I am trying to use my old laptops for self-hosting. One has a 6th gen Intel Core i3 (4GB ram), the other has an 11th gen Intel Core i5 (8GB ram). I have previously tried both ubuntu server and desktop but couldn’t get it to work well. For the former I found it difficult to remote ssh and the latter I had difficulty installing Docker containers. (I’m not very good with the command line)
I would like to find an OS that is easier to setup with less of a neccesity for the command line (I would still like to learn how to use it though, I don’t want to get rid of it entirely!). I’ve heard of CasaOS, is that a good option? It seems quite easy to use. What about other alternatives?
Keep in mind the reason why people generally dont run desktop environments on a server is because unessential software uses more resources and increases the chance of a system crash. I would highly reccomend learning how to use a terminal and installing fish (shell) is a great place to start.
User asks specifically how to do terminal based things without using the terminal. Fuck you, specifically.
What? Am I supposed to lie? For advanced tasks such as running server grade software you need to use a terminal, this is the case for every single operating system. FreeBSD, MacOS, and yes even Windows require knowledge of the terminal for advanced tasks such as running server grade software.
This is Lemmy, not the other place. Please be kinder. No need to abuse people trying to help, especially when OP did mention they wouldn’t mind learning if its easy enough.
OP also said they’re willing to learn the terminal:
I would like to find an OS that is easier to setup with less of a neccesity for the command line (I would still like to learn how to use it though, I don’t want to get rid of it entirely!).
They’re essentially asking to start with a working and well-known platform that any Joe Regular can use. In car terms, this would be akin to the Chevy 350 V8. Pretty much every car guy knows that engine and how to make it run well without needing to rebuild the entire thing right off the bat.
Ubuntu. Many will disagree but, Debian flavors are a way smoother experience from the start and Ubuntu has a ton of community support. You’ll rarely find an issue no one found and solved before you.
Ubuntu has gone downhill a lot in the last decade. I no longer can recommend it. Yes there is a large community, but they make too many questionable decisions and so doing anything “different” will be hard.
Anything but Ubuntu for the most part
Mint, Fedora, Rocky or whatever else
Fedora better than Ubuntu in a lot of ways
Also with Fedora 42 there is a entirely new installer so it is much easier to setup.
I honestly would use a headless Linux system with docker compose. You can find premade docker compose files.
The learning curve might be a little high in some regards, but you may want to try NixOS. There are quite a few services ready to enable and customize for self-hosting, and the design makes updating packages fairly simple.
To be clear, NixOS is not a “simple” solution, but it does work well for self hosting.
How is that useful to OP who asked for something “without terminals”? Unless that was a joke.
Because I’ve been using Arch Linux for 15 years and live in the terminal, but even though I like the idea of NixOS, it’s not only scary because it is alien and I have neither motivation nor enough free time to learn a parallel world and gain non-transferable skills for a niche solution. And that with being interested in what NixOS is doing.
I would say it is horrible advice to a novice, unless you want to scare people away from learning terminals and configs and managing an operating system without GUI tools.
I’m not interested in arguing. You’re welcome to your opinion as well.
Multiple individuals noted the value of diving into non-GUI server administration, and I wanted to share a tool that could be of interest down the road.
Windows Server 2022
