So I’m dabbling around in selfhosting, and now am just running on a shitty old laptop. There for I’m looking for the most resource friendly Linux when it comes to idle’ing and doing nothing. As most my vm’s are on idle and are only used periodically. But it needs to also be perfomant. So just like debian… Yet…
I know Ubuntu, debian, they are pretty easy to use. Debian is lightweight, yet it’s still heavy. As I tend do make a vm for every new application to manage it easy. Home assistant, adguardhome, nextcloud, etc… Their Ubuntu’s and debian’s on idle are resource intensive against what I recently found… Turnkey Linux.
Turnkeylinux is pretty much debian but stripped down. It uses less then half of what debian needs in resources, and on idle uses litterly a few mb’s of ram. Yet there is one important thing that simply does not want to work on it, and it’s Unbound. So as I want to get all my vm’s on the same distro, that option goes out the window.
So my question is, if not debian, what are other maybe more lightweight Linux’s that are recommended? Or should I just stick with debian as comments are full of it. Or do you know any other gems like turnkey? (centOS and other old, non alive Linux are not a option either.)
UnRaid may be exactly what you are looking for. It’s similar to proxmox, but UnRaid has a plugin called “Community Applications” where people make pre-configured Docker containers that most of the time only need the user to define a path for saving files (though some do need more configuration).
UnRaid boots from a USB to RAM. So it’s hard to get lighter weight than that! You don’t even “install” it, per se. You can pop it into a computer with an already installed OS, boot via USB, and then can boot the native OS as a VM in UnRaid, if you want. Then shut down, remove the USB, and reboot to the original OS as if UnRaid never existed. Now there’s caveats and pitfalls if you are not careful. Don’t go formatting drives if you do it that way or making major changes as it could affect the native OS install if you’re not careful. Im just letting you know it’s possible.
Using the built-in Docker in UnRaid, those services get dynamic access to the computer’s resources and have minimal overhead when idle. VMs, I believe, have more overhead. So this may allow you even more capability on an old laptop.
I’ve never used Docker before, but I now run Home Assistant, Plex, Immich photo backup, minecraft server, Trilium Notes, Blender, Cura Slicer, and a couple others all as Docker containers. All I did was click install, add path to folders, and then they were up and running!
One of my favorite things about how UnRaid works with Docker is that all your Docker containers are set up to be accessible on your network, by default, and can be viewed on any web browser with access to your network. When I want to show off a little, I pull up things like Blender on my smart tv. It’s a terrible user experience trying to use a remote as a mouse, but I’m able to “use” Blender on my TV it I so feel!
But mainly, I like to sit outside on nice days and have access to my computer from any device on my network. I’m working on making things accessible over vpn for me and a few services by reverse proxy for friends. But I’m still learning.
Search UnRaid’s Community Applications page for services you run and see how many are already available. https://unraid.net/community/apps
There’s also youtube videos on making your own programs available in UnRaid. You can also add personal Docker containers through Docker Compose.
Plus, UnRaid makes settings up VMs very easy. So, if you just want to have a program in a VM for ease of use, you can do that too!