Edit2: OK Per feedback I am going to have a dedicated external NAS and a separate homeserver. The NAS will probably run TrueNAS. The homeserver will use an immutable os like fedora silverblue. I am doing a dedicated NAS because it can be good at doing one thing - serving files and making backups. Then my homeserver can be good at doing whatever I want it to do without accidentally torching my data.

I haven’t found any good information on which distro to use for the NAS I am building. Sure, there are a few out there. But as far as I can tell, none are immutable and that seems to be the new thing for long term durability.

Edit: One requirement is it will run a media server with hardware transcoding. I’m not quite sure if I can containerize jellyfin and still easily hardware transcode without a more expensive processor that supports hyper-v.

  • @FutileRecipe
    1•10 months ago

    As of my understanding, immutable systems are useful for Devices that are more bound to change, like a Desktop…I do not see much benefit here for a stable server system.

    This logic is kind of backwards, or rather incomplete. Immutable typically means that the core system doesn’t change outside of upgrades. I would prioritize putting an immutable OS on a server over a desktop if I was forced to pick one or the other (nothing wrong with immutable on both), simply because I don’t want the server OS to change outside of very controlled and specific circumstances. An immutable server OS helps ensure that stability you speak of, not to mention it can thwart some malware. The consequences of losing a server is typically higher than losing a desktop, hence me prioritizing the server.

    In a perfect world, you’re right, the server remains stable and doesn’t need immutablitiy…but then so does the desktop.