I’ve been getting more into self hosting lately, grabbed an optiplex 3050 for everything and I’m running Mint currently. Looking more into things though, I saw Debian come up as a more barebones distro and now I’m wondering if there is a lot of benefit to going more barebones. I’m not having any issues with my current setup but now I can’t stop thinking about it. I am newer to Linux but having to learn new things doesn’t wig me out much if there is a lot more involvement with Debian
Edit: I appreciate the responses. I do see where I could just end up creating problems that don’t exist by experimenting with it more. Debian does sound enticing so it’s definitely something I’ll mess about with virtually for now and see how I like it in comparison. But I definitely have to agree on the “don’t mess with a good thing” if it’s working for me. All your answers have definitely given me something to play with now as well, I want the problems to solve but doing it in a separate environment would suit me better to learn a few things. This community rocks.
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For servers, I usually choose the distro with a version with the EOL scheduled furthest into the future. Usually that means Ubuntu (Server) LTS.
Debian is fine, but if you have technical troubles you don’t want to deal with, then go straight to Ubuntu. Either Kubuntu (Ubuntu with KDE), Ubuntu, or some other Ubuntu variation.
As a new Linux user, I would recommend Ubuntu over Debian. It is easier to setup, has a lot more online documentation, provides various apps to make life a bit simplier like integrations and AppStore (even though you should try to away from Linux app store because of broken apps)
Arch is really the king diamond in desktop Linux in my opinion, due to their rolling releases (I love new stuff even if it may break things), but especially because for the Arch Wiki (which is good for other OS users to read too) and the Arch AUR. If going Arch, I recommend using
arch-installto make installing it much easier. Update the default arch-install after bootingpacman -Ss arch-installthen just run.Also as a new or intermediate Linux user, I strongly recommend LTS (Long Term Support) versions. For example, Ubuntus latest version is not LTS, and has been out for multiple months, and there are still a huge amount of apps not ready to easily install – and you either have to spend a lot of time to figure it out yourself, or lose the chance to use some apps.
All the kids here seem to get really annoyed whenever anyone suggests Ubuntu for “new to Linux” people. My story in particular seems to draw out the trolls, the know-it-alls, and the ricers. I had the same questions as OP 26 years ago, I made the choice you’re recommending (and getting down voted for), I’d do it again, and I have no regrets. Here’s my story anyway in case it resonates with someone.
I picked Ubuntu for my “mostly a server, but sometimes a workstation, sometimes a multimedia PC” before Mint or Arch were even a thing. I knew about and tried Debian, but support for games and hardware at the time wasn’t there for me. Back when we used BitTorrent to literally mostly download Linux ISOs, I was a relatively new Linux user. I’d tried Debian, Slackware, Corel, SUSE, Redhat, etc. Played around distro hopping. But when it came time to build my next machine I landed on Ubuntu LTS mostly because a few important pieces of software I needed to run (paid real money for and needed for university) ONLY came packaged as Deb. Ubuntu turned out to be well documented, well supported, easy to learn, and stable enough that after a decade it was the hardware that failed me, not the operating system. Then, there was the Unity debacle. Then, there were snaps. But, by that time those issues were meaningless to me because I knew I could easily avoid snaps and unity altogether if they bothered me. I never even touched the app store. I guess I stopped caring about the desktop because by that point I was mostly only accessing the CLI remotely or tunneling individual X apps over ssh. When I rebuilt that machine, I considered other options, but ultimately all the choices had mostly insignificant differences except for my familiarity with them. So, I picked Ubuntu LTS again, and it’s been trucking along without getting in my way for nearly another decade.
Arch and those other new distros are interesting. I can see the benefits of that kind of system. But it’s not for everyone. It’s not for me. 99% of users are not going to benefit from bleeding edge software updates. Moreover, there seems to be this widespread misinterpretation that stable and long term release cycles don’t get security updates. These days with snaps, flatpacks, docker, and VMs, running a flashy new bit of bleeding edge software on a long term or stable release cycle distro is easier than it ever has been. It may be slightly difficult for a new user, but it’s still easier than reinstalling and setting up a new distro with a host of undocumented bugs. I can’t even begin to imagine how awful it would be to try to learn about Linux and troubleshoot an issue as a noob in this post-search AI slop wasteland that is the dead Internet.
Anyway, I guess the point I’m getting at is that I chose Ubuntu because it was easy, I chose it again because it continued to be easy, and now that I’ve been using it for a couple decades I’d choose it again because I care more about using my machine than tinkering with my machine. And ultimately, the choice of distro matters a whole lot less when you’re not new to Linux.
Mint is based on Ubuntu which is based on Debian. If you were spinning up a new server from scratch, I would definitely recommend Debian over Mint, but realistically if you’re not currently having any issues there’s no reason to rearchitect your whole server just for that.
Start playing with nixos in a VM
You’ll get the idea I’m sure
I really love the idea of Nix. But not a fan of the scripting language.
I do need to test it more.
I do find it hard to update though. I’m not sure if they have released a GUI based interface to make it easier.
NixOS for self hosted is awesome! A few lines of code and you have set up a service on bare metal, without needing to think about dependencies. Just look at this beauty, OP:
services.immich = { enable = true; host = "0.0.0.0"; port = 2283; openFirewall = true; };
I’m not having any issues with my current setup
There’s your answer.
+1 🐧
My personal journey:
- arch is annoying to maintain and whil it is mostly stable, you do get some breaking updates here and there. It’s not a bad choice, it just doesn’t makeuch sense for a headless server.
- Ubuntu server, just why? Works fine but why?
- a not headless fedora, worked fine but still annoyed me sometimes
- proxmox (debian based) works great, annoyed me to manage vm resources.
- headless debian. Just works, I rarely if ever encounter OS issues. The only downside is that not everything can be found in the debian repos, but there is almost always an option to add a repo for whatever you want.
My setup is mostly dockers so keep that in mind.
But really, if something works for you go with it. If you are looking to change, I would recommend debian.
Debian is good choice. Another option could be open media vault. Which is Debian with a built in web interface.
I have a headless Debian server I’ve used for hosting media for like 10 years now with 0 issues that weren’t hardware failures. It’s solid as a rock. That said if you already have stuff up and running and you’re not having any problems there’s no reason to touch it.
If your current setup is satisfying your needs don’t change it. Linux Mint is quite similar to Debian when it comes to the base.
If you want to try and learn new thing maybe look into Bash scripting or Docker. Think of something useful you would like to have and try creating it.Debian is … fine. It’s the Toyota Corolla of distros. It’s reliable, it’ll likely do what you need it to do. It’s not fun or exciting or packed with the latest tech, it just does its job with minimum fuss.
Toyota Corolla is not “fine”, it’s a marvel of engineering, reaching levels of reliability and quality control previously unfathomable, the world’s best-selling car of all time, still going strong and still constantly improving after six decades.
But yes, Debian is the Toyota Corolla of Linux.
I was going to say, stuff mostly working reliably is awesome.
The new Toyotas aren’t as reliable as before. Slowly getting worse. Which is a shame.
If that’s the case, I’d better instead make the claim that Toyota used to be the Debian of cars.
It’s not so much a marvel of engineering as much as “if you make the tech as boring as possible, there’s less to go wrong”.
The Germans will sell you a luxury performance SUV with the same highway fuel consumption as the Corolla. Of course the Corolla will be more simple and reliable.
Which is what makes it an excellent server distro. And also why I don’t tend to use it on anything with a screen.
The most messing around I’ve done with my server after setting it up is update to trixie. I think I might have had to reset it two or three times in the past 6 months for the reason of “I didn’t feel like actually troubleshooting”
My recommendation is Debian for a server (real or virtual), or Proxmox. The former is perfectly reasonable and excellent experience; the latter is more flexible and more complex.
Debian is the parent distro of numerous Linux flavours (including *buntu, which aren’t suitable as a server OS, IMHO), so administration and services are all common (apt, etc). No need to learn dnf, pacman/yay, etc.
It’s still my preferred server OS, despite other options and being experienced.
Though I do also have a NUC running Proxmox (for VMs and LXCs), and both a NAS and RasPi running Docker. 🤷♂️ My Debian server is a VM inside one of them.
Proxmox, ironically, is also based on Debian.
You can install Proxmox on top of Debian. I always do that.
It’s Debian all the way down
Debian is stable. It works well, but the software in its apt/deb repo are relatively outdated compared to what might be in Fedora.
In the stable repo, but there are backports, testing and unstable repos too, if you want later versions and accept more risk of bugs.
Yeap, the price of security and stability is not having the latest bling. I’m fine with that.
If nothing is broken don’t fix it…
Don’t tear down your server just to have fun - setup a vm (or get one of those minipcs), call i “playground” and have fun there.
Redo your server after you’ve tried different things, and only if you feel like you found something that is worth it.
Experimenting with different distros can teach you a lot (especially if you try very different ones - mint and debian aren’t that much different) and I do recommend you do it, just don’t do it in production :)
Should I be using Debian?
That’s unanswerable but …
I’ve used Debian exclusively for many years. There are several aspects that have served me well:
- debian is one of the older, more popular distros - huge community and catalogue of solved problems.
- it just makes sense to run the same OS on my desktop and on servers, no oddities between them.
- it’s stable and boring.
On that last point, before switching to debian I (like everyone) enjoyed different DE’s and distros because they look great and the constant change gives a feeling of progress. However, at some point I realised that I didn’t want my OS to be a distraction from what I’m actually doing. Like I want to get my work done, and something not working quite right with the OS due to some bug or update is a huge distraction. Debian’s release cycle mitigates that problem.
In the before times it used to be annoying that the software in Debian’s repos lagged a long way behind the current releases, but that’s not really a problem with the advent of flatpak, nix, and (my preference) AppImages.
Recently I was tempted to switch to NixOS, but I didn’t.
Debian is what you make of it, definitely. But it is also inanely stability focused to the point of being a detriment. It takes many months for simple package updates to hit Debian repos and it leads to frustration when stuff I expect to be updated is still very much not. As a server distro I recommend it, but as a play around distro it’s a bit more annoying and you have to do a ton more self maintenance on packages to get the latest and greatest.
