Having used Ubuntu for servers for a long time, I switched from Ubuntu 22.04 LTS to Debian 12.
The smaller RAM and storage footprint of Debian 12 has been really helpful when running VMs on my Pi 4 boards or older systems.
I did try out Rocky 9, but I feel like it takes more time to get things ready (especially when I don't have any runbooks or automated scripts already built out) compared to Debian. That said, I am using Rocky to run a MySQL dev instance on a VM on my M1 Max MBP since I didn't want to fight with compiling MySQL for Debian.
I have since migrated my Wait Wait Stats stuff (Python, Flask or FastAPI, NGINX and MySQL) from Ubuntu to Debian. 🙌🏼
for a lot of fire and forget-scenarios I’d prefer Rocky over Debian, not because it’s better but because the life-cycle is insane. As long as you patch it you won’t have to touch it for like ten years. That said, Debian is still awesome and a lot easier to use, not to mention available packages in standard repos isn’t even close.
NixOS a great choice, and for that use case specifically I have step by step tutorials its easier to manage and for a home lab the ability to roll back after messing around goes poorly is priceless
@SmoothLiquidation not that it's supported on Rocky Linux but have you looked into using bcachefs? I've been using it on my homelab and it hasn't given me any problems (other than the stupid self inflicted kind).
The default answer from me has always been Debian unless you really needed a newer version of some package or to use some hardware that only came with Redhat binary blobs...
The fact that I still have an environment running which dates back to physical hardware installed with Woody or Sarge - and was also converted from 32-bit to 64-bit more recently - is testament to the incredible work the project's developers have always done on apt/dpkg and dist-upgrades.
@mikhailbot Ubuntu's still only 5 years unless you pay for Pro; it's a good cadence for me, every couple years I tweak my automation, test all my backups by migrating to new VMs
Aw, not a single mention of "how about Suse". It was my first distro way back when, I bought a cardboard box with a big book and a couple of CDs. But yeah, I haven't looked at it recently either. So I just did and this looks promising maybe for the overworked homelabber: https://get.opensuse.org/microos/
garettmd
in reply to Jeff Geerling • • •Jeff Geerling
in reply to garettmd • • •garettmd
in reply to Jeff Geerling • • •Joshix
in reply to Jeff Geerling • • •Linh Pham
in reply to Jeff Geerling • • •Having used Ubuntu for servers for a long time, I switched from Ubuntu 22.04 LTS to Debian 12.
The smaller RAM and storage footprint of Debian 12 has been really helpful when running VMs on my Pi 4 boards or older systems.
I did try out Rocky 9, but I feel like it takes more time to get things ready (especially when I don't have any runbooks or automated scripts already built out) compared to Debian. That said, I am using Rocky to run a MySQL dev instance on a VM on my M1 Max MBP since I didn't want to fight with compiling MySQL for Debian.
I have since migrated my Wait Wait Stats stuff (Python, Flask or FastAPI, NGINX and MySQL) from Ubuntu to Debian. 🙌🏼
linus
in reply to Jeff Geerling • • •Jason
in reply to Jeff Geerling • • •SmoothLiquidation
in reply to Jeff Geerling • • •Jeff Geerling
in reply to SmoothLiquidation • • •ttamttam
in reply to Jeff Geerling • • •M. Hamzah Khan
in reply to Jeff Geerling • • •I don't know. I quite like Fedora Server and Fedora CoreOS these days 🙄
Though I can see why you might not want to use it in a critical kinda setting.
Dr. Ogg :verified:
in reply to Jeff Geerling • • •Interpipes 💙
in reply to Jeff Geerling • • •The default answer from me has always been Debian unless you really needed a newer version of some package or to use some hardware that only came with Redhat binary blobs...
The fact that I still have an environment running which dates back to physical hardware installed with Woody or Sarge - and was also converted from 32-bit to 64-bit more recently - is testament to the incredible work the project's developers have always done on apt/dpkg and dist-upgrades.
James Umbanhowar
in reply to Jeff Geerling • • •Nicholas Head
in reply to Jeff Geerling • • •minecraftchest1
in reply to Jeff Geerling • • •Mikhail :spinning_pinwheel:
in reply to Jeff Geerling • • •Jeff Geerling
in reply to Mikhail :spinning_pinwheel: • • •crft
in reply to Jeff Geerling • • •Sandro :nixos: :verified_gay:
in reply to crft • • •Jeff Geerling
in reply to Sandro :nixos: :verified_gay: • • •B4ckBOne
in reply to Jeff Geerling • • •And if you doubt me, you never gave Nix a try.
Carl
in reply to Jeff Geerling • • •Shrirang Kahale
in reply to Jeff Geerling • • •I haven't used those RHEL based distros much, debian user from the start.
So I am interested in knowing:
What changed in Debian that made you change your mind?
Jeff Geerling
in reply to Shrirang Kahale • • •ednl 🇪🇺
in reply to Jeff Geerling • • •openSUSE MicroOS
Get openSUSEGeorge Raptis :bluecheck:
in reply to Jeff Geerling • • •Travis
in reply to Jeff Geerling • • •Ric🐧☕
in reply to Jeff Geerling • • •