what will be my next server operating system (Fedora Server, Fedora CoreOS, NixOS), your experience and opinion

I want to reset my server soon and I’m toying with the idea of using a different operating system. I am currently using Ubuntu Server LTS. However, I have been toying with the idea of using Fedora Server (I use Fedora on my laptop and made good experiences with it) or even Fedora CoreOS. I also recently installed NixOS on my desktop computer and find the declarativeness pretty cool (but I’m still a complete beginner) and could imagine that it would fit well into a server setup.

I have quite a few services running on my server, such as Nextcloud, Conduit (Matrix), Jellyfin, etc. and all in containers. I would also rather not install programs without containers, because 1. compose is super easy to maintain and set up, 2. it remains very clear with containers (and compose) and 3. I believe that containers are more secure. But since I also want to make the services inside the containers available, I currently have Nginx installed as a reverse proxy (not in the container, but on the system) and always create certificates with certbot so that I can use HTTPS encryption.

In the paragraph above I actually described exactly the use-case of Fedora CoreOS, but I have no experience with the system and how it works. That’s why I’m still a bit hesitant at considering the OS at the moment. I can imagine that NixOS with its declarative nature seems well suited, since, as I have heard, you can configure containers as well as Nginx and with Nginx also https certificates declaratively. But I could also use a base system like before (Fedora Server or Ubuntu Server) and simply install podman, nginx and certbot and manage everything that way.

Have you had any experience with Fedora Server, Fedora CoreOS, NixOS or a completely different operating system for servers and what are/were your impressions with this setup? Or do you just want to share your knowledge here? I would be delighted.

johntash,

Do you have any reasons for wanting to switch your server OS, or is it more to learn something new? Either way is fine, but it might change what is more interesting to you.

I used centos forever, but only recently started slowly migrating everything to NixOS. I use NixOS for the OS and a few common things like VPN, monitoring, etc. For all of my actual services, I deploy them using Hashicorp Nomad with docker.

I’m not sure i would recommend defining docker containers using NixOS. It’d be fine for a couple servers, but not great for a cluster where services can move around.

keyez,

I have not used Fedora server yet but like their desktop is. Currently my two VMs in unraid are Rocky Linux. Been using centos and now Rocky for the last 5-6 years and haven’t had any complaints

slacktoid,
@slacktoid@lemmy.ml avatar

Slackware is a great, simple OS that does what it does and does it well. There will be some getting used to, but when it clicks, it makes sense and doesn’t do anything you wouldn’t expect. It is great if you want to use containers as it provides you with the stable, simple base to run all your containers on top of.

possiblylinux127,

Debian

Pacmanlives,

Give Gentoo a shot. It’s super stable and you will understand everything in your system. Also it now supports binary packages

Nibodhika,

And by now you mean for the past decade at least.

Pacmanlives,

Huh?

Nibodhika,

Portage has supported binary packages since forever, back in 2012 I had some binary packages on my system, I clearly remember because it was a pain in the ass to compile certain things, for those I installed the binary version. It’s like Debian supporting source packages, it’s been there since forever but people don’t know about it.

Pacmanlives,

I mean it’s had -k/-K since mid 2000s from what I remember but it’s changed

lwn.net/Articles/956428/

TMP_NKcYUEoM7kXg4qYe,

The point is that they have recently focused on better binary package availability. Sure they always had support for binary packages but most software needed to be compiled.

WeLoveCastingSpellz,

Debian. Server? Debian.

possiblylinux127,

Debian, Debian and maybe Debian

theroff,

I use Debian at home on my homeserver and a mix of Debian and Arch for my workstations. Most of my stuff is managed with Ansible to make rebuilding easier and most workloads in podman containers.

Personally I don’t overthink the distro thing. I recently started using Arch and quite like it. I’ve noticed packages that are available in Debian but not Arch and vice-versa. Debian Stable is nice because it’s just, well, stable.

Fedora has an annoying release cadence IMO. I have experienced desktop bugs in the early GA releases before which put me off. If I wanted instability I would sooner go with Arch (and I am yet to have many issues with Arch yet).

If I were to go with a BSD for a home server it would probably be OpenBSD or FreeBSD. OpenBSD has vmm and a bunch of tooling around it, and FreeBSD has bhyve and jails. I haven’t taken the plunge because Linux works and it’s what I know.

These days I hear about people using proxmox on their homeserver with LXC containers and/or VMs.

mobergmann,
@mobergmann@lemmy.world avatar

Fedora has an annoying release cadence IMO. I have experienced desktop bugs in the early GA releases before which put me off. If I wanted instability I would sooner go with Arch (and I am yet to have many issues with Arch yet).

Do you mean they are too frequent, or what do you mean?

theroff,

Yeah, too frequent and too buggy. It got annoying having to do upgrades every six months and have to deal with all the new bugs that came with it.

Basically give me Debian-style biannual releases or Arch-style rolling releases.

erev,
@erev@lemmy.world avatar

I really really like Fedora Server, but any RHEL derivative is my go to for servers. I use Rocky Linux when I need something closer to RHEL, and Fedora server for pretty much everything else. I highly recommend Cockpit as well (main reason I like Fedora server) as it has allowed me to so easily manage all of my servers from a single point.

narc0tic_bird,

I also recommend a stable/LTS distro like Debian or AlmaLinux (or other RHEL-based distros). Or just keep using Ubuntu Server LTS.

The OS packages being hopelessly outdated doesn’t really matter when you’re running most services inside containers.

sunstoned,

My $0.02:

NixOS is excellent, and actually pretty easy if you’re not trying to do anything fancy (running all services under a single user, etc.). Personally this is my pick because I primarily host services for myself, so down time in exchange for learning a new thing is acceptable.

As I mentioned elsewhere, Debian + Incus is a great minimal and rock solid solution for longer standing services. Although, it’s not composeable :(

More directly to your preferences, I would also recommend considering Rocky. Being in the RHEL ecosystem has its perks (especially with rootless support for podman and podman-compose). I’m also generally a fan of SELinux. Rocky is a little less bleeding edge than Fedora with many of the same conveniences and recent packages. In my mind, for my purposes, that makes it a better choice than Fedora for a server OS.

Xianshi,

Not sure what works best in your case. I’m a Debian cat myself but I have been considering openbsd as a future option.

sundaylab,

I’m a long time user of Debian myself too. No cutting edge fuzz, just a working, stable OS all of the time. What else do you need for a server? It always did the job.

But then I stumbled on FreeBSD, and man, that’s a server OS. Simple design and blazing fast. No Docker but I never liked it anyway. My Docker is called Jails and in my opinion is they’re superior. Service isolation on the next level.

On my laptop? Debian due to hardware and software support. And I’ll stick to that for now. I feel home on that distro.

I can’t say anything about OpenBSD as I never tried it but it sure is a perfect fit for a server as well depending on your needs and preferences. BSD just rocks!

MigratingtoLemmy,

I love Debian too. Could you tell me what you mean FreeBSD being a faster and better server OS? Is there such a difference in speed in operations?

TBH I’d run alpine VMs on Bhyve to get K8S running and that’s it.

sundaylab,

My feeling is that there is. I think it all started with the speed I can login over ssh. Debian always seems to have a short delay but FreeBSD feels instant. When it comes to rating FreeBSD as a better OS for servers I may be biased as Debian has served me so well over the years. I was never a Docker fan but instantly liked Jails for isolating services. Then we have native ZFS support which simplifies my backup needs. A simple zfs send | zfs receive and you have an exact copy of your service instance on a remote node. Everything feels integrated and not stacked. Again, just a personal opinion.

MigratingtoLemmy,

OpenBSD has native limitations on hypervisors. Disabling default measures will lessen security, unfortunately.

turbo_scanning,

If you want to containerise your apps, you could try Talos Linux. It is an api driven OS tailored to run Kubernetes. There is no bulk, only what is needed to run K8s, i.e., even no ssh server.

You control it with talosctl which calls the gRPC api endpoint to read or write all sorts of state including machine configuration.

BentiGorlich,
@BentiGorlich@gehirneimer.de avatar

always . freaking . debian

BautAufWasEuchAufbaut,
@BautAufWasEuchAufbaut@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

I really don’t see any advantages in your post for choices other than NixOS. I’m sure you’ll improve quickly by necessity! :D

ryannathans,

I’m using FreeBSD now and I have been blown away at how well it just works and gets out of your way. I am using appjail templates to script containerisation of my services

loki,

What services do you run on FreeBSD? Does using FreeBSD limit you in the number of apps you can have, as most of them target Linux?

mobergmann,
@mobergmann@lemmy.world avatar

I am also curious. FreeBSD is, in my opinion, is such an unorthodox choice.

lemmyreader,

If I remember correctly when Microsoft bought Hotmail years ago, it was run on FreeBSD and SUN Solaris (And it took Microsoft a really long time to migrate it to Windows servers, but that’s another thing).

ryannathans,

Netflix is also hosted from freebsd

ryannathans,

No, I haven’t found anything that I haven’t been able to host.

I have Jellyfin, silverbullet, nginx web server with certbot etc, java game servers, samba and nfs shares, syncthing, qbittorrent, etc.

sundaylab,

Yes yes yes. It’s great to see other FreeBSD fans here with the same opinion.

I was using Debian as a server OS for more than twenty years with short escapades to other distros but then I discovered FreeBSD and there was no way back. ;)

MigratingtoLemmy,

Could you explain more about how you found FreeBSD to be superior to Debian for a server OS?

ryannathans,

Anything you want me to touch on specifically?

MigratingtoLemmy,

Semantically superior OS components, performance, QoL improvements in networking and storage stacks please

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