slabber

I settled on a Fujitsu Q920 with 16 GB of RAM and a 1 TB SSD. Runs FreeBSD 14.1 and each service has its own Jail.

Services:

DNSmasq - local DNS and adblocker Wireguard Navidrome MPD - Media server Vaultwarden - password save Radicale - cardav and caldav server TinyRSS - RSS aggregator Zabbix - server and service monitoring Postgresql Gitea - git repository Emby - jellyfin alternative Mariadb Bhyve VM with Debian running 2 apps (invoiceplane and leantime) which use a quite old php version and I never had time to port to Freebsd.

A second machine that starts daily and creates a backup of machine 1 by using ZFS autobackup.

Nothing fancy but it does what I need.

My feeling is that there is. I think it all started with the speed I can login over ssh. Debian always seems to have a short delay but FreeBSD feels instant. When it comes to rating FreeBSD as a better OS for servers I may be biased as Debian has served me so well over the years. I was never a Docker fan but instantly liked Jails for isolating services. Then we have native ZFS support which simplifies my backup needs. A simple zfs send | zfs receive and you have an exact copy of your service instance on a remote node. Everything feels integrated and not stacked. Again, just a personal opinion.

Yes yes yes. It’s great to see other FreeBSD fans here with the same opinion.

I was using Debian as a server OS for more than twenty years with short escapades to other distros but then I discovered FreeBSD and there was no way back. ;)

I’m a long time user of Debian myself too. No cutting edge fuzz, just a working, stable OS all of the time. What else do you need for a server? It always did the job.

But then I stumbled on FreeBSD, and man, that’s a server OS. Simple design and blazing fast. No Docker but I never liked it anyway. My Docker is called Jails and in my opinion is they’re superior. Service isolation on the next level.

On my laptop? Debian due to hardware and software support. And I’ll stick to that for now. I feel home on that distro.

I can’t say anything about OpenBSD as I never tried it but it sure is a perfect fit for a server as well depending on your needs and preferences. BSD just rocks!

Second that. Been with them for a year now. Good price and performance.

I was debating between getting myself a NAS or some PC to setup my homelab. I decided for a PC as it gives me more freedom to install and personalize it the way I want.

At the moment I’m running FreeBSD with jails on a Q920 with an i5 processor, 16 GB of RAM, one internal SSD with 512 GB and 2 external USB SDDs with each 1 TB which costed me around 300 Euros.

Seems more than enough for the services I want to provide to myself which are the following.

Navidrome > serves all my music locally and remotely.

Zabbix > to monitor my servers

DNSMasq > ad blocking and local dns

gitea > repo for code and other docs

Transmission > torrenting

Radicale > webcal and webdav

Photoprism > local photo gallery

Vaultwarden > Password manager

SearXNG > search

HAproxy > to serve my public content easily to the web

Mastodon

Emby > local media server

And I run a Linux VM on bhyve to serve 2 tools that I was not able to make work easily on FreeBSD.

Besides that, the node replicates some data from my VPS as a backup solution.

And I can’t complain at all. That PC is doing its job just fine. No need for any rack that uses huge amount of electricity.

Same here. I’m using mainly FreeBSD on my servers so docker is a no go due to lack of support. I have to stick with Photoprism for now as it offers a install without docker and it does the job for me. Anyhow, I’m not happy with the trend that most FOSS projects today limit the deployment on docker and do not offer a way of a plain install on you *nix system of choice.

Thanks for the tip but I’m not sure why I would choose a desktop client over Navidrome itself. I usually have the browser open anyway. But maybe I’m missing something useful by using an actual app?

I settled with Navidrome. It solves 2 use cases for me. Due to being web based it can be used by any PC or mobile device with access to my server. Additionally it supports subsonic which allows me to use a native android app (ultrasonic) and have music on the go. I don’t use services like Spotify.

Nice one. Downloaded and will try it soon. Using Ultrasonic at the moment so eager to see differences between the apps. Happy new year by the way. ;)

I jumped onto the FreeBSD train a year ago and needed some virtualization tool for my job. A started using bhyve and must say that I am quite happy with it and don’t plan to move to any other tool soon. Not sure how it compares to other tools performance wise but it does the job for me.

If I would have been asked to choose one really useful piece of software on Windows it would be Agent Ransack. I use it to find strings in a bunch of files, even compressed ones. I believe it can do much more but I use it for this purpose on daily basis. There’s a paid version but the light one is free and does all I need. https://www.mythicsoft.com/agentransack/

Do you have a list of products / companies they own? I would happily make use of that list.

My native language is German but I lived in Spain for a long time and there they call them “nubes”, clouds.

I have been using Debian for about 20 years now. Server and desktop. But I recently migrated all my server stuff to FreeBSD and I don’t think I will move back. Jails are great and provide me a convenient way to isolate my apps. On the desktop side I will stay with Debian.