I have been wanting to self-host recently I have an old laptop it’s a Toshiba satellite m100-221 sitting around it only has 4gb of ram, but I don’t know what is a good starting point for an OS for my home lab I discovered yunohost but heard mixed opinions about it when searching I would like lemmy’s opinion on a good OS for a beginner wanting to start a home lab I would prefer a simple solution like yunohost but would like it to be configurable it’s fine if it needs a bit of tinkering.

    • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      2·
      15 days ago

      That sounds overly complicated, why get VMs involved? Just install Debian or something and get things working.

      Proxmox is good if you know you want multiple VMs running for specialized needs. But multiple VMs isn’t happening on 4GB RAM.

      • downhomechunk@midwest.socialEnglish
        1·
        13 days ago

        Your approach works too. Something like CasaOS answers OP’s question directly. I was thinking about how I started on this journey. I wanted to play with enterprise level tools at home on repurposed e-waste. So I started with proxmox. But I also came to the table with a couple decades of Linux experience under my belt.

        Those scripts make it so easy. You can paste a command, accept defaults, watch some text scroll by and finish with instructions on how to access the tool you just installed.

        My homelab is low power as well. I’m currently running zero VMs. Everything is done with LXCs. You can run a pi hole on 512 MB RAM.

      • Windex007@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        15 days ago

        Easily can have multiple LXCs, and being able to take snapshots for backup is probably a nice thing to have if you’re just learning.

        And if they get more hardware, moving VMs to other clustered proxmox instances is a snap.

        • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          0·
          15 days ago

          If you just want LXCs, use Docker or Podman on whatever Linux distro you’re familiar with. If you get extra hardware, it’s not hard to have one be the trunk and reverse proxy to the other nodes (it’s like 5 lines of config in Caddy or HAProxy).

          If you end up wanting what Proxmox offers, it’s pretty easy to switch, but I really don’t think most people need it unless they’re going to run server grade hardware (i.e. will run multiple VMs). If you’re just running a few services, it’s overkill.

              • drkt@scribe.disroot.orgEnglish
                1·
                15 days ago

                They use some of the same kernel functions but they are not the same. They are not comparable. LXCs are used to host a whole separate system that shares kernel with its host, docker is used to bundle external requirements and configs for a piece of software for ease of downstream setup. Docker is portable, LXCs much less so.

                • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
                  02·
                  15 days ago

                  Sure, Docker is more or less an abstraction layer on top of LXC. It’s the same tech underneath, just a different way of interacting with it.