I use Debian flavors for my daily drivers. I have no complaints, no real desire to switch it up on that front.
However, I am starting to get into self-hosting and homelab projects. I’d like to start test driving some light-weight distros of a different flavor.
I’d prefer a GUI be available, but the environment and WM is pretty inconsequential-- except it shouldn’t be bloated. I’ll install any additional apps I want, I don’t need a curated mid-to-heavy-weight distro.
The plan is to make heavy use of Docker images, to try to maintain a clean and modular setup of services. If that makes any difference.
Suggestions? Any slim distros you’re just gaga for?
Alpine Linux is often recommended in similar circumstances. I’ve never tried it so can’t say how it is. Of course you could use Debian with a light WM.
I have some experience with Alpine, usually in the form of images for CI pipelines and other remote usecases. It never occurred to me to check it out as a locally installed option.
I don’t see the point of it as a locally installed option. Why save disk space?
Use vanilla Debian. It is well suited for that purposes and it is great in terms of long time support: stable distro updates almost never break anything and upgrading to new release is possible and relatively simple. Don’t listen to those recommending Arch or Fedora, upgrading them is a pain especially when you have to support many servers.
If you want something more lightweight, you may try Alpine. It is also a distro of choice for docker containers. However I’d prefer Debian for the host.
Honestly, the more I’ve thought about it, the more this feels like a sound solution. And then I can just run VMs for distros I want to sandbox in.
Maybe have a look at Proxmox, a Debian-based hypervisor for VMs and containers.
I’ve actually really wanted to try Proxmox. Both for personal use, but because the experience/knowledge would benefit my career.
If you’re going for a container/VM-first approach, you might be interested in Bluefin DX - it’s an immutable distro based on Fedora Atomic, and follows a workflow revolving around containers and VMs. Basically tuned exactly for homelab users and developers, who’re looking for a stable yet up-to-date base (unlike Debian, which tends to use outdated packages, unless you’re on Sid). The biggest advantages of using an immutable distro is that you never have to worry about a broken update again - so you can just focus on your work.
Upgrading them should be done frequently since it’s a rolling release distro. If you wait a long time and then do a large update, you may run into issues because they are not really designed for that. You should always be on the latest version of packages.
What do you mean? What happens if you leave it too long? How long is too long?
Nothing usually happens but the distro is not tested in that way. The devs don’t wait six months and then update every package in the system at once. It probably works (and it has for me, every time) but it’s just not what users do normally. They keep it updated all the time.
except fedora atomic you can upgrate every machine at the same time
This does not mean that you won’t have troubles because of new software bugs or incompatibilities with old configs.
same thing with debian
edit: actually no, because every config from app is created from zero, so meanwhile debian the same config stay on your machine until you reinstall fedora atomic you can compare your configuration for what you changed in your /etc
Have you ever upgraded debian? If both local config and default config have changed, it suggests you review the changes and choose which config to use or merge it manually.
Just use Proxmox.
Still Debian, well documented, lots of tutorials, and it has a web GUI you can access remotely. But for Docker you will need to install it on a VM.
Or, you could use Fedora Server, it also has a web GUI called cockpit, it can control podman containers and VMs.
I don’t know about slim but I love OpenSUSE. It is super stable, I’ve run it for about a billion years. You can use the installer to just choose the server light install.
II use Debian for some build machines.
I have a arch and debian server. I am afraid of the arch server. Debian I haven’t touched since install other than updatingbit once in a while.
You have experience of Debian use it, or maybe go down fedora, rocky for homelab. You would want to experiment on the homelab not with it.
Nothing is as good as an Arch server… I love the adrenalin running in my veins every update!
I even set an autoupdate script to make things even more scarier!
Despite the adrenalin rush, my Arch never broke
I have had two kernel regressions causing unbootable install. Though i still use Arch on my laptop. For the homelab I would go Debian.
For my daily laptop I use Arch with LTS kernel. I’ve using it for years and had only 1 issue with normal kernel (that made me switch to LTS)
Also I used Arch as server for long time in my homelab, however now I changed to OrangePi and Raspberry Pi, so I use Ubuntu
I use proxmox and Ubuntu 23.10 on the VM images. I like to have a recent kernel.
Otherwise my favorite is arch linux but proxmox didn’t have recent arch images in their repo.
If you’re willing to forgo the GUI installer requirement, take a look at Void Linux. Pretty slim base installation, very stable and conservative package updates for a rolling release. Excelllent package manager. Downside might be smaller package selection than Debian or Arch.
Arch is the best Debian alternative out there. They have archinstall now. It will speed up installation and will allow use of encrypted drive.
Since you want Docker, it works better on btrfs. Arch can do that on encrypted drive.
It is lightweight as far as you want to take it.
NixOS is a great light alternative, but i gave ip on it twice.
Manjaro if arch is too intimidating.
Wait, what are the things Debian and Arch are alike?
Apart from both being lightweight, they are more like opposites.
Arch is good for home server, because you will not have to do major update ever again and because at home one usually doesn’t mind restarting after updating.
Debian is a good option for private virtual server on the cloud. Because Debian is frequently an option there, while Arch is not an option due to its rolling nature. Debian supposedly can update without restart, but I never trusted that.
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OP is clearly not that if their use case involves a homelab and docker containers. Arch is a perfectly valid suggestion here.
Since you want Docker, it works better on btrfs.
Can you elaborate?
Docker images are immutable and if you run lots of images there will be overlap of commonly used layers.
Docker has BTRFS driver, which will efficiently reuse layers on BTRFS.
Basically, there’s good chance to waste less drive space with Docker on BTRFS.
