install HexOS over an existing TrueNAS installation?

[RollinLower]

I've been reading a bit into this new spangled OS and i was wondering how it worked exactly. I was hoping it would be my new go-to for my NAS afer Linus mentioned it on the WAN show ages ago, and the beta seems to be just around the corner.

 

I think it is TrueNAS Scale with some extra magic sprinkled on top? If this is indeed the case, can we install it overtop existing TrueNAS Scale installs?

tagging @HexOS_Jon so he hopefully sees this post!

 

[LIGISTX]

43 minutes ago, RollinLower said:

I've been reading a bit into this new spangled OS and i was wondering how it worked exactly. I was hoping it would be my new go-to for my NAS afer Linus mentioned it on the WAN show ages ago, and the beta seems to be just around the corner.

 

I think it is TrueNAS Scale with some extra magic sprinkled on top? If this is indeed the case, can we install it overtop existing TrueNAS Scale installs?

tagging @HexOS_Jon so he hopefully sees this post!

 

I don't know much about it, but no, I wouldn't expect you can instal it "ontop of" truenas...

 

You would be able to install it and import your zpools tho, and I imagine there might be a script to import existing truenas config's, but I can't speak to that. But I can't imagine there would be a "instal ontop of an appliance" option.

 

Also, if you already are running truenas, why swtich? If you have it working, you already figured out the "difficult" bits. 

[RollinLower]

19 minutes ago, LIGISTX said:

Also, if you already are running truenas, why swtich? If you have it working, you already figured out the "difficult" bits. 

i'm a tinkerer, honestly just because i want to experience a different thing again.

 

20 minutes ago, LIGISTX said:

You would be able to install it and import your zpools tho

yeah i was expecting something like that. i have a lot of virtualization and other apps running on this NAS tho so setting everything up on a clean install is going to be a pain.

[LIGISTX]

8 minutes ago, RollinLower said:

i'm a tinkerer, honestly just because i want to experience a different thing again.

 

yeah i was expecting something like that. i have a lot of virtualization and other apps running on this NAS tho so setting everything up on a clean install is going to be a pain.

If you have things set up and working... I would just spin up a VM with hexOS or something along those lines just so you can get some knowledge about it. Good awy to tinker is spin up VM's

[RollinLower]

17 minutes ago, LIGISTX said:

If you have things set up and working... I would just spin up a VM with hexOS or something along those lines just so you can get some knowledge about it. Good awy to tinker is spin up VM's

never really thought of that, i wonder how that would work since you'd basically be spinning up TrueNAS within TrueNAS. (recursive trueNAS, TrueNAS-ception?)
worth a try tho!

[LIGISTX]

2 minutes ago, RollinLower said:

never really thought of that, i wonder how that would work since you'd basically be spinning up TrueNAS within TrueNAS. (recursive trueNAS, TrueNAS-ception?)
worth a try tho!

No reason you couldn't. Pass it some virtual drives and just get a feel for the OS. I wouldn't call this a good production deployment method, but its a fine enough way to just tinker and get to know it for tinkerings sake.

[Smir]

this is exactly my dilemma currently, I have my first nas ready to go and I'd love to use hexos, but it's taking so long to come out now, and I assume if I set it all up and start using it with truenas or something else, that I'd lose everything if I wanted to setup and run hexos?

[LIGISTX]

6 hours ago, Smir said:

this is exactly my dilemma currently, I have my first nas ready to go and I'd love to use hexos, but it's taking so long to come out now, and I assume if I set it all up and start using it with truenas or something else, that I'd lose everything if I wanted to setup and run hexos?

Truenas and hex both run ZFS. You can always reformat your boot drive with hexos and import the ZFS array into hex. You would need to reset up shares and permissions, but that isn’t that difficult or time consuming. 
 

Or… just start with truenas and enjoy it. Once it’s set up, not much to mess with. I rarely ever touch mine and it’s been running since 2015……..

[HexOS_Jon]

On 8/3/2024 at 2:39 AM, RollinLower said:

I think it is TrueNAS Scale with some extra magic sprinkled on top? If this is indeed the case, can we install it overtop existing TrueNAS Scale installs?

tagging @HexOS_Jon so he hopefully sees this post!

This was one of the questions asked in the NASCompares Q&A that I just did with Robbie yesterday.  It isn't posted yet (I think it'll go up tomorrow), but <SPOILER ALERT> I'll answer it here today.

 

During the beta, we are not prioritizing "adoption" of existing SCALE deployments and to be perfectly honest, we may never do this.  @LIGISTX hits the nail right on the head as to why.

On 8/3/2024 at 3:25 AM, LIGISTX said:

Also, if you already are running truenas, why swtich? If you have it working, you already figured out the "difficult" bits. 

Either you've made it far enough to be committed and you should stay on SCALE or you gave up early enough into the process that reinstalling from scratch isn't a real inconvenience.  I get there is an in-between scenario, but we think those are pretty rare and therefore can't be a priority for us while we're on the road to 1.0.  We may revisit this at a later point.