[HN Gopher] The switch to Linux and the beginning of my self-hos...
___________________________________________________________________
The switch to Linux and the beginning of my self-hosting journey
Author : kingcrimson1000
Score : 101 points
Date : 2026-02-10 18:09 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (hazemkrimi.tech)
(TXT) w3m dump (hazemkrimi.tech)
| kgwxd wrote:
| Any would-be switchers, note these are 2 very different things.
| Self-Hosting sucks, period. For a million reasons that have
| nothing to do with the OS :) Trying both at once is going to be
| exponentially more painful than doing either alone.
| GlitchRider47 wrote:
| Self-hosting sucks, yes. But I'll be damned if it isn't fun.
| It's definitely not for everyone. Not only is it not for
| everyone, but it is not for everyone's families. I'm so
| grateful that my wife is willing to put up with me
| experimenting on our home network, trying out different apps,
| waiting for me to resolve a DNS issue because I forgot to
| assign a static IP to my pihole.
| SchemaLoad wrote:
| I feel like it sucks a lot less than it used to. New apps
| like Immich work incredibly well, new tools like Tailscale
| make security and access to the home network easy, and LLMs
| make solving problems and getting ideas a lot easier.
| kingcrimson1000 wrote:
| It is painful but I would say it is also rewarding as I learned
| a lot doing it!
| kgwxd wrote:
| I love learning that stuff too, until I learn what it takes
| to maintain it. At least internet facing stuff. I fully gave
| up on email a decade ago. That alone crushed all my
| excitement for the general idea. I have a local media server,
| but it's also just my main desktop.
| boricj wrote:
| Half-assing self-hosting sucks, regardless of the underlying
| platform. You tie things together with shoestrings and gum,
| leaving ticking timebombs and riddles to your future self.
|
| This is the point where I'm supposed to describe my self-
| hosting solution on my so-called homelab, where my blog lives.
| I won't, because it's both stupid in smart ways and smart in
| stupid ways, therefore it sucks all the way.
|
| Self-hosting is like any hobby. Half-ass it and you'll half-
| like it.
| newsoftheday wrote:
| > Self-Hosting sucks, period.
|
| I've been doing it for several decades now, it doesn't suck at
| all for me.
| tamimio wrote:
| It depends, do you have the time to maintain few things, or
| sometimes more than "few things"? Do you have the skills or at
| least willing to learn? Are you willing to deal with some basic
| contingency planning in case some stuff goes wrong? What kind
| of services are you replacing, if emails, probably not worth
| it, storage? Definitely. Do you have a reliable internet/power
| combo to rely on accessing your lab remotely? Say you are
| traveling and want to access your NAS to get a copy of XYZ
| document, last thing you want is that you are unable to do so
| because your power is down.
|
| So it really depends on the use case and many factors, if it
| works for you, great, otherwise and you are willing to pay some
| subscriptions, then be it.
| gehsty wrote:
| I think it's fair to say it depends on what you are hosting and
| why - personal projects and curiosities, fun! Self hosting
| business critical data and customer data, minefield! Currently
| self hosting some little projects, using cloudflare tunnels to
| serve to the web, and it is surprisingly fun and efficient!
| Dedime wrote:
| Hot take alert! As an avid self-hoster, I'd like to hear why.
|
| Personally, I self host because the benefits I receive simply
| aren't available anywhere else at the level of quality I've
| come to expect - Jellyfin is a great media player, it's free,
| and I don't want to switch. Pihole provides ad protection and
| privacy for my whole home network. It's also free.
| Homeassistant is amazing, and free. Etc etc.
| Telaneo wrote:
| > It's also free.
|
| Only if you don't care about your time or if your media
| collection is tiny.
|
| Don't get me wrong, I love my 20 TB hard drives full of Linux
| ISOs, but it's a hard sell on anyone who doesn't have
| 'dicking about with computers' as their hobby. Regular old
| piracy using torrents has been a easier sell in my
| experience, once you can get over the hurdle of getting
| someone familiar with using a torrent client and the relevant
| search bar. Popcorn Time back in the day made that hurdle
| trivial. Getting people to use Jellyfin isn't hard. Getting
| someone to be the family/friend group Jellyfin sysadmin is a
| significantly tougher sell.
|
| Pihole and the like is an easier sell, since it can be mostly
| set and forget, but it's not free unless you already have a
| computer which isn't doing anything, and even if you do, that
| computer isn't guaranteed to be one which has near-zero
| running costs when you factor in electricity.
|
| The same sorts of problems apply to most things you can self-
| host.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| I can't speak for Jellyfin, as I currently use Plex. But it
| truly has been "set it and forget it" for me. I've never
| had an update break things, it just does its job and does
| it well.
| SchemaLoad wrote:
| I don't think many advice non tech people to get in to self
| hosting, but there are a lot of people who do enjoy messing
| with computers who these articles are marketing to.
|
| The average user will only self host when it's a managed
| box they plug in and it just works. Like how Apple/Google
| home automation works. Maybe we will see managed products
| for photo / file syncing pop up.
| beart wrote:
| In my experience, containerization has made self-hosting most
| software a breeze. The biggest pain points I've come across are
| related to network architecture and security. I've frequently
| run into issues with certificates, proxy setups, DNS, etc. It
| seems like much of that stems around how many modern web
| concepts were not designed to easily support offline-first
| environments. Then again, that stuff has never been my area of
| expertise.
| SchemaLoad wrote:
| For me I've decided to just have everything behind a VPN.
| Tailscale and Cloudflare tunnels make this quite easy to set
| up, dealing with ddns and CGNAT for you.
|
| The upside is the security risk is massively reduced, an
| attacker would have to exploit both the VPN and the service
| behind it, both of these in theory being secure anyway. The
| downside is obviously that you require installing a VPN
| client to access services, but if it's only you using the
| server this isn't a huge deal.
| SunshineTheCat wrote:
| No comment on the hosting end of things, however, I switched to
| Ubuntu on my PC a couple of weekends ago and I still have not
| adjusted to the peace and quiet of not getting 87 meaningless
| windows notifications every time I boot up.
| robby_w_g wrote:
| No more updates in the middle of a multi-player game with
| friends. How will I ever live without Windows?
| PlatoIsADisease wrote:
| After you get frustreted having to use the terminal to make
| Ubuntu work, try Fedora.
|
| Ubuntu is outdated linux, it part of Debian-family, which goes
| by the misleading name 'stable'. Its not stable like a table.
| Its stable like software versions are frozen, despite bugs
| being fixed.
|
| Fedora isnt Arch, I think most Debian-family users don't
| realize they are unrelated. Fedora is just well maintained and
| generally up to date.
| simion314 wrote:
| Right, cause latest packages bring only latest features and
| bug fixes and never bring new bugs, do you ever wonder how
| those bugs that the latest packages fix get in ?
|
| I recommend for people that want things to not change and not
| get new bugs every update to use an LTS distro like Kubuntu
| and only get latest kernels or drivers from a PPA or upstream
| if you really have to. I am not running the latest KDE stuff
| and I feel fine, I am not suffering in pain for some cool new
| feature in Plasma and some new bug, I am comfortable with the
| existing features and existing bugs.
| beart wrote:
| I've tried debian variants many times over the years.
| However, my actual experience has been one of struggles
| with outdated software, knowing that the fix I need is just
| out of reach. Trying to pull in some of these fixes from a
| PPA often leads to a dependency mess. I'm sure I could deal
| with it better if I took the time, but I just want to do
| the thing I want to do. The other "reason" to use Debian is
| the supposed large user base and community support. But
| I've found more often than not that many of the solutions
| to my problems are outdated or don't work for whatever
| reason.
|
| Ironically, my best experience so far in that regard is an
| arch variant (CachyOS).
|
| That said, people shouldn't be afraid of experimenting to
| find the best software for their purposes, and something
| like Linux Mint is still a great option to recommend to
| people who are new to Linux.
| simion314 wrote:
| OK, but stop with bullshit that you get more stability
| because of new packages, you get latest features you read
| about or watched in some video but you also get the
| latest bugs, and to get fixes for this latest bugs you
| will upgrade again in a few months and you get the latest
| fixes and some new bugs.
|
| There are some valid usecases to use rolling or some
| bleeding edge distro, like if you want to contribute to
| KDE or similar project you would want to track latests
| library versions, but for doing say a web dev job and
| soem enterteminent an LTS distro works better, you do not
| upgrade and you have the surprise that GNOME removed yet
| some new feature you were using, or soem stuff in Plasma
| broke and now you get a ton of notifications about
| something not working, or maybe you did not read the Arch
| forums before upgrading and you had cool package Y that
| conflicts with cool package Z and now your system is
| unbootable and you need to fix it instead of doing your
| actual work. (Arch fans should first Google Arch upgrade
| briked my system before commenting that this never
| happened to them).
|
| Btw I used Arch in the past too when I had more free time
| and loved thinkering with my system.
| jszymborski wrote:
| I started using Linux desktops around 2012, and always used
| Debian-based distros (Mostly Debian, Ubunutu, and Mint).
|
| I switched to Fedora this year, and I've been super
| pleasantly surprised. There are some sharp edges (Mostly due
| to Wayland and Flatpaks), but I don't think I'll be going
| back to Debian any time soon. Things seem way more stable
| than on Ubuntu.
| SunshineTheCat wrote:
| That's really interesting. A problem I've been having with
| Ubuntu is just quirky things with bluetooth devices and a
| monitor that doesn't always get recognized when waking the
| pc up from sleep.
|
| In your experience, does Fedora handle these better than
| Ubuntu?
| soperj wrote:
| I've been using Fedora since 2011, haven't had any
| monitor or bluetooth issues. Originally had a wifi issue
| when I first got a Ryzen computer, but it was solved
| fairly easily and haven't had an issue since. The upgrade
| from 42 to 43 borked my local postgres, but it seems that
| they understand what their mistake was there.
|
| edit: I use it on a thinkpad, ymmv
| scrollop wrote:
| I tried using Linux 5 years ago - too difficult to learn
| terminal commands to configfure everythiong.
|
| Tried again a few months ago and it's a breeze with an llm
| creating all the commands and code and troubleshooting.
|
| eg vibe coded a text transcriber similar to windows Voice
| Typing.
| htx80nerd wrote:
| for 'rolling stable' openSuse is also worth mentioning
| pdimitar wrote:
| Does it come with the latest Linux kernel?
| tmtvl wrote:
| Depends whether you go with Tumbleweed, Slowroll, or
| Leap. I believe the Kernel Of The Day repository is only
| available for Tumbleweed. By 'latest' kernel you did mean
| bleeding edge nightly builds, right?
| pdimitar wrote:
| No, I mean latest non-RC kernel (currently 6.18).
|
| I want to have VMs that are kind of like Arch but a
| little bit more stable, yet have very latest versions of
| everything I need with minimal risk (no need for the
| bleeding edge at all times; Manjaro does this semi-okay
| with its two weeks grace period).
| skydhash wrote:
| Latest also means latest bugs. So unless you're waiting
| for some drivers for your hardware, I'm not sure that
| it's really needed for general usage.
| pdimitar wrote:
| I don't need 100% of all software. Just a tiny fraction
| and they're modern tools that are heavily iterated on. Is
| it possible they have bugs? Very much so!
|
| But "stay on an older version to be safe" is not the
| panacea many try to pretend that it is. Way too many bugs
| and security vulnerabilities on old versions as well.
| skydhash wrote:
| If you're on debian, there's the backports repository,
| And stable means stable in terms of feature. They still
| patches for bugs and security, and quite fast for the
| latter.
| coffeebeqn wrote:
| There are certainly a lot of great options. I tried Fedora,
| Mint and Cachy recently and for my machine and use cases it
| had the most issues. Mint and cachy basically work perfectly
| out of the box
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| I'm not exactly a windows lover, but what are you people doing
| to your windows installs to get so many notifications? I get
| nothing at boot and the only notifications I get are from when
| windows defender blocks something and I need to add an
| exclusion.
| doubled112 wrote:
| Notifications? I wish.
|
| Mine keeps shoving full screen backup reminders in my face.
|
| Skip for now. Maybe later. Not right now.
|
| It's a work machine, but not on a domain, and I don't use an
| MS account.
| gethly wrote:
| As I had zero plans on moving to Windows 11, I was looking into
| which distros are popular nowadays over the past few weeks.
| Today, I tried Cachy OS and Aurora(non-gaming version of Bazzite)
| in VirtualBox and after 5 minutes I knew that after 30 years of
| using a computer with windows(dos, then w95 and onward) Linux is
| still not there yet on the desktop. I just can't believe how they
| still can't get the utmost basic things right. Yet here we are.
|
| And yes, you can game on linux nowadays, finally! Even get better
| performance due to Windows bloat. Office, OBS, internet,
| video...everything is working...yet it still is not there in
| usability.
|
| To be specific what irked me today when I tested them was
| installing new programs. On Cachy, I wanted to test jetbrains
| IDE. Last time i tested it was on suse and fedora in virtualbox
| last year and it worked but neither distribution was there just
| yet in UX. This time, I downloaded the tar version from jetbrains
| website. I could not open it(maybe due to it being run in live cd
| mode in virtualbox) or extract(no option in dir manager or
| decompression program) the content in Cachy. So I wanted to get
| 7zip but there was no linux version. Cachy has its own packages
| that can be opened(website) via its welcome screen(otherwise
| there is no program manager - no snaps, flatpacks...) and after
| downloading it with some arch file extension i could not install
| it. I could open it and see usr and bin directories but that
| helped me fuckall and i was not willing to tinker with this bs in
| 2026. Then in Aurora, it has bazaar for flatpacks, before i
| wasted bandwidth to download the IDE in vain again i preemptively
| wanted zip manager, there was pea..something. So i clicked
| install, it did and .. nothing. Nowhere to be found. Tried
| multiple times and no result. Could not find it anywhere. So I
| said F that and am sticking with the indian windows spyware. The
| devil you know and whatnot.
| newsoftheday wrote:
| Use a standard Linux distro like Kubuntu if you like KDE
| (Windows like) or Ubuntu if you like Gnome like and stay away
| from those ultra customized, time bomb distros and you will be
| fine. That's assuming your desired is sincere.
| vel0city wrote:
| > So I wanted to get 7zip but there was no linux version
|
| You didn't need 7zip, you can extract compressed tars natively.
| In fact, IntelliJ's docs tell you exactly what command to run.
|
| https://www.jetbrains.com/help/idea/installation-guide.html#...
| sudo tar -xzf idea-*.tar.gz -C /opt
| gethly wrote:
| i know that. i run my own linux servers and i know how to use
| bash. but i specifically do not want to be doing any of these
| things on desktop. i was hoping, after such hype-wave for
| linux due to w11 being utter crap, that things got better.
| they did not. and yes, of course, this is just N1 experience.
| cadamsdotcom wrote:
| This is understandable, to want everything point and click
| and go. But doubt your mindset matches that of the
| community, so unfortunately it may take a while...
|
| Maybe try something more commercial like Zorin OS?
| gethly wrote:
| I was also planning on testing zorin, pop os, maybe
| nobara, and fedora and suse again, but it felt like it
| would be a waste of time.
| encom wrote:
| All distro hopping eventually leads to Debian.
| cogman10 wrote:
| It seems like your experience with linux may have actually
| sabotaged your ability to point and click install things.
|
| KDE has the "discover" app which does what it looks like
| you want (including installing intellij with 1 click). [1]
|
| There's also bazaar for gnome which offers similar things
| [2]
|
| Ubuntu also offers the "snap store" which similarly offers
| a 1 click install of apps. [3]
|
| The mistake you made is going directly to the app
| distributors for installation. Because there's no unified
| linux it's impossible for app distributors to offer a
| single way to install their apps. They can't count on your
| PC having anything. That's why intellij distributes with a
| tar.
|
| This, however, is typical in linux. Using a package manager
| is how you do things in standard linux, those package
| managers have just been typically ran by the command line.
|
| [1] https://apps.kde.org/discover/
|
| [2] https://github.com/kolunmi/bazaar
|
| [3] https://ubuntu.com/blog/trust-and-security-in-the-snap-
| store
| otherme123 wrote:
| >So I wanted to get 7zip but there was no linux version.
|
| Maybe Cachy don't have 7z, I don't know. But Arch (its base)
| has it: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/7-Zip , and I never
| had any trouble opening 7zips in any Linux either from console
| or any graphical tool.
| Gracana wrote:
| Thanks for your review of five minutes of using Linux after 30
| years of Windows use. Sorry to hear that zero effort didn't
| work out, but what can you do.. it's just not ready for the
| desktop. Enjoy Windows 11.
| alias_neo wrote:
| You seem to have missed a couple of things that have caused you
| a bit of a headache here, I'm hoping I can encourage you to try
| again with a little bit of info. I've been using Linux for as
| long as it has existed, I'm also a backend-dev that works on a
| Linux machine and targets Linux-based platforms for deployment,
| even my kids use Linux. Windows went downhill for me after
| about Windows 2000 and Linux has only gotten better.
|
| > yet it still is not there in usability
|
| I want to wholeheartedly disagree with you. Nothing comes close
| to Linux in terms of usability for me, but a lot of it is about
| what you're used to, I've used Window's, I've used Mac, Mac I
| could live with, but I'll never intentionally use Windows
| again.
|
| > To be specific what irked me today when I tested them was
| installing new programs. On Cachy, I wanted to test jetbrains
| IDE
|
| Ok, let's begin; this one is partly JetBrains' fault, and
| partly yours.
|
| You can open a terminal and type `paru jetbrains-toolbox`, hit
| enter a couple of times and it's installed. Don't know what
| `paru` is? I recommend reading the frankly excellent
| documentation from CachyOS[0].
|
| > or extract(no option in dir manager or decompression program)
| the content in Cachy
|
| You didn't specify which Desktop Environment you chose, this is
| important when helping newcomers because each comes with its
| own set of tools; but in Gnome's (what I use) the file manager,
| called Nautilus, I can right-click almost any archive type and
| will be presented with "Extract", "Extract to..." as well as a
| few other options. I just looked up how KDE does it, in case
| you're using that, the file manager is called Dolphin, and
| apparently you might need to install an archive tool first such
| as Ark and/or 7zip, gotta give you that one, I'm a little
| shocked, that's a pretty shitty OOBE in my opinion, but a quick
| search and you'll now probably be confused because the solution
| is here[1] but they say to use `apt install...` which you don't
| have on an Arch based distro. But once you know what the file
| managers you do have access to are, it should be easier.
|
| > So I wanted to get 7zip but there was no linux version
|
| There certainly _is_ a Linux version. `paru 7zip` and I get at
| least 3 legit options; the base package, an architecture
| optimised package, and a GUI for it, as well as a dozen or two
| community options. You can also try the standard arch package
| manager aptly named "pacman"; `sudo pacman -S 7zip` and it
| installs it for me after I hit enter to confirm, don't even
| need to choose the package. Wtf is `sudo`? That's how
| Administrator is typically done in Linux.
|
| > Cachy has its own packages that can be opened(website) via
| its welcome screen(otherwise there is no program manager - no
| snaps, flatpacks
|
| On Gnome there is "Software" which supports Flatpaks as well as
| other package types; don't worry about snaps, you don't want
| them, and there's Octopi from CachyOS. In KDE there's a GUI
| called "Discover". There are a bunch of others such as Bazaar
| which you mentioned.
|
| Usability really isn't an issue in Linux once you know the way
| of your distro; If you're used to Windows, then it's
| _different_, sure, and in that case I'd suggest taking an hour
| to read the CachyOS docs; Arch Wiki (CachyOS is based on Arch)
| is also an amazing resource for all things Linux, and learn a
| little about how software management is different, we don't
| (usually) pull random crap from websites, we install from
| package managers, and sometimes compile the source ourselves.
|
| If you didn't choose one of the two DEs I've mentioned (Gnome,
| KDE), I'd recommend giving them a go, they're both very mature
| and usable. If you're into Discord, I can suggest hitting up
| the CachyOS or another distro's Discord servers, there's lots
| of helpful people there willing to help, if you had any other
| questions give me a shout.
|
| [0] https://wiki.cachyos.org/cachyos_basic/navigation-guide/
| [1] https://discuss.kde.org/t/how-to-add-extract-here-right-
| clic...
| nwbt wrote:
| >I just looked up how KDE does it, in case you're using that,
| the file manager is called Dolphin, and apparently you might
| need to install an archive tool first such as Ark and/or
| 7zip, gotta give you that one, I'm a little shocked, that's a
| pretty shitty OOBE in my opinion[..]
|
| I think that's an artifact from running just the liveimage
| and not installing it fully to the VM. I'm 99% certain Ark is
| included in a default Cachy/KDE install.
| logicshiFt wrote:
| This is precisely what it is, I hopped on my cachyOS
| install that I set up a few days ago and I can double-click
| the IntelliJ IDEA tarball from Dolphin and Ark pops up. I
| didn't install these manually, they came pre-packaged with
| KDE.
| gethly wrote:
| Thanks for the reply. I used KDE. And sure, Gnome's Nautilus
| might have worked but I have huge distaste for it(it's
| pretty, but omg what a pain to set up to be an actual DE, let
| alone out of the box).
|
| Anyhow.. "You can open a terminal and type".. yeah, no. This
| is exactly what I or any other Windows/desktop user does not
| want to be doing on a desktop computer. Linux always promised
| to get rid of this "just use terminal bro", which is what
| being a desktop OS is all about, but it never got there..it
| seems.
|
| The premise of my test was to see whether the OS is ready out
| of the box(the main point of a linux distribution, after
| all). But neither was. Again, I am not saying it is not
| usable. I am just saying it requires more work to be put into
| it from the get-go than I am willing to put in, despite
| having the skill and knowledge to do so.
| esseph wrote:
| > Anyhow.. "You can open a terminal and type".. yeah, no.
| This is exactly what I or any other Windows/desktop user
| does not want to be doing on a desktop computer.
|
| Then stay on windows. You'll have the same issues with
| MacOS from time to time.
|
| If you're willing to learn things you have plenty of
| options. If not? You'll be limited. Tradeoffs.
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| Linux Mint or Ubuntu cinnamon Desktop is less specialized, and
| has a GUI very similar to legacy Windows.
|
| https://ubuntucinnamon.org/ (recommended for new players)
|
| https://linuxmint.com/ (recommended for students)
|
| Ubuntu Desktop 24 LTS: Kernel 6.0.8 will work on older
| GPU/Laptop hardware, but OS will be deprecated in 2029
|
| Ubuntu Desktop 26 LTS will be out in a few months: Will be
| supported till 2038, but note old GPU drivers may not work on
| more modern Linux Kernels above >6.0.15
|
| The normal Ubuntu Desktop requires a few days to make it
| usable, and a lot of customization to make it enjoyable.
| However, network printer and webcam access is usually trivial
| to install. google equipment installs before you buy... ymmv
|
| Dual boot from two SSD if you need to work on the machine. You
| will swear less when (not if) you break something, and not
| everything windows works in Wine or kvm. =3
| pessimizer wrote:
| > So I wanted to get 7zip but there was no linux version.
|
| Of course 7zip has a Linux version. I'm pretty sure it went a
| long time exclusively on Linux without having a Windows
| version. I'm also pretty sure your problem is that you were
| looking for a 7zip GUI because I don't even remember installing
| 7zip the last time I installed.
|
| Stop using weird distros and just install Mint or something
| basic. If you're not a power user and you don't want to be
| doing power user things, don't pose as one. Mint and Ubuntu are
| made for handholding people who are afraid to type, and will
| give you tools to avoid having to do it.
|
| Or, instead, you can realize that if you learned how to use the
| commandline in Linux 25 years ago, the skills you learned would
| still be useful. If you learned unix on a mainframe, you could
| still figure out what to do. It's not a wasted investment, like
| all of the time I wasted getting good at .BAT files.
|
| And typing "apt install 7zip" isn't exactly hard. Or "7zip x
| [myfile.7z]".
| digiown wrote:
| Proxmox is probably overkill for beginners. You'll know it when
| you want it.
|
| I recommend docker-compose based tools, especially dockge [1]. It
| drastically cuts down on the surface of weird things you have to
| deal with. Just put up a reasonable distro (I recommend Debian
| here, since Fedora tends to get some SELinux issues which would
| confuse beginners), install docker, and run it. You don't have to
| touch anything else system-wise (maybe except setting up
| encryption when installing)
|
| Most self-hostable services provide docke-compose files, which
| you can just paste in with some customizations, and run it from
| there.
|
| Tailscale for external access is probably the easiest solution.
|
| 1. https://dockge.kuma.pet/
| newsoftheday wrote:
| I use KVM, never tried proxmox, don't need it, don't want it.
| Cyph0n wrote:
| +1, only reach for Proxmox first if you're really interested in
| learning it.
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| And unstable for novices that have no clue what they are
| working with OS wise.
|
| The virt-manager is easy for most Desktop folks looking to drop
| Win11 in a frozen backing-image sandbox with a local samba
| folder loop-back mount (allows fake network share in Win11 or
| MacOS guest OS.) =3
| digiown wrote:
| Virt manager is the least intuitive (discounting actively
| antiuser crap) program I've ever dealt with. I still don't
| quite get it and I've used Linux exclusively for more than 5
| years.
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| Did you use the desktop or the CLI utility?
|
| (user group setting issue is a common hiccup)
|
| It pretty much just automates the standard Qemu/kvm setup
| workflows. =3
| watermelon0 wrote:
| GUI might not be as powerful, but in my experience, it's
| similarly non-intuitive as alternatives, such as VirtualBox
| / UTM (macOS) / VMware Fusion/Player.
|
| For anything more complex (e.g. GPU passthrough) you will
| need to drop into manually modifying XML files.
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| TFA's author is using GPU passthrough to get Windows to run
| games with anti-cheats that won't work under Linux. So you want
| full hardware virtualization with GPU passthrough for that to
| work: several hypervisors would do but Proxmox is
| Debian+hypervisor+LXC+ZFS and it is easy to use.
|
| I got my brother, who's not a techie and who lives at the other
| end of the world, to install Proxmox _and_ get GPU passthrough
| working.
|
| > Just put up a reasonable distro (I recommend Debian here
|
| Proxmox is basically Debian.
|
| Proxmox allows to do things that are totally overkill for
| beginners indeed but it's still simple to use for simple stuff.
|
| I think we should encourage beginners, like my brother, to use
| solutions like Proxmox, not discourage them.
| digiown wrote:
| Needing to run games on the same machine as your server is
| IMO not the most common use case. It tends to be expensive if
| power bills are a concern and using a VM as your main machine
| is tricky IMO.
|
| Most games using anticheat won't run on VMs without a fight
| too. Your Proxmox supports taking a memory snapshot and
| restore, which would allow most cheats to work if they are
| convenient enough.
|
| For every person like your brother we have many more half-
| serious people who need some type of reward before committing
| more mental effort. Wtf is a storage pool? What do I do with
| all these clusters, high availability thing it keeps asking
| about? Flattening out the learning curve is a nice benefit on
| its own.
| kingcrimson1000 wrote:
| The machine that I use now for my server was my main
| machine back in the day. Apologies if my wording in the
| post resulted in some confusion but I don't do gaming on
| the server at all.
| SchemaLoad wrote:
| Some self hosted tools really want to be installed on the host
| os like Home Assistant. Proxmox just makes it so much easier to
| blow away and reinstall the OS without having to drag a monitor
| and keyboard to the server.
| digiown wrote:
| I dunno, home assistant docker works perfectly well IMO.
| kingcrimson1000 wrote:
| I was using KVM with virt-manager on Debian bullseye and I have
| a great experience especially with GPU passthrough.
| tamimio wrote:
| Nice journey, keep digging!
|
| Just one suggestion, I would put the lab network on a separate
| vlan and access it through a VPN (or tailscale, netbird, etc.)
| that way you don't bother with any security risk and only you can
| access it once you are authenticated to the network, and even if
| you want to expose a service to the public, you can do so by
| reverse proxy or service-specific features like funnel from
| tailscale, so you replace ddns and portforwarding and keeping
| things secure.
| kingcrimson1000 wrote:
| Thanks for the suggestion. Can you explain how my current setup
| with Wireguard is unsecure?
| medbar wrote:
| May I recommend https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-
| selfhosted or the site by the same name for software that might
| scratch that one itch you weren't even aware of
| kingcrimson1000 wrote:
| Thanks for the recommendation! I am aware of this repo and hope
| to try some of the projects mentioned when I have the time. For
| now I am quite happy with my current setup.
| medbar wrote:
| Great! Looking forward to reading about your journey should
| you choose to share again :^)
| PlatoIsADisease wrote:
| >I started out with Debian
|
| >There are still issues with driver and software compatibility
| but it is getting better in the recent years thanks to projects
| like Wine and Proton .
|
| OP, stop using outdated linux. Debian is intentionally outdated.
| You will never have a good experience with drivers when you are
| always using 2 year old kernels and software. 99.9% of humans
| think the word 'Stable' means bug free, but that isnt what Debian
| means by it.
|
| I recommend Fedora, which is not Arch, its just up-to-date linux.
| stevekemp wrote:
| The current "stable" distribution of Debian is version 13,
| codenamed trixie. It was initially released as version 13.0 on
| August 9th, 2025 and its latest update, version 13.3, was
| released on January 10th, 2026.
|
| So as of today the latest "stable" release of Debian is a month
| old.
|
| By contrast the last stable release of Fedora is Fedora 43,
| released on October 28, 2025 which four months old at this
| point.
|
| Really once you get software that works all of this is
| pointless anyway, you have working software and you update once
| every year or so, or when you find you need to.
|
| When you "need" to update is so personal that it cannot be
| predicted, but your FUD about Debian being universally old and
| outdated is clearly misleading at best and deliberately
| misleading at worst.
| pdimitar wrote:
| You are getting too worked up about this, not to mention
| cherry-picking.
|
| Debian Trixie, to my knowledge, comes with Linux kernel 6.12
| LTS. Many people with more modern hardware want the most
| modern Linux kernel -- currently 6.18 -- to support their
| devices. There are also countless stabilization patches (I
| heard some of my acquaintances praising their Linux kernel
| upgrades as finally giving them access to all features of
| various Bluetooth periphery but did not ask for details).
|
| Having a modern kernel is important. With Debian though, it's
| a friction.
|
| Can it still be done? Sure, or at least I hope so as I want
| to repurpose my gaming machine as a remote worker / station
| and the only viable choice inside WSL2 is Debian. I do hope I
| can somehow make Debian install a 6.18 kernel.
|
| Furthermore, you putting the word "need" in quotes implies
| non-determinism or even capriciousness -- those two cannot be
| further from the truth.
|
| Arch and Fedora can't come to WSL2 soon enough.
|
| ...and none of that is even touching on the issue of much
| older versions of all software in there. I want the latest
| Neovim, for example. For objective developer experience
| reasons.
|
| Debian stable is for purists or server admins. Not for users.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Or just understand that Debian stable can be moved to
| Debian testing (or even Debian unstable if even 2 weeks is
| too long) trivially. The best decision that Debian has ever
| made is not to distribute or advocate for testing as a
| rolling distribution, because if you're too ignorant to
| change your repo to testing, you're really too ignorant to
| be using testing.
|
| Admitting that getting 6.18 on Debian is some sort of
| insurmountable mountain is not something I would do in
| public while trying to show off my expertise. I'm not
| running it, because I don't need a kernel that's been out
| for 5 minutes and offers me nothing that can't wait a month
| or two. I'm running what's current on testing, which is
| 6.17.13. It's about a minute of work to switch to testing.
| I run stable on all my servers, and testing on my laptops,
| it is a triviality. But to all you bleeding edge software
| people, it's somehow rocket surgery.
|
| > Many people with more modern hardware want the most
| modern Linux kernel
|
| To run the latest version of Progress Quest. Need biggest
| number available.
|
| > Arch and Fedora can't come to WSL2 soon enough.
|
| So, it's really still Windows, then. I assume you've moved
| from spending years ranting about how Linux people were
| purist server admins and Windows was for users and just
| worked, and now you've chosen the same posture after being
| pushed out of Windows.
|
| > Debian stable is for purists or server admins. Not for
| users.
|
| You're not a typical user. Most users want a functional
| computer, not the largest numbers they can find.
| pdimitar wrote:
| I'm really not sure what made you so rude but I'm not
| participating. You're intentionally misrepresenting
| because I didn't say even one thing of those you so
| criticize, yet have the gall to speak about showing
| something in public.
|
| All the best.
| skydhash wrote:
| > I do hope I can somehow make Debian install a 6.18
| kernel.
|
| There's the backports repository.
|
| https://backports.debian.org/
| PlatoIsADisease wrote:
| So you lose the stable and have to deal with terminal...
| Or just use Fedora.
| esseph wrote:
| > you update once every year or so
|
| We're so fucked from a security perspective.
| the__alchemist wrote:
| For those who switched in the past few years: Has Wayland given
| you trouble? I was on a journey this morning after testing my
| software. It's a GUI CAD-style program for structural biology. I
| test it on Linux periodically to make sure it's cross-platform.
| The checks usually pass, with some subtlety regarding linking
| Cuda. Today, I observed that mouse + keyboard inputs to the 3D
| portion stopped working.
|
| Root cause: Ubuntu and some other distros recently switched to a
| GUI backend called Wayland. I don't remember upgrading, but maybe
| it happened during a system update? It has disabled low-level
| device inputs except for mouse movement. You can use window-based
| events instead, but IMO this is a mistake. An OS-level function
| shouldn't block hardware access. I want the OS to facilitate
| software and hardware; not create friction.
| stratosmacker wrote:
| Wayland had been around for a while, but I feel your pain.
|
| Overall it seems much more performant if that makes it any
| better
| the__alchemist wrote:
| More performant is good! Of interest, I was able to insert a
| workaround (a few lines of `unsafe` which alter local env
| vars) into the program to have it use Xorg instead.
| Telaneo wrote:
| > For those who switched in the past few years: Has Wayland
| given you trouble?
|
| No, since I'm on Mint, and thus still on X11.
|
| I keep hearing about Wayland problems, and I pray they don't
| reach me when Mint switches; that the relevant problems will
| have been fixed by them time Mint does switch.
| SchemaLoad wrote:
| Wayland has been pretty much a solved problem for a while
| now. Most distros have been shipping it by default for many
| years now.
| cogman10 wrote:
| Wayland was turned on by default in ubuntu 21.04 xorg (the x11
| server) was removed from ubuntu in ubuntu 25.10.
|
| Desktops like gnome have dropped support for x11 so you can
| expect that wayland will be the only way to do things from here
| on out.
|
| There is a compatibility layer called "xwayland" that should
| work, but there's definitely some rough edges between x11 apps
| and wayland apps. x11 gave all apps a pretty large ability to
| intercept information from across the system. Wayland locks
| that down pretty significantly.
| sho_hn wrote:
| Hi, I make a Wayland-based desktop environment and ship a few
| million cars a year using Wayland.
|
| Feel free to get in touch if you want to talk to someone (for
| free advice) about this porting problem you're having.
| Pfiffer wrote:
| The interplay between X11 and Wayland is still bad in my
| experience- if you don't have all of the XDG-portal stuff setup
| or force all of the constituent drivers and applications to
| render on Wayland there will be issues.
| the__alchemist wrote:
| Anecdote from just now, from someone who's wanted to like LInux
| for ~20 years:
|
| I updated Nvidia drivers from version 580 to 590 on Ubuntu 24,
| using the _additional drivers_ window. Rebooted. Now instead of
| the OS, it 's booting into something called "BusyBox (initramfs).
| with a shell. No error message. I don't feel like dedicating an
| indefinite time to fixing it. Maybe now LLMs will have replaced
| searching forums and Stack Overflow.
|
| It is this class of problems that has kept me from switching. I'm
| not sure if it would be easier to track this down, or install the
| OS clean again. I lament having to make this decision.
| whalesalad wrote:
| This is usally due to DKMS (dynamic kernel module system). Each
| time you upgrade your kernel, the nvidia portion needs to be
| recompiled. If this goes wrong, you end up in a state where you
| cannot boot.
|
| This is why everyone in the linux world has a very sour taste
| for nvidia. It's not their fault per-say, but they did opt to
| go this route versus contributing their drivers to the kernel
| like everyone else.
| the__alchemist wrote:
| That makes sense. Of interest, this was actually an easy fix;
| go to GRUB, and pick an older kernel! Ty for pointing me to
| the kernels.
| SchemaLoad wrote:
| In the future or even today with immutable distros, you'll
| be able to roll back the entire OS the same way you can
| roll back the kernel to undo any change that breaks the
| system.
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| This is the exact class of problems that pushed me into Apple's
| waiting arms. All (well, most. all of what I care about) of the
| flexibility and ease-of-use and efficiency of linux, stuffed
| into a gorgeous, well engineered product.
|
| I wish I could fix the things, I'll fully cosign the beef the
| hacker community has for Apple on that front. That being said,
| I don't see myself buying a Windows laptop anytime soon.
| skydhash wrote:
| One of the goals of the OS is to abstract the hardware. But
| if hadware vendors won't play balls there's nothing the OS
| can do.
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| Do you (or anyone else) know if this is related to that
| famous clip of Linus Torvalds saying "fuck you" to nvidia?
| I get the impression that nvidia has not prioritized linux
| at all really over the decades.
| eikenberry wrote:
| I switched over 30 years ago and the trick is to buy hardware
| with Linux in mind. Linux tries to work with as much hardware
| as possible but it does so with mixed results. If you buy well
| supported hardware it becomes much easier. Finding out which
| hardware is best supported is really the main problem. Probably
| the easiest way to solve this is to buy from a Linux native
| vendor. System76 is probably the best known (to me anyways) but
| there are others.
| kingcrimson1000 wrote:
| In my experience LLMs keep running in circles and don't really
| bring a solution. Maybe try the guides I mentioned in the post
| in a fresh install?
| the__alchemist wrote:
| Incidentally:
|
| ChatGPT: Ran me in circles as you describe; suggested a
| number of things I didn't understand, including commands that
| don't work in the BusyBox shell. (It's not a normal shell)
|
| Gemini: Nailed it on selecting an older kernel in the Grub
| menu.
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| Like many here I also run a few things at home and I've got a
| variety of machine: a good old Pi as an _unbound_ DNS server that
| is on 24 /7, A N100 modern NUC, running headless, to stream
| movies/music (wife or kid or I turn it on when needed), a good
| old rock stable solid HP Z440 workstation which I use as a server
| (ECC RAM and 14 cores, yummy) for Proxmox/VMs/Docker/ZFS, etc.
|
| The workstation which I use as a server is only powered up when I
| need it.
|
| > I used Syncthing for file synchronization and PiHole as my
| local network DNS server to block unwanted incoming traffic.
|
| Nitpicking but a local DNS resolver doesn't block unwanted
| incoming traffic: it prevents unwanted domain names from
| resolving. Arguably if it blocks traffic then it's ongoing
| traffic that it blocks.
|
| Maybe he meant that the machine running PiHole also runs a
| firewall? I use unbound, not PiHole, so I'm not that familiar
| with PiHole (maybe PiHole also acts as a firewall?).
| kingcrimson1000 wrote:
| Pihole now includes an unbound setup, they have a section on
| that in their docs.
| drnick1 wrote:
| Why was this posted to HN? There is nothing new or original in
| the setup presented. People have been self-hosting all kinds of
| things on commodity hardware for decades, even things said to be
| "impossible" to self-host like email.
|
| Also, nobody should be buying an (overpriced) Raspberry Pi for
| self-hosting, when used mini-PCs are faster, more reliable (no SD
| card, better cooling), and often cheaper.
|
| Finally, I don't think you should use Proxmox in a home setting:
| too much abstraction, too much overhead (mainly memory). Use
| Docker where it makes sense, and deploy the rest bare metal.
| dev_l1x_be wrote:
| It has similar vibes as the "I use Arch btw." t-shirt.
| dunder_cat wrote:
| There's nothing new or original in a lot of things that get
| posted here. Reading about someone starting a journey provides
| an interesting catalyst for discussion. What they did right,
| what they did wrong, other things to try, or even just
| providing a push to someone else to also try.
|
| I'll take my turn on the soapbox to say I hope people keep
| posting about their adventures and misadventures in trying
| something new. I'd much rather be reading that than seeing yet
| another post on LLM-based agentic startups or pelicans riding
| bicycles.
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