I use Debian as my daily driver, but I’m still a newbie. I would like to selfhost a few apps, initially on a VPS, but I will probably move to a local PC once I diagnose what is broken with my old computer.
The guides at https://selfhosting.sh/ always recommend Ubuntu Server LTS for newbies, but Ubuntu seems to have bad PR and I already run Debian on my home PC. On one hand, I am a newbie and I guess Ubuntu might be easier to set up and maintain. Though, I don’t HOW exactly? On the other hand, if I have Debian on my home PC and on my server, they are the same system, so I’d be learning the same system at two places and with two usage scenarios. But it might be easier to make mistakes on Debian…?
What is your opinion/recommendation?
EDIT: thank you everyone! My gut feeling was Debian and your responses were overwhelmingly in favor of Debian, so Debian it is :)
You are already familiar with Debian, so it will be easier. Debian is more friendly than you might think. This is enough to choose it.
Never Ubuntu, debian for server, fedora for desktop and arch/cachyos for tech fun.
Are you me?
Don’t use Ubuntu as a server. Pretty much every server application will run happily on Debian, meanwhile Canonical keeps adding/changing shit that is Ubuntu-specific and has broken otherwise-functioning server installations. I may or may not have personal experience with this.
Ubuntu used to be the go-to, but Canonical is quickly becoming the poster child for Linux enshittification.
For servers, use Debian and never think about it again. Except the one or two times a year it should probably be rebooted because of kernel updates.
Both are viable. Ubuntu is based on Debian. It may come with some additional bloat. Really it comes down to what you feel comfortable with. Neither will be a bad choice.
Choosy self-hosters choose Debian.
That said, I don’t recommend hosting software at the bare metal level - use VMs or containers. Far easier to manage and isolate.
Jump right into proxmox and use container templates for everything and spin up and kill virtual machines for experimentation!
I use Trixie on Desktop, but Bookworm for server, I prefer the use of a root user instead of making the admin a sudoer, plus a lot of libraries that are needed for thigns were depreciated and removed from the Debian 13 repos. I’ve found it easier to add updates to Bookworm than to shove legacy stuff into Trixie.
Debian.
This is the future so Virtual Machines and containers are where most of the stuff will end up anyway. If you need a specific distro it’s minutes away with a VM or container.
If you think there’s a chance you might want some Redhat cert for a job at some point it might be the time to jump to Rocky, and I’ve never used Proxmox so I can’t comment except to say that if I come into two fairly large computers for self hosting, the first one will get Rocky so I can get much more familiar with it, and the second will get Proxmox.
It’s all systemd anyway.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
Fewer Letters More Letters IoT Internet of Things for device controllers LTS Long Term Support software version LXC Linux Containers NAS Network-Attached Storage PSU Power Supply Unit SSD Solid State Drive mass storage VPS Virtual Private Server (opposed to shared hosting)
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Choose Debian. Real secret reason? Debian means you have to upgrade to new versions less. Ubuntu LTS lasts as long as Debian (5 years) but they crank out a new LTS every 2 years. If you have 3rd party sources, I’ve run into they only support the two latest LTSes - well you have one year left on your 5 year support… but do you really? And now you can put on your sad face because you get to do two LTS upgrades. All while Debian was over there on one version and everyone will target that one version and its previous version no problem.
Debian just makes better sense for a server.
(And Ubuntu is stupid with its “ooh extra patches just register your machine with our central authority” ok bud my Debian machine just says I have mail for some reason every time I boot it up, it doesn’t make it weird and gimmicky and based on a “free” deal that could change whenever they want to jerk you around)
I have very little Linux self host experience. I went the ’ same distro on server/client ’ route with Fedora, for the same learning reasons and have been pretty happy. Although all my use is recreational (game server hosting), so far no complaints :). I never see anyone talking about it, does anyone know why?
i’ve been running fedora server for my home stuff for several years. it version upgrades well without issues. The main drawback is the speed of updates, frequent kernel/nvidia reboots required, and having to upgrade the whole system to a new release every 6 months.
Inasmuch as I’ve migrated my entire hosting to rootless podman, I’m seriously planning on installing debian so I can just leave it alone.
Are you strictly self hosting with this device? If so there are whole operating systems that make this easy. TrueNAS Scale for example.
I would suggest broadening your search. Debian vs Ubuntu is not much of a difference in my opinion. Videos and just trying some can help you decide.
What’s this community’s opinion of Yunohost?
I’ve been struggling with keeping everything in control, the discovered yunohost. It’s like containerised apps, but without containers. I love how simple it is and the wide range of apps.
Yeah, I would go with Debian for sure.
Although… I’m experimenting with Fedora IoT (the name might be misleading) for my server OS right now…
Debian. Fuck Ubuntu. Don’t forget to install
sudo.
