Best Linux OS for Multi-purpose Home Server

[Leah96xxx]

Hi guys,

I want to convert my old PC into a home server but I need some help picking an OS. I've heard that Ubuntu Server, Debian, Fedora, CentOS and OpenSUSE are some of the best but I need help picking the right one for my needs as I'm still fairly new to the Linux scene.

 

The server will function as:

• SAMBA file server
• Plex Media Server
• Pi-Hole  -  Sorry Linus. It's the advertisers' fault, not the content creators'. I'll buy a LTT hoodie and some t-shirts. (Please make women's LTT underwear too!)
• I may also add other services in the future if I need them.

The OS needs to be stable and, most importantly, secure. It also needs to be lightweight because it'll initially be running on fairly old hardware (see below). I would like to use a Linux-based OS so I don't need to run Pi-Hole or Plex in a VM/jail. (I know FreeNAS has a Plex plugin but it can only run Pi-Hole in a Linux VM, adding overhead.) It would also be nice to have long term support or a rolling release so I don't need to fully upgrade the OS every few months.

 

I've tried Ubuntu Server 18.04 LTS on a VBox VM purely just to play around with it and test the functionality of the services I'll be running. I don't mind using CLI/SSH for most things but I would prefer a desktop environment or a web GUI for tasks that either can't be done over SSH or would be easier in a GUI, (e.g. network config, managing storage, etc.) so that kind of rules out the LTS version of Ubuntu Server unless anyone knows how to install XFCE on it.

 

Initial hardware (subject to future upgrades):

• CPU: i5-650 3.2GHz (3.4GHz boost) Clarkdale
• Mobo: MSI 2A9C (MS-7613 from HP Pavilion 6000 series)
• RAM: 16GB DDR3
• Storage: TBC - I'm thinking boot from USB and use IronWolves in RAIDZ for storage
• PSU: CiT 500W 80+ (I know it's cheap crap but it'll do for now till I get better hardware)

 

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Leah

[Windows7ge]

3 minutes ago, steakpie1996 said:

unless anyone knows how to install XFCE on it.

Stolen from Google:

sudo apt install xfce4 xfce4-goodies thunar-archive-plugin

You might like to give a hypervisor a try. Something like PROXMOX. Then you can install any number of different distros for whatever services you require.

[GDRRiley]

used intel SSDs are cheap and more reliable than a USB stick.

I'm going to agree with @Windows7ge go with a hypervisor so you can have a VM for each service.

[Dutch_Master]

I'd suggest Debian as distro of choice here. Although it's a point release (in contrast to rolling release distro's like Gentoo, Slackware and the like) it's an "install once, update & upgrade forever" distro with a superior package management over Red Hat et all. It's also a generic distro, meaning that you won't be able to tailor your distro to the exact hardware you have, as is the case with source-based distro's (Gentoo, LFS, etc), which require a full recompile if you change anything significant part of your hardware (like CPU/GPU/mainboard) So it'll work just as you'd expect after changing those parts, but you won't get the full benefits of the improvements the new hardware gives you.

[Leah96xxx]

20 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

Stolen from Google:

sudo apt install xfce4 xfce4-goodies thunar-archive-plugin

You might like to give a hypervisor a try. Something like PROXMOX. Then you can install any number of different distros for whatever services you require.

@Windows7ge Thanks. I'll try get XFCE installed on my test VM.

18 minutes ago, GDRRiley said:

used intel SSDs are cheap and more reliable than a USB stick.

I'm going to agree with @Windows7ge go with a hypervisor so you can have a VM for each service.

@GDRRiley I'll need to add a SATA expansion card if I want to boot from an SSD since my mobo only has 4 SATA ports that might all be used by my HDD's depending on how I decide to configure them. Thanks for the advice though.

 

@Windows7ge and @GDRRiley I like the idea of a hypervisor but doesn't using VMs add resource overhead? It may be an i5 but it's old and slow so I don't want too much overhead. Also, It might add a little unnecessary complexity to the whole thing. (I'm kind of new to servers so I'd like to keep things simple and on one OS.)

 

1 minute ago, Dutch_Master said:

I'd suggest Debian as distro of choice here. Although it's a point release (in contrast to rolling release distro's like Gentoo, Slackware and the like) it's an "install once, update & upgrade forever" distro with a superior package management over Red Hat et all. It's also a generic distro, meaning that you won't be able to tailor your distro to the exact hardware you have, as is the case with source-based distro's (Gentoo, LFS, etc), which require a full recompile if you change anything significant part of your hardware (like CPU/GPU/mainboard) So it'll work just as you'd expect after changing those parts, but you won't get the full benefits of the improvements the new hardware gives you.

@Dutch_Master Thanks. I'll consider using Debian instead of Ubuntu if I don't go down the hypervisor route. I'm aware that changing hardware can cause issues on a lot of systems so I'll probably still reinstall anyway when I upgrade the hardware.

[Net Runner]

Ubuntu if going bare-metal. Proxmox or even free ESXi if you go the hypervisor route.

[Mwoody]

Any of the Linux distro's mentioned will work fine, the only major difference between the 'desktop' and 'server' versions of them is the inclusion (or lack thereof) of Xwindows and a desktop environment.  Xwindows can add a fair amount of overhead, but if you can't do everything from the command line (or have to look it up each time you need it) then X is a good way to go.  Linux runs quite nice on less than 4GB of RAM, add a max of another 1GB for Xwindows, and you still have plenty for your apps.  So don't be afraid of the Desktop versions to do server stuff.  My personal choice is Suse, but mostly because I'm most familiar with it.  If you pick the 'tumbleweed' version it is continuously updated, and is still reliable. The most rock solid distro is probably CentOS, as most of it's development comes straight from Red Hat Enterprise, just with the naming changed.  Ubuntu is popular because of the Canonical support availability, but for me frequently changes things just to be different, not because it's better, also, in a server environment you need to make sure you're using one of the 'LTS' releases (Long Term Support), where updates are provided for a MUCH longer time.

If you are thinking the hypervisor route, performance will be far better than you might think, remember, enterprise computing is far more challenging, and also runs 24/7/365 with big demands on both compute and disk, and ESXi is the market share leader for speed and reliability reasons.  The free version can handle a single host just fine, and with your 16GB of RAM be able to support at least 4 VM's at once, and perhaps more depending on the RAM requirements of the VM's.  VM's do not require quite as much RAM as when running standalone to get similar performance.  Of course, standalone versions are always faster, but the margin is far smaller than you'd expect, with a VM frequently only 1-5% slower, something most users will never see.  The biggest issue you might see with the free version ESXi is that your Ethernet card/chip might not be supported

 

Now for storage, look for a hardware cached RAID controller, there are some fantastic deals on some older RAID controllers on EBAY, like less than $20. I'd recommend one that uses a capacitor to backup the RAM, rather than a battery, as the batteries are old too, and likely will need replacing at a cost of more than the RAID controller.  Then you don't need to use a slower journaling filesystem to get the same or better level of reliability.

 

Please remember that your mileage may vary, and these are my opinions (yes, based on years of experience).

[AbsoluteFool]

There is no one "best" linux distro.. Why do everyone look for the "best"? Just pick one..

[Nick7]

11 hours ago, AbsoluteFool said:

There is no one "best" linux distro.. Why do everyone look for the "best"? Just pick one..

Well, "best" one is the one you are most comfortable with

[WereCatf]

13 hours ago, steakpie1996 said:

I want to convert my old PC into a home server but I need some help picking an OS. I've heard that Ubuntu Server, Debian, Fedora, CentOS and OpenSUSE are some of the best but I need help picking the right one for my needs as I'm still fairly new to the Linux scene.

Like @AbsoluteFool there said, there is no "best" Linux-distro for such. All the ones mentioned are suitable and most of all the ones you didn't mention are just as suitable; all it takes is for you to install any services you wish to run. I, personally, have just simply used Ubuntu Desktop on all my servers for years and years now, because there is no practical difference between Ubuntu Desktop and Ubuntu Server other than what stuff is installed by default.

 

Also, unlike the other commenters, I wouldn't recommend Proxmox or running multiple distros in virtual-machines. Instead, I recommend LXC-containers managed by LXD -- LXC-containers are kinda-sorta VMs in the sense that they are still separated from the host OS, but there is no emulation of hardware and as such there is practically zero overhead -- no need to reserve storage-space, no need to dedicate any virtual CPU-cores to them, no need to allocate some specific amount of RAM for them or anything like that, unless you wish to. You can still run and install other distros in LXC-containers, they can appear on the network as separate hosts with their own IP-addresses and everything, if you configure them that way. I like to separate most of the services I run into different containers, so it's easy to transfer the containers from one server to another, all without having to reconfigure them or disturbing their operation or anything, it's easy to backup and restore them, and for the increased security since they're all separated from one another.

 

13 hours ago, steakpie1996 said:

(Please make women's LTT underwear too!)

I echo this sentiment.