Hey, folks I’m moving my main PC to linux soon, and for that I have settled on Mint. However, I also plan to build a homelab pc for the first time to selfhost some services, mainly Jellyfinn, some game servers, and possibly next cloud, but I’m unsure which distro to go with for that.
I have some experience running debian headless (on an orange pi) and I can use ssh and the cli just fine, however, I also want the server pc to (maybe) serve as a moonlight client in my living room, so I was leaning towards something that is not headless, and I am unsure if I should also go with Mint for that or if something else might be more suitable.
Separate the use-case here:
For your desktop, whatever works. There is no one distro that gives you some leg-up on performance or anything else. You can install the same software on all, and the kernel is largely the same.
Just get or build a NAS for hosting media. A Synology or Qnap has a bit of added cost, but the maintenance overhead is reduced by a LOT versus running TrueNAS, OMV, or similar. That being said, choose the right tool for the job, and don’t just run Debian for this purpose because it just adding admin overhead you don’t need. This probably has been solved from your specific angle. What you want is simplicity in maintenance. Being able to hotswap and repair a failed drive means a huge win.
a NAS in this economy? (kinda joking but damn everything is so expensive right now I would advise anyone to just use whatever they can find even if it means adding admin overhead)
Yeah, there’s no way I can build another machine in this economy haha Especially because I’m in SA, and here hardware costs 2x-4x
You literally say in your post you’re building another machine.
Make it a single purpose machine that does the thing you need it for.
They could be building with components leftover from other builds, not entirely buying them.
I get it, I live in Latin America so I doubt they will find any NAS affordable (edit i assumed SA was south africa lol, and it’s brazil so yeah everything there will be WAY MORE EXPENSIVE)