I’m refurbishing an old PC to work as a home server for several stuff. I’m looking for a lightweight distribution to install in it, but with a decent package repository. A small image size will be appreciated, as I have slow bandwidth too.

  • butter@midwest.socialEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    I went Debian without a Desktop for my server. I later installed a desktop for the occasion that I need it. But mostly, I use SSH

  • bastion@feddit.nl
    2·
    1 year ago

    A lot of people are saying Debian, because Debian.

    Debian. I’ve literally run Debian stable with uptimes of over a year.

  • virtualbriefcase@lemm.ee
    2·
    1 year ago

    Debian or Alpine would be perfect. Debian has bigger repos, better hardware compatibility, and maybe a bit more stability. Alpine is scary lightweight and a small ISO download.

  • 30p87@feddit.de
    1·
    1 year ago

    Probably Debian. It’s basically the most used distro, and therefore has many online resources.

    • Old software, but very stable.
    • No bloat, very clean.
    • No custom programs interfering with any configurations etc.
    • Support for many server software etc.

    If you want an even cleaner OS, where (nearly) everything is under your control and as lightweight as possible, Arch would be for you. There’s the bonus of the AUR, but the huge problem of newest, “unstable” software, though I’ve yet to experience any problem on testing repos, except for the Nvidia drivers. In general, Debian should be enough of lightweightiness and control.

  • Fjor@lemm.ee
    1·
    1 year ago
    • OpenSuse
    • Debian
    • Alpine

    Would be the three I’d choose from atleast.

  • MangoKangaroo@beehaw.org
    1·
    1 year ago

    Since nobody has said it yet: Ubuntu server or Debian. /s

    In seriousness, I use both. They’re pretty great. Note that if you use Ubuntu server you can get Ubuntu Pro free for up to three devices. This comes with ten years (!) of security patches. Great if you aren’t keen on upgrading anytime soon.

  • Evil_Shrubbery@lemm.ee
    1·
    1 year ago

    Debian or Ubuntu Server (or something specific to servers purpose, like OMV, etc).

    … but ProxMox (a hypervisor, Debian based) doesn’t have much overhead & runs on old PCs pretty well. And with that, you can pretty much try any distro (as a full virtual machines, perhaps with dockers within it, or as a lightweight containers that are really resource efficient). Or separate containers for each purpose (for beginners, there are like TurnKey solutions to stuff like NAS, it takes literally a few minutes to set up).

    Backups (snapshots) are easy too, and a later migration to a better/next server is basically two clicks away.

  • ptman@sopuli.xyz
    1·
    1 year ago

    Linux is quite lightweight. Pick a distro that doesn’t run a lot of stuff by default. OpenBSD only runs sshd exposed to the network, AFAIR. Debian probably does the same. But really, the lightness comes from what isn’t running. NixOS, fedora, rocky, alpine are all decent alternatives.