I currently have a server, a Dell T310 with an SSD in it and 12Gig of ram (weird config, I know I messed up but it works fine so I can’t be bothered to change that for now), with all my dockers running in it.
It runs mostly fine, with Debian 11, a VPN so that I can block public ssh and allow it only on the VPN network, an nginx proxy to have services like a forgejo and a music library (ampache).
However it can’t run a Minecraft server with more than a single person on it without stuttering ; so I was considering changing it maybe next year, after more than 3 years of services, for something beefier but also consuming less W/h (current consumption is 80W), and since I already have a Mac for work I was wondering how suitable a Mac Mini M1/M2 would be for a homelab?
Does anyone have such a configuration and how does it work for you? Any hurdle that you should be aware of?
Yes… https://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn/Apple/M1
I mean technically it does. Isn’t this the Ashai Linux and isnt it very Alpha / Beta stage? As far as I’m aware this is not recommended for anything critical ( per the project maintainers) and unless OP loves tinkering he is most likely going to hit a lot of unique edge case scenarios that require a lot of time to unwind. If you have a very narrow use case this might work but is probably not worth the headache.
Asahi is not at all “alpha” and I’d hesitate to describe even parts of it on the first and second generation Apple silicon as “beta.” Its daily driver levels of stability and I’m constantly impressed by it.
From the Ashai website - “Asahi Linux is a work in progress. Many hardware components are not yet supported!”
Just be warned a lot of people have bricked or nearly bricked their computers just trying to get Ashai installed on their Mac. Daily driver this is not but they are making great progress! It will get there eventually.
BULLSHIT
No one has hard bricked a device, you can always flash MacOS back with a tool. Any issues installing are years old. OFC it’s a work in progress, so is all of Linux even RHEL. It is 100% ready to daily drive and many people do.
Ok cool 😎
It’s a fair warning, but on my M2 MBA the only things that don’t work are the microphone and some elements of graphics acceleration. I keep macos on a tiny partition for firmware updates and, I guess, to recover in the event of a catastrophic failure, but … it’s been rock solid. Most of the software I use has compatible builds, which might be the most surprising part.
All the hardware support for the Mac Mini is complete and working.
I’ve had no problems running Asahi Linux on an M1 Mac Mini.