slabber

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.

I’m happy to get conviced otherwise but in my 26 years living in Spain, Valencia and Andalucia, that was what I have experienced.

In Spain they will immediatelly ask you if you are sick. Only sick people drink tea there, or english tourists, but they will usually go to english bars anyway. In those places they will serve black tea and ask you if you want it with lemon or milk.

A service to remove paywalls.As far as I remember,it doesn’t work with the NYT but does a good job with a bunch of other sites.

I have settled with Navidrome. It is not a native app but is quite fast and responsive and I can combine it with Ultrasonic to stream my music from anywhere to my phone. And you browse your collection by album covers which you mentioned as your preference.

I have been using Debian for the last 20 years or so. I also had a brief encounter with Gentoo which was a big help to dive into compiling, specially kernels adjusted to low performant and old hardware. I have been using Debian for my servers (web mostly) but discovered FreeBSD and jails for myself this year. It didn’t take long to convet my primary webserver to FreeBSD. Until now, no complains. I have an easy way to isolate websites and services in their own jail allowing users to access theirs without conpromising host security.

Yes. Like in old times.

If I behaved as an asshole I was corrected and if i didn’t listen I got a slap. I don’t think I was maltreated. It was dad’s answer for my actions in that moment. And it happened rarely. Every time it happened I learned the lesson. :D

I will object on this one. Even if the majority of user does not care about privacy they do care about ransomware , viruses, speed of the system and in my opinion Linux / BSD is secure, fast and speed remains after time not like Windows where I felt that after 6 months I had to reinstall to get a performant system. I guess it is all about convincing your family and friends about those benefits.

There was no special reason for switching 25 years ago. A friend of mine used Debian and I tried it out. Not being a gamer must have helped because if you like playing, chances to encounter a game that only runs on Windows are quite high.

Now the reason why I never changed back. Once the system runs, which may take some rime depending on how customized you want it, it always runs the same way. I never had a slowing down due to updates. Another reason may be not having to think about viruses or malware. Never had it and most likely never will. Antivirus? They may exist for Linux but I have never used them.

In a few words. It just works.