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Best Linux distro for Home Server

Ranjith
By Ranjith
in Servers, NAS, and Home Lab
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Hi Guys,

So my current DIY NAS has FreeNAS installed on it and I use it mainly as a Plex Media Server and for file storage. What I would like to do is to install a different Linux based distro on it so that I can use it run various VMs on it so that I can allocate each VM for a specific task (Plex, Media storage for the family as well as backing up my steam games, ripping my BluRay collection etc). Also I would like to connect it to a VPN so that I can access my files on the go. My ISP runs a CGNAT so it's not possible for me to connect to my server outside my home network and installing a VPN client on FreeNAS is really annoying. Any suggestions on which distro would best suit my needs?

 

Thanks.  

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Ubuntu, Debian, that would be the ones I use... Even though sometimes I tend to CentOS due to the heavy use of it at work. And Like every linux distros, they are all a little different.

 

 

Main System:

Anghammarad : Asrock Taichi x570, AMD Ryzen 7 5800X @4900 MHz. 32 GB DDR4 3600, some NVME SSDs, Gainward Phoenix RTX 3070TI

 

System 2 "Igluna" AsRock Fatal1ty Z77 Pro, Core I5 3570k @4300, 16 GB Ram DDR3 2133, some SSD, and a 2 TB HDD each, Gainward Phantom 760GTX.

System 3 "Inskah" AsRock Fatal1ty Z77 Pro, Core I5 3570k @4300, 16 GB Ram DDR3 2133, some SSD, and a 2 TB HDD each, Gainward Phantom 760GTX.

 

On the Road: Acer Aspire 5 Model A515-51G-54FD, Intel Core i5 7200U, 8 GB DDR4 Ram, 120 GB SSD, 1 TB SSD, Intel CPU GFX and Nvidia MX 150, Full HD IPS display

 

Media System "Vio": Aorus Elite AX V2, Ryzen 7 5700X, 64 GB Ram DDR4 3200 Mushkin, 1 275 GB Crucial MX SSD, 1 tb Crucial MX500 SSD. IBM 5015 Megaraid, 4 Seagate Ironwolf 4TB HDD in raid 5, 4 WD RED 4 tb in another Raid 5, Gainward Phoenix GTX 1060

 

(Abit Fatal1ty FP9 IN SLI, C2Duo E8400, 6 GB Ram DDR2 800, far too less diskspace, Gainward Phantom 560 GTX broken need fixing)

 

Nostalgia: Amiga 1200, Tower Build, CPU/FPU/MMU 68EC020, 68030, 68882 @50 Mhz, 10 MByte ram (2 MB Chip, 8 MB Fast), Fast SCSI II, 2 CDRoms, 2 1 GB SCSI II IBM Harddrives, 512 MB Quantum Lightning HDD, self soldered Sync changer to attach VGA displays, WLAN

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1 minute ago, Anghammarad said:

Ubuntu, Debian, that would be the ones I use... Even though sometimes I tend to CentOS due to the heavy use of it at work. And Like every linux distros, they are all a little different.

 

 

Ubuntu and Debian would again require something like vmware or hypervisor right? Although it isn't bad, I would like to have a single interface for all my needs like FreeNAS with its web gui. 

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1 minute ago, Ranjith said:

Ubuntu and Debian would again require something like vmware or hypervisor right? Although it isn't bad, I would like to have a single interface for all my needs like FreeNAS with its web gui. 

To create VMs you would install the KVM package. Else for an easy Web management you could set up an Apache and Webmin. 

 

Even though I don't know how further Webmin got developed to support KvM right now... haven't used it in a while.

Main System:

Anghammarad : Asrock Taichi x570, AMD Ryzen 7 5800X @4900 MHz. 32 GB DDR4 3600, some NVME SSDs, Gainward Phoenix RTX 3070TI

 

System 2 "Igluna" AsRock Fatal1ty Z77 Pro, Core I5 3570k @4300, 16 GB Ram DDR3 2133, some SSD, and a 2 TB HDD each, Gainward Phantom 760GTX.

System 3 "Inskah" AsRock Fatal1ty Z77 Pro, Core I5 3570k @4300, 16 GB Ram DDR3 2133, some SSD, and a 2 TB HDD each, Gainward Phantom 760GTX.

 

On the Road: Acer Aspire 5 Model A515-51G-54FD, Intel Core i5 7200U, 8 GB DDR4 Ram, 120 GB SSD, 1 TB SSD, Intel CPU GFX and Nvidia MX 150, Full HD IPS display

 

Media System "Vio": Aorus Elite AX V2, Ryzen 7 5700X, 64 GB Ram DDR4 3200 Mushkin, 1 275 GB Crucial MX SSD, 1 tb Crucial MX500 SSD. IBM 5015 Megaraid, 4 Seagate Ironwolf 4TB HDD in raid 5, 4 WD RED 4 tb in another Raid 5, Gainward Phoenix GTX 1060

 

(Abit Fatal1ty FP9 IN SLI, C2Duo E8400, 6 GB Ram DDR2 800, far too less diskspace, Gainward Phantom 560 GTX broken need fixing)

 

Nostalgia: Amiga 1200, Tower Build, CPU/FPU/MMU 68EC020, 68030, 68882 @50 Mhz, 10 MByte ram (2 MB Chip, 8 MB Fast), Fast SCSI II, 2 CDRoms, 2 1 GB SCSI II IBM Harddrives, 512 MB Quantum Lightning HDD, self soldered Sync changer to attach VGA displays, WLAN

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5 minutes ago, Anghammarad said:

To create VMs you would install the KVM package. Else for an easy Web management you could set up an Apache and Webmin. 

 

Even though I don't know how further Webmin got developed to support KvM right now... haven't used it in a while.

Oh okay. I wasn't aware of KVM. It looks interesting and will look into it further.

3 minutes ago, Julian2000nl said:

If you don't need a desktop enviorment and can run your VM application from just the TTY(Terminal only): Ubuntu Server. It's my favorite for server usage.

 

If you need a desktop/GUI: Linux Mint with MATE or XFCE. Linux Mint is very lightweight and from my own experience MATE and XFCE are very lightweight.

I would like to have some kind of GUI to look into it in case something goes wrong because I am not still not very comfortable with the just the terminal. 

 

Also since the current NAS isn't super powerful, a lightweight distro would be what I need. I know my needs are a bit contradicting since I understand that a UI would hog a lot of resources but I am not fully aware of most of the distros out there and just want to keep an open view about what the community thinks would be the best compromise. 

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KVM is the pimary Linux hypervisor, so it's all you need to run VMs. You could also look into Proxmox VE, which is a debian based hypervisor OS that you manage from the web interface. You can then create multiple other Linux VMs for your plex and whatnot.

PC Specs - AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D - MSI B550M Mortar - 32GB Corsair Vengeance RGB DDR4-3600 @ CL16 - ASRock RX7800XT - 660p 1TBGB & Crucial P5 1TB - Fractal Define Mini C - CM V750v2 - Windows 11 Pro

 

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I use Proxmox for my server. You do only get a webinterface though. You can create VM but I basically only use their LXC Container option. This should use less resources, than VMs. I have LXC containers running Ubuntu server for different tasks e.g. Plex, NextCloud, Hosting, VPN and it works great.

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4 hours ago, NelizMastr said:

KVM is the pimary Linux hypervisor, so it's all you need to run VMs. You could also look into Proxmox VE, which is a debian based hypervisor OS that you manage from the web interface. You can then create multiple other Linux VMs for your plex and whatnot.

 

17 minutes ago, Lanng said:

I use Proxmox for my server. You do only get a webinterface though. You can create VM but I basically only use their LXC Container option. This should use less resources, than VMs. I have LXC containers running Ubuntu server for different tasks e.g. Plex, NextCloud, Hosting, VPN and it works great.

Proxmox looks interesting. Will try it out tonight and let you guys know. If this doesn't work out, I guess I'll just have to stick with Debian or Ubuntu for now.

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Ubuntu Server with Webmin is always a solid choice.

My main computer:

i7 6700k || GTX 1070 || Asus Z170 RGB || C.M. Hyper 212 EVO || 16GB RAM || 256GB NVMe SSD || 500GB SATA SSD || 12TB total HDD || Define R5 Blackout || 850W PSU

More Details Below :) 

Spoiler

 

| CPU: Intel Core i7 6700k                             | GPU:  EVGA GTX 1070 FTW                                  |  Motherboard: Asus Z170 Pro Gaming Aura
| CPU Cooler: C.M. Hyper 212 EVO             | RAM: 16GB Kingston Fury 4x4 DDR4 2400MHz         | SSD:  Intel 256GB NVMe SSD & Plextor 500GB SATA SSD

| Hard Drive:  WD 2TB Black, 2TB WD Blue, 8TB WD Red     | Case:  Fractal Design Define R5 Blackout Edition   | PSU:  Be Quiet! Dark Power Pro 11 850W

 

| Additional Computer Parts: NZXT Hue for LEDs

| Peripherals: Dell U2414H (x2) || Corsair Sabre RGB || Corsair K95 Platinum || Sennheiser 558's || Modmic

 

Pictures of setup:

 

 

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