Alpine Linux edge

Currently I am using Arch Linux. I am in the process of switching to NixOS.

Fedora Server, with most of the services I need running via Docker.

Fedora core os (FCOS) vms on XCP-NG with trueNas for persistent storage. With FCOS, vms configurations can stay version controlled and deployed using open Tofu (terraform) and butane/ignition.

My 3 hosts all run Proxmox. Publicly available services run in VMs, usually running Ubuntu. Private services are usually Docker containers connected directly to my TailScale network running directly on the host.

I have 4 home servers. 1 running pfsense, 1 running truenas, 1 running proxmox, and 1 is a cloud key gen2 for unifi that I got for free

OpenMediaVault

Gentoo because it can do it all

My setup consists of the following:

Unraid, most services I self host run in docker here. Things like plex/jellyfin, nextcloud, unifi could controller.

Proxmox, used to virtualize my pfsense after I moved away from my unifi USG router. A few Linux and Debian headless virtual machines run here as well. Had pihole virtualized here as well but switched over to pfBlockerNG to consolidate.

TrueNAS, all my media shares. I also sync my desktop environments here to have a consistent windows desktop across my desktops and laptops.

Home assistant running on home assistant yellow. Runs a few add-on services.

I tried to use fedora server or was it cloud? Idk but I tried fedora as a server and wanted to set up a VM but got confused. Storage pools scared me away. Will try to learn it when I have the time

I went for a much simpler approach lately as I downscaled my hardware for efficiency.

I run NixOS on the bare metal. It gives the system management a declarative approach, just like kubernetes would. On top of that, I run libvirt as a hypervisor. In other scenarios I’d use tinyvmm and cloud-hypervisor, but I found qemu way better for the variety of homelab workloads and libvirt is pretty straightforward.

Some vms have pci passthrough, e.g. my routeros vm gets a bunch of NICs directly, some have various funny network topology. Libvirt used to be a pain in that regard, but it’s actually fine with NixOS because you manage both sides of the networking stack in declarative configuration.

I run NixOS on the vms too (now for the sake of easy upgrades), and I have a bit of a split between running services natively (systemd is very good about “containerizing” things nowadays) and using docker (mostly because of laziness, e.g. Elastiflow was easier to deploy this way). Finally, I have a single dokerized Ubuntu that’s more like a VM (as in, I never had a dockerfile for it, it’s fully stateful) running the matter home automaton bits because I gave up on properly containing the matter python stack and went for an easy way out.

Now, a word about alternatives.

I used to run Ubuntu. No more. Upgrading the OS is always a huge pain even if everything is in docker. I want my OS to be managed in a config file and be able to easily roll back to the previous state. I used to run k3s, but even though it is much thinner than k8s, it is still very much ram hungry and I just don’t want to pay for that. Besides, complex networking is often non-trivial due to how its networking works, and multus is a world of pain. I used to run different hypervisors for the VMs (kubevirt, tinyvmm, a bunch others). I went way back to libvirt mostly because it’s straightforward in tuning very specific qemu bits I cared for in the homelab. I have some cpu overprovisioning, so I want to make my quotas set up extremely precisely, sacrificing the right workloads.

@melandroph@lemmy.dbzer0.com Good old Debian

Debian.

Stable, well documented, easy to install. I do not need anything else right now.

I am running Ubuntu server and I am… satisfied with it. It does what it should, no problems, nothing to worry about, stable AF (as any mature distro?). But lately I am thinking about switching to fedora server (I need to reset my system one way or another, because my space on the hard drive for the system ran out of space (it was a small drive)). I am using fedora on my work machine and I really like it, so I thought I could give fedora on my server a try.

TempleOS