Hello people I just got my hands on an old PC, and I took it as a sign to finally start my on server. Right now, I’d mostly be looking into running jellyfin since I’m working on a digital music library. On the technical side, I run Mint on my laptop, so I have basic familiarity with Linux. Are there any guides you recommend that will take me through installation of OS to a functional server? Thank you!
Hey, welcome to the concept of self-hosting! This is where I was 15+ years ago.
Realistically, I’d just recommend installing something and trying it out. You’ll iterate many time before you’ll slowly start to align somewhere I suspect, in terms of software/approaches etc.
If you want the very first steps, then why not simply connect your old PC to a monitor and install a Desktop version of Mint? It’s super-“wrong”, but it’ll get you started. Once you reach a stage of not wanting to waste memory/CPU on a graphical system, you’ll be able to do something like
systemctl disable lightdm.serviceand voila, graphics don’t load on start anymore. Once you get even more confident,apt remove gdm3 xfce4 xfdesktopwill remove any extra disk space (I’m dropping DE names that I approximately remember off the top of my head). With the packages for graphics gone, your system is indistinguishable from a server now.Overall it’s a nice path to walk, or at least it was fun and somewhat educative and very frustrating and giving a sense of control for me personally. Do you have any specific questions?
This is the answer. You probably could learn *nix terminals, networking, hosting, security, and a myriad of other skills all at once if you really had to focus on it–but more often, that will just result in half-started projects and systems which never come together. Dipping your toes in first, and then gradually migrating as you build up your knowledge is the best way to not be overwhelmed, burnt out, or frozen from decision overload.
One of the nicest things about Linux is you can run most any software written for Linux on most any distro (although some may require more work than others). Picking a beginner friendly distro like Mint, with helper tools and a gui, and installing Jellyfin on it will give you a place to start. You can gradually learn the console and install other services and build out organically. Rather than hopping straight into some Enterprise Linux.