I use Debian as my daily driver, but I’m still a newbie. I would like to selfhost a few apps, initially on a VPS, but I will probably move to a local PC once I diagnose what is broken with my old computer.

The guides at https://selfhosting.sh/ always recommend Ubuntu Server LTS for newbies, but Ubuntu seems to have bad PR and I already run Debian on my home PC. On one hand, I am a newbie and I guess Ubuntu might be easier to set up and maintain. Though, I don’t HOW exactly? On the other hand, if I have Debian on my home PC and on my server, they are the same system, so I’d be learning the same system at two places and with two usage scenarios. But it might be easier to make mistakes on Debian…?

What is your opinion/recommendation?

  • lemmyvore@feddit.nlEnglish
    3·
    7 hours ago

    If you already know Debian that’s a big point in its favor. Nothing beats a distro you’re familiar with. (And I’d make the same argument if you were used to Ubuntu.)

    I’ve used both Debian and Ubuntu Server on my home servers and I ended up returning to Debian.

    • Debian embodies and follows the most essential Linux values. It’s open, it’s run by an open organization, it avoids proprietary stuff.
    • Debian is long-lived. It’s been around for 30 years, it’s mature, self-sustaining, community-run project, and it will be around 30 years from now. Whereas I wouldn’t bet on Canonical being around in 30 years.
    • The upgrade path for Debian is better than for Ubuntu Server LTS.(1) You can upgrade it in-place between major versions a lot more reliably and painlessly than Ubuntu.
    • Debian is dedicated to being stable. (Please run stable, btw.)
    • Debian is a lot more resource-friendly than Ubuntu Server.

    I’ve ended up concluding that Ubuntu Server is Debian, just with more quirks. It offers nothing essential that you can’t do on Debian, and it will just complicate your life when the LTS support period eventually runs out (and even during LTS, when you have to jump through hoops like Ubuntu One to keep updates coming.)

    (1) You can fuck up both Ubuntu and Debian’s upgrades by adding a lot of 3rd-party repos because apt doesn’t safeguard against external repos interfering with the core repos’ dependency graph.

    So the trick is to keep the OS minimal, install only Docker from its repo and install anything else in Docker containers. That way you benefit the most from Debian being stable and very little from Ubuntu Server.

    If you also need to run system containers and virtual machines you can add Incus later to the mix alongside Docker and still keep your host OS lean and simple.

    You can also consider completely migrating to Proxmox later, which is also Debian under the hood but it’s a more turnkey solution. I wouldn’t recommend jumping straight into Proxmox unless you’re fairly sure that you’d need to run VMs. (If you’re unsure stick to plain Debian for now.)

    • steel_for_humans@piefed.socialOPEnglish
      1·
      7 hours ago

      So the trick is to keep the OS minimal, install only Docker from its repo and install anything else in Docker containers.

      Why from Docker’s repo and not from Debian’s? I just did a quick apt search docker and I see docker.io and docker-cli.

      • lemmyvore@feddit.nlEnglish
        1·
        3 hours ago

        Debian’s versions lag badly behind Docker’s. You’d always be missing the latest features. Docker introduces them at a steady pace and it can get annoying to see people talking about a new useful improvement and then months passing before it gets to you.

          • lemmyvore@feddit.nlEnglish
            1·
            21 minutes ago

            You say that but sometimes they come up with stuff that’s really useful and it can be very annoying to not have it. Like when they integrated compose into the main.

            Also, if you later decide to switch to the official version you’ll have to handle the upgrade carefully or you risk wiping out all your images, containers, networks, volumes etc. Which can be fine if you have backups of all the relevant functional definitions and the volumes and so on, but obviously a huge pain if it catches you unprepared.

            Mind you, this can also happen by tinkering with stuff in /etc/docker/daemon.json, which is how I originally learned to back up my shit.