Currently working on an Arch server for my self hosting needs. I love arch, in my eyes its the perfect platform for self hosting. There is no bloat, making it lightweight and resource efficient. Its also very stable if you go down the lts route and have the time and skills to head off problems before they become catastrophic.

The downsides. For someone who is a semi-noob there is a very steep learning curve. Arch is very well documented but when you hit a problem or a brick wall its very frustrating. My low tolerence for bullshit means I take hours/days long breaks from it. There’s also time demands in the real world so needless to say I’ve been going at it for a few weeks now.

Unraid is very appealing - nice clean interface, out-of-the-box solutions for whatever you want to do, easy NAS management… What’s not to like? If it was fully open-source I would’ve bought into it from the start. At least once a day I think “I’m done. Sign me up unraid”. Its taking an age to set up the Arch server. If I went for unraid I could be self hosting in a matter of hours. Unraid is the antitheses of Arch. Arch is for masochists.

My question is this - do you ever look at products like unraid and think “fuck this shit I’m done”?

  • glizzyguzzler@piefed.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    0·
    3 days ago

    Arch’s design is key for user devices - it gets you the fixes you need now with good enough guard rails that usually it’s all good!

    But that’s not the design you want for a 24/7 server that’s likely headless. You want that server to have the security updates and to get them installed asap without worry about stability. Literally for years now I’ve never had unattended upgrades cause any issue, and I’ve taken that system from 11 to 13 now. And I’ll look at in a month (maybe) while it continues to do DNS and serve up vidz

    Debian on a laptop would be akin to a skeleton waiting on food/water; you’ll get that fix for sleep in 14 (maybe). It’s workable - just like Arch is workable for a server - but it’s just not the ideal role.

    Both designs exist for a reason though, and that’s cause they both have their strengths!