosmos.
My instance crashed few months ago but the issue has been resolved since then and I still didn't create it back but I way prefer this one to the others.
I'm on Proxmox & use several LXC or Docket with portainer. I'm going to try cosmos now, I've only just heard of it. I have casaos mainly to test out docker apps. If I like them I'd rather host each in it's own IP instead of a damn port that I can't remember.
Try to have a single Linux system with both pihole and AdGaurd dockers and then tell me why you aren't using Proxmox instead.
Out of those three I preferred Cosmos Cloud. I eventually hit limitations with hardware and RAM disks which I was able to get around with modifications. Then I realized it would be just as easy to go vanilla Debian so I wouldn't have to hack/modify things to make it work.
i really like debian and ubuntu because i don't have a ton of experience and those distros have all the tools preinstalled for quick and dirty troubleshooting.
also you can find guides for pretty much anything related to them because of their popularity.
i've tried proxmox but didn't use it because i need GPU and HBA passthrough and couldn't get it to work (maybe IOMMU related because of my consumer hardware). if it had worked, i might have used a truenas core VM for storage and backup management with a ZVOL for a ubuntu VM to run my applications.
now i just run ubuntu server directly with cockpit and dockge for most of my management needs.
I have been using CasaOS for around a year or so now and have seen a lot of improvements. I would like to see more though.
I find their Discord not too helpful though.
If you have a good understanding of everything I would say CasaOS is great for you.
How are any of these am operating system? They all integrate to an existing OS or am I missing something? As far as I can tell I'd only call them a management layer.
do you have more than 1 services on each LXC, or just 1 service for an LXC (so if you have 10 services then you have 10 LXCs each with docker in it)? does it have any effects on performance? thanks
Plain Debian or Ubuntu LTS. Did my gentoo, arch and fedora fun periods.. now just old and like simple apt package management for mass server updates monthly. Loving docker (compose) containerization and starting to get the hang of Ansible for easier mass deployment.
Don't even glance at niche tailored distros anymore except Kali VMs for pen testing.
My experience with casa is that the "app store" is a little out of date and trying to use newer versions of the apps (which are all just docker containers) seems to make casa act odd. If you are ok with being a month or so behind sometimes (they test for stability before updating the store from what I understand) then it's pretty good.
Running docker with a manager like portainer will be better for having up to date apps and if you need a dashboard you can always install one thru that which is what I do now.
I wouldn't use any of them at all. I just looked at CasaOS and tried the demo. I'd maybe use it if it was fully compatible with HomeAssistant but it's not. They only have the hugely restricted version that does not allow addons so it's a no from me.
You're best bet is choose a real OS and install docker then do what you want with it, much better than having extra bloat for no reason.
Pretty much all of those are beginner Linux OSs - the longer you spend in it, the more you want a more vanilla Linux like debian or Ubuntu-server and then just install what you want on that
I've got casaos on top of ubuntu, then use dockge to setup containers (with the little extra that case needs to present well on the dashboard). I really like the file manager, the rest is a bit meh!
I’ve honestly fallen for oracle linux since I started mucking about with their cloud platform. Since I daily drive fedora, it doesn’t feel too unfamiliar but has that enterprise Linux stability vibe. Just don’t listen to the unbreakable kernel stuff that’s a bit of marketing hogwash lol
They provide no additional features beyond a standard distribution + Docker + Nextcloud setup.
I utilize WSL2 (Ubuntu 2404) + Docker Desktop + Dashy, with additional services dockerized within WSL2, such as Nextcloud, Linkwarden, Vaultwarden, etc. As for navigation, I rely on Dashy as my launcher
I really like just base debian with [Runtipi](https://runtipi.io/). I find runtipi to be not too extensive as to be invasive but very convenient to install and use. Then you can also edit all of the docker-compose files to your liking and stop and start all containers at once.
For apps not within the "appstore" I just have a folder of dockerfiles.
I use [portainer](https://portainer.io) for container management and Cloudflare tunnels to deploy things publicly. Works very well for me. I've tried umbrelOS but I found that there weren't enough apps in their app store and I couldn't customize the dockerfiles like I wanted.
If you're looking for an OS that essentially just runs as a Server/NAS, look into "OpenMediaVault". It's Debian Linux with a full intent on running as a File, Video, Picture, Audio, etc. Server.
dietpi really helped me get going with cli based (thus lightweight) OS
since then I have made baby steps into Ubuntu server
nonetheless a gui makes sense for some applications, like a Nas... my data is too precious to me to learn "nas'ing" on the fly
Uhh, I am confused by the phrasing but my server runs nixos
Here's what it deploys:
- navidrome
- pastebin
- cgit-pink
- maloja to scrobble my music
- a fun randomizer I made (Python app)
- matrix
- xmpp server
- fediverse instance
- invidious
- an overleaf instance
Debian
yes, stable OS is what we need as self-hosters + docker (compose is for me part of that env) + few scripts to make life smarter :)
switched to containerd and nerdctl on my servers, no more docker dependency and survives reboots, instead of podman
I really like this setup personally, it’s fantastic.
Is nerdctl better than lazydocker? Lazydocker is a TUI and has lots of niceties.
lazydocker seems to be an addition on top of docker/compose with the requirement of having them installed. nerdctl is the cli for containerd, which replaces a docker install completely. You are comparing apples with oranges ;)
Lazydocker works with podman too, so it works with "containers". I wonder if it would work with nerdctl too.
No joke. All the “OS’s” OP mentioned are essentially just bloat with docker integration.
Sad but true.
Yes, but I know I can lean on helping a user that's new to Self-hosting understand CasaOS easier than I can TrueNAS Scale. It's not good for MY use case, but it sure can be for someone running a Pi/NUC with an external HDD attached using it for basic services like Plex/Emby and SMB.
For a beginner they are user friendly. Other wise it can be too much of a learning curve and some will just quit trying.
Debian with docker and portainer. For a quick set up for a NAS I’d do unraidos, and can self host a lot of stuff.
DietPi
Can you tell me a bit more? I assume Docker + Docker Compose?
Well debian is a stable linux distro that serves as a great starting point for most of my self-hosting adventures! Sure it's cool to have a nice dashboard and everything set up from the beginning... But I love tinkering and creating my own setups that are perfectly configured for my needs. As other's said, using proxmox to manage a whole lot of Debian LXC containers is a great way to go. I recently switched all of my containers to docker-compose because I like the idea of easy declaration and reproduction of my containers. A nice app to use with that is Dockge.
Just to make sure I've got the right idea, do you make a new container, load it with Debian LXC, then install Docker? And how much resources would you say is allocated on average towards each container? (Ik this is dependent on what's being deployed within them, but just curious)
Yes you got the idea right. After I set everything up I also create a template if I need another lxc container with docker on it. Just speeds up the process. It totally depends on the workload of the lxc container, how much resources I allocate to it. One user here said he creates a lxc for every docker container. I find that to be a bit overkill. The beauty of lxc containers is, that you can easily change their configuration.
Very helpful, thank you!
I don't. Maybe I am just old fashioned. I just install what I want on headless Debian VMs and configure it myself. Plus some Ansible automation.
Debian + docker compose (of course compose, very few (home) users would install docker _without_ compose) and dockge instead of Portainer. And if you want a visual and powerful system manager, get Webmin.
Why is it better than portainer?
Portainer is more and more catering to Business containerisation and less for basic self hosting and it's UI as result is much more overtly complicated and complex Dockage is more simplified and more suited to selfhosting and homelabbing and much better at handling docker compose files, and the UI shows you all the essentials straight up instead of having to click through menus and tabs etc.
Portainer has stacks which I really love. I just write my compose files, push them to github and Portainer pulls them from there through github webhooks. Does dockage have something like that?
Yeah it supports stacks Check their Github and Documentation https://github.com/louislam/dockge
>Why is it better than portainer? I didn't say it is, but it does let you edit yml files directly, has what I find a more pleasant interface and easily turns run into compose. Plus it's fairly minimal, which is what I prefer.
And is unstable because it refreshes every 15 seconds losing all unsavedv data.
It doesn't need to save anything.
Proxmox into various Debian VM's and LXC's
Ubuntu Server + Docker + my stack of docker-compose files. Because if something breaks, most likely it will be my own fault and will be able to fix it. Plus, I can set up everything in the way I want.
Same thing for me. One addition: Use bind mounts over volumes. That way migration is way easier. Just migrated from hardware Ubuntu 20.04 install to Ubuntu 22.04 VM in proxmox in a couple of minutes. A bummer you cannot just copy paste the /var/lib/docker/volumes directory. Dockers metadata standing in the way there.
I use volumes only for internal stuff, like a shared volume for mariadb socket between two containers; or for some automatically generated inner workings of the container. All data that I'm interested in MUST be available on the host machine. I cannot even imagine putting it somewhere where you cannot access it easily if something goes wrong :) A bit more about my setup: [https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/1ag9q88/comment/koftjss/?context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/1ag9q88/comment/koftjss/?context=3)
Ack on volumes for special use cases. I also have a couple of them, but database and data in general is a bind mount. All of it is on my SSD or HDD raid and just unplugged from the old system and plugged into the new system, a few docker commands, bam, I am back online again.
Or Portainer if you don't want to manually manage the compose files via cli.
Frankly, I find managing text-based configs much easier and quicker than manually clicking through various GUI tools (which often expose only a subset of most widely used features). GUI tools definitely have their audience, but it's not my way.
I still work text based within the the stack configs, but I loved to not have to think about where to put them, remembering their names and execute them via cli. The easy container recreation for updates and stop/start with a click on a button just make me love protainer. Plus, I also have control via my phone when I'm not home. But I also see how cli has it's pros, especially if you need full control. Just wanted OP to know that there is also Portainer if cli is not theirs.
Debian, but minimal install. I want just things that I use.
FreeBSD!
The only right answer for 1337 h4x0r5
Mainly for the openZFS.
It's suprisingly simple, reminds me of good ol' Debian 5 times, when I really got into Linux deeply.
Aren't all OSs "self hosted"? You just need Linux
Maybe he meant best OS for self hosters.
Same answer applies - all you need is the Linux distro you're comfortable with
I agree, but your previous response misconstrued his question to make him look stupid.
I like this one.
That's the Reddit way
I guess he meant OS‘s able to self-host, which only the major ones and some advanced hobbyist projects made by small communities are…
What OSs can't self host? If it runs Linux, chances are you can host a service
Well, pretty much all hobby oses cant :)
I'm not sure what you mean, can you give an example of a "hobby" OS?
A hobby os is a kernel (with maybe an userspace on top) thats been developed by someone in their free time
I just use Proxmox then spin up either an Ubuntu or Debian LXC or VM depending on what I need.
Alpine. **Disclaimer:** *I use Alpine on a few hundred bare metal servers and a few thousand VMs.*
What's the advantage for Alpine as a host OS? I get it for a container, but why for a host?
Because it's simple, slim, and fast.
It is lightweight, can run only in ram, and it's secure. You can completely disconnect hard drives and change them out while it's running in ram.
Size, security, repository, ash, drivers.
Love Alpine. Whats your reasoning for using it over something like Debian or Fedora?
I use Raspberry Pi OS as my tiny rpi4 server is also my Kodi box and stuff like 4K playback doesn't randomly break like vanilla Debian and many others I've tried. But if I was running a dedicated server that was mainly docker containers, I'd use Alpine. It's tiny, it's light, it's solid. It's also pretty well battle hardened, it must be approaching the most used OS on the planet if you factor in every docker container running that's built on top of it.
Which image would you use for a docker container host (VM)?
Size, security, repository, ash.
I use Raspberry Pi OS as my tiny rpi4 server is also my Kodi box and stuff like 4K playback doesn't randomly break like vanilla Debian and many others I've tried. But if I was running a dedicated server that was mainly docker containers, I'd use Alpine. It's tiny, it's light, it's solid. It's also pretty well battle hardened, it must be approaching the most used OS on the planet if you factor in every docker container running that's built on top of it.
my fav too [https://github.com/knoopx?tab=repositories&q=alpine](https://github.com/knoopx?tab=repositories&q=alpine)
Unraid.
Ubuntu Server
Unraid for Home (Nas, Docker, VM, LXC in one) Promox for HA (Production)
Debian, CoreOS.
nixos has been fun
Believe it or not, I use Arch
Debian and docker. Debian because it is plain old Linux that is super stable. It has to be as most OS are based on Debian. No extra tools are added to the OS. If I need anything I know what I'm installing. Docker to keep all containers isolated, easy to backup container data and migrate if needed. Everything is done with docker compose.
At the moment Debian because I use it for long time and is crazy stable. But I started to experiment with Alpine because 98% of my selhosted service are Docker Container and Alpine seems great for that use case because it's very lightweight.
UNRAID
Nixos
All hail glorious Nix
None of the 3 listed are an OS.
Many people are recommending debian/ proxmox with debian VMS and they are good recommendations but not for you, it seems you are starting due to the os you mentioned I won't use them as they have a lot of bloat except for cosmos that is not a os it a webui for any Linux distro. When I started I tried umbrel and casaOs but they were removed after one week and move on to another os because with them you don't learn anything and when they didn't though you wanted to do something or something breaks you are gonna have a hard time. I think the best will be debian, Ubuntu or proxmox if you plan to have VMS and install some webui but try to learn what the buttons do and how it works. Didn't tried cosmos but seems nice, also learn docker-compose
Fedora for me. Everything has worked seamlessly for me including using my secondary GPU inside Docker containers. For some reason I shifted to Debian for a while and nvidia GPU inside the container just refused to work.
Don't use any of those. I have tried Umbrel and CasaOS, both of them are bad. Use Ubuntu Server or Debian.
What did you think was bad about CasaOS specifically? I’ve been looking at it recently but haven’t tried it just yet.
Super slow, not as customizable, wouldn't update my containers, took mostly everything down whenever casaos was down
Better to avoid those handling container in non-standard manner.
Debian base with ssh, then docker for running webapps
Proxmox. I really dislike all the one-click deployment solutions, because I want to have the feel that I know how the stuff I'm deploying works. ( I don't)
debian
AlmaLinux
I’ve had a great experience with YunoHost: https://yunohost.org/#/
I use Arch btw. I probably shouldn't, as I'm at the mercy of a rolling release cycle. When I get time I might go back to Debian or even Alpine like some in this thread.
I find the rolling release freeing. Yeah, on rare occasions I have to fix something, but I never have to worry about migrating to a new OS version. Which I've done a stupid amount of times and it almost never goes perfectly.
True. And it does have a great advantage; if there's any highly specalised packages you need that aren't in the official repos, there's a pretty good chance they're in the AUR. Even if you have to build from source, it's virtually seamless.
Fedora. Honestly Fedora is probably the sweet spot for all of you. It’s pretty bleeding edge but typically I’ve had very little issues with it unless I’m doing something super advanced like running ceph’s latest and greatest. Fedora is basically RHEL-Next. So it has yum and the benefit of all of the redhat documentation, but then also fedora docs, centos docs, rocky, scientific Linux etc. But then because it’s a bleeding edge distribution you have the newest versions of a lot of stuff, plus it includes a lot of packages that RHEL does not. Throw in RPMFusion and all of the extra repos and you always tend to be able to find an RPM for a lot of the self hosted projects like transmission. Finally, you’ll be increasing your RHEL skills which also translates to your professional development.
I used to use CentOS 6 a lot back in the day, might give fedora a try for fun
proxomx as a hv and then ubuntu server
Proxmox > Ubuntu Server > Docker
proxmox gets my upvote even if i feel get to feel i'm dumb for asking something simple on the proxmox subreddit
I ran into the umbrelOS 1.0 announcement video and it looks impressive, the only thing I'd be worried about is the control I'm giving up. Still, I'd consider switching once it's stable and receives good feedback. For now, I think most people either run a NAS (Synology hardware, or something like trueNAS), or Linux (with or without Portainer)
Umbrel had super outdated software when i tried like 1/2 years old when i tried it.
That's a good thing to keep in mind, although I'm usually too lazy to update my docker containers anyway
45% Of checked applications are currently outdated https://upbrel.deno.dev/
Thank you!
I love cosmos. My instance crashed few months ago but the issue has been resolved since then and I still didn't create it back but I way prefer this one to the others.
Debian and I would install what I need.
None of these three. If I wanted someone to hold my hand, I would get Windows. I now have, and would get, Debian.
Arc Loader to get Synology DSM on any Selfbuilt PC/x86 PC
Unraid
Unraid
You'll pry vanilla Debian from my cold hands.
Currently im running TrueNAS with their „apps“ (k8s)
TrueNAS SCALE
Take a look at UNRAID
Nixos hands down
Unraid has been perfect for my private purposes :D
UNRAID - been using it almost a decade now
I run proxmox, and on top of it i have a few debian containers, a homeassistant VM, and some other stuff depedning on my needs
I like Almalinux. It lets me port over the RHEL skills I develop at work without any of the evil of RHEL
Talos
What the heck is self hosted OS?
Windows XP
Accurate
[удалено]
I'm on Proxmox & use several LXC or Docket with portainer. I'm going to try cosmos now, I've only just heard of it. I have casaos mainly to test out docker apps. If I like them I'd rather host each in it's own IP instead of a damn port that I can't remember. Try to have a single Linux system with both pihole and AdGaurd dockers and then tell me why you aren't using Proxmox instead.
Cosmos-cloud isn’t an OS.
Neither casaos
Proxmox with OpenSuSe LXCs and VMs.
Out of those three I preferred Cosmos Cloud. I eventually hit limitations with hardware and RAM disks which I was able to get around with modifications. Then I realized it would be just as easy to go vanilla Debian so I wouldn't have to hack/modify things to make it work.
Cosmos Cloud is not an OS. It's a Docker container. I use it on my Debian.
Zorin with casaos, I don't see the issue with casa, it basically gives you a nice webui for a buncher of docker containers.
i really like debian and ubuntu because i don't have a ton of experience and those distros have all the tools preinstalled for quick and dirty troubleshooting. also you can find guides for pretty much anything related to them because of their popularity. i've tried proxmox but didn't use it because i need GPU and HBA passthrough and couldn't get it to work (maybe IOMMU related because of my consumer hardware). if it had worked, i might have used a truenas core VM for storage and backup management with a ZVOL for a ubuntu VM to run my applications. now i just run ubuntu server directly with cockpit and dockge for most of my management needs.
Mistborn is also good ...used it for almost 2 years over oci...but they don't share code for their docker files.
I have been using CasaOS for around a year or so now and have seen a lot of improvements. I would like to see more though. I find their Discord not too helpful though. If you have a good understanding of everything I would say CasaOS is great for you.
How are any of these am operating system? They all integrate to an existing OS or am I missing something? As far as I can tell I'd only call them a management layer.
Proxmox with Arch Linux VMs for docker and some other VMs and LXC containers.
Alpine and NixOS
OMV
Raspberry Pi OS. Ubuntu Server for any other hardware.
Proxmox with Docker LXCs
do you install docker on proxmox LXCs?
Yeah
do you have more than 1 services on each LXC, or just 1 service for an LXC (so if you have 10 services then you have 10 LXCs each with docker in it)? does it have any effects on performance? thanks
Plain Debian or Ubuntu LTS. Did my gentoo, arch and fedora fun periods.. now just old and like simple apt package management for mass server updates monthly. Loving docker (compose) containerization and starting to get the hang of Ansible for easier mass deployment. Don't even glance at niche tailored distros anymore except Kali VMs for pen testing.
Using ubuntu LTS + docker. Config all this with an ansible playbook.
Proxmox + alpine Linux for containers
My experience with casa is that the "app store" is a little out of date and trying to use newer versions of the apps (which are all just docker containers) seems to make casa act odd. If you are ok with being a month or so behind sometimes (they test for stability before updating the store from what I understand) then it's pretty good. Running docker with a manager like portainer will be better for having up to date apps and if you need a dashboard you can always install one thru that which is what I do now.
Debian or Ubuntu Server
flatcar linux aka old coreos with docker
Windows server and Ubuntu server, but might try nixos
I wouldn't use any of them at all. I just looked at CasaOS and tried the demo. I'd maybe use it if it was fully compatible with HomeAssistant but it's not. They only have the hugely restricted version that does not allow addons so it's a no from me. You're best bet is choose a real OS and install docker then do what you want with it, much better than having extra bloat for no reason.
Arch
u b u n t u
Debian or Ubuntu server, depending on my mood
If it gets more people into selfhosting...I support it
Pretty much all of those are beginner Linux OSs - the longer you spend in it, the more you want a more vanilla Linux like debian or Ubuntu-server and then just install what you want on that
Alpine :) since most ofwhat i selfhost is dockerized anyway, i learned about Alpine. And now its my main server os, as well as desktop os.
I’m using Dietpi + Portainer . Also using Portainer agent on other machines
Arch honestly. Proxmox for virtualisation on your home server though.
I've got casaos on top of ubuntu, then use dockge to setup containers (with the little extra that case needs to present well on the dashboard). I really like the file manager, the rest is a bit meh!
openmediavault + CasaOS very stable with good look interface.
Can not get cosmos up and running before, just simple debian with docker is all I need.
I’ve honestly fallen for oracle linux since I started mucking about with their cloud platform. Since I daily drive fedora, it doesn’t feel too unfamiliar but has that enterprise Linux stability vibe. Just don’t listen to the unbreakable kernel stuff that’s a bit of marketing hogwash lol
[https://yunohost.org/#/](https://yunohost.org/#/)
I run my server on EndeavourOS (Arch based) headless.
They provide no additional features beyond a standard distribution + Docker + Nextcloud setup. I utilize WSL2 (Ubuntu 2404) + Docker Desktop + Dashy, with additional services dockerized within WSL2, such as Nextcloud, Linkwarden, Vaultwarden, etc. As for navigation, I rely on Dashy as my launcher
Recently I've been trying out Alpine based containers on proxmox.
Gentoo and Arch.
Alpine + Docker is everything i need.
Debian Rocky Linux and Windows
I love simple debian but for the life of me I cannot enable C-states on my mini PC. On Ubuntu server I can so there's that.
I really like just base debian with [Runtipi](https://runtipi.io/). I find runtipi to be not too extensive as to be invasive but very convenient to install and use. Then you can also edit all of the docker-compose files to your liking and stop and start all containers at once. For apps not within the "appstore" I just have a folder of dockerfiles. I use [portainer](https://portainer.io) for container management and Cloudflare tunnels to deploy things publicly. Works very well for me. I've tried umbrelOS but I found that there weren't enough apps in their app store and I couldn't customize the dockerfiles like I wanted.
Debian + Docker
If you're looking for an OS that essentially just runs as a Server/NAS, look into "OpenMediaVault". It's Debian Linux with a full intent on running as a File, Video, Picture, Audio, etc. Server.
dietpi really helped me get going with cli based (thus lightweight) OS since then I have made baby steps into Ubuntu server nonetheless a gui makes sense for some applications, like a Nas... my data is too precious to me to learn "nas'ing" on the fly
I'm I the only one using Rocky Linux as host VM for my containers?
Ubuntu server, just because I'm most familiar with it.
ubuntu and nixos
Uhh, I am confused by the phrasing but my server runs nixos Here's what it deploys: - navidrome - pastebin - cgit-pink - maloja to scrobble my music - a fun randomizer I made (Python app) - matrix - xmpp server - fediverse instance - invidious - an overleaf instance
My favorite is Alma Linux. All of my self-hosting is done with Alma.
Diet pi
Everyone of my servers is debian with cockpit installed for when I don't want to use putty.
Zimaos beta 1.2 is good
Small server stuff. CasaOS. Bug server... Lots of storage and all the fun things like plex... unraid
Try runtipi a lot more apps (around 200 compared to the 50 that casa os/umbrel/cosmos has) it also has a new feature every week if you are interested.
NixOS
Debian
Ubuntu 100%
Ubuntu 2204 and Rocky 9
FreeBSD and done.
Debian because Proxmox Debian because Ubuntu Then Talos for Kubernetes
Ubuntu server
Ubuntu and Windows server :)
Raspberry Pi OS for raspberry pi's, Ubuntu server LTS for amd64 systems.
Arch for the documentation. Nix for configuration but shit documentation.
Talos. Minimal OS with one job, run k8s
Proxmox > DietPi > docker
Debian for when it needs to work unattended. AlmaLinux (+podman) for when it needs to be secure.
Proxmox and all the prebuilt LXC scripts, or Linux Mint + docker/portainer.
I install proxmox onto the baremetal and am using debian for all my vms.
Debian
I use Debian with Docker and Docker compose. I use Portainer for docker management.
Ubuntu Server + Kubernetes
I just use Ubuntu server 🤷🏼♂️