So I have been running a fair amount of selfhosted services over the last decade or so. I have always been running this on a Ubuntu LTS distribution running on a intel NUC machine. Most, if not all of my services run in a docker container, and using a docker compose file that brings everything up. The server is headless. I connect over ssh into a tmux config so I am always ready to go.
Ubuntu has been my stable server choice over the years. I’ve made the upgrade from 16, 18, 20 and 22 LTS release and everything has kept working. I even upgraded the hardware (old NUC to a new NUC) and just imaged the disk from the old one onto the new machine, and the server kept chugging along quite nicely, after I configured the hardware (specifically the Intel QuickSync for hardware transcoding in the Plex container).
Since Ubuntu has been transitioning from a really open community driven effort into a commercial enterprise, I feel it may be time to look at other distributions. On the other hand, it will require a fair amount of work to make the switch. But if it needs to be done, than so be it. I guess I am looking for opinions on what Linux distribution would fit my particular use case, and am wondering what most of us here are running.
TLDR; What stable, long term supported Linux distributions do you recommend for a headless server running a stack of docker containers?
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Debian. I don’t see much benefit of Ubuntu LTS compared to plain old Debian. It’s exactly what you wanted.
Alternatively, AlmaLinux is a good choice if you like Red Hat stuff (RHEL clone), but the difference between Ubuntu LTS and Debian would be almost not noticeable for you I think.
And I would agree. I’ve been using Debian on my VPS with docker-compose etc for years. Would recommend it, too. And it’s pretty similar to what you have now. There isn’t much needed to swich around or learn.
And it is the textbook example of a successful, community driven distro.
It seems to be the most logical move to go from Ubuntu to Debian indeed. As I understand it maintains the core Linux system as I have it now (systemd / apt / stable kernel) while truly community driven. I have to look into transitioning into the latest stable Debian release.
I mean it’s not only alike what you’re currently using… It’s the foundation of Ubuntu. Lots of packages are exactly the same.
And I think you’ll find something very similar, just with the stuff missing that Ubuntu added on top, and you don’t like anyways.
Hope you can move you containers and volumes without too much effort. I mean since you’re starting over anyways you could also pause for a minute and think if you want to recreate something similar or switch to something different. There are other containerization techniques, podman, systemd-nspawn, you could do your server in a declarative approach with NixOS… But if you like what you have now, and don’t want to learn something entirely new, I’d say Debian is probably your solution.
“Ubuntu added on top” you mean Snap? No thanks :)
It’s not the first strange decision they made. I think I finally switched from Ubuntu to Debian when they introduced the Amazon advertisements to the Unity desktop. That must have been 12.10 Quantal Quetzal. I’ve been happy since and didn’t miss the odd business strategies they pushed in the time since…
The only thing you need to watch out is the kernel.
Debian stable is on a 2-year release cycle (odd years). LTS kernels are released once a year, but Debian needs time to test each release thoroughly so they use the LTS kernel from the previous year. This means that by the time the next stable Debian comes out the kernel will be 3 years old.
Example: Debian 11 released in 2021 with kernel 5.10 (from 2020). By the time Debian 12 released in 2023, kernel 5.10 was 3 years old.
You can of course use backports to get a newer kernel but using backports defeats the purpose of using Debian stable. So please think very carefully whether you need recent kernel support for anything.
Docker and ZFS are the usual suspects but they tend to support a pretty wide array of kernel versions so they should not be a problem. Especially since you can install them from 3rd party repos. But please understand that releases from external repos are, again, not tested with stable.
There are other things that may need kernel support, for example I use the Samba and NFS drivers from the kernel, which need userland packages as well, so in their case you definitely want to stick to the official stable packages.
If you can’t live with old Debian kernels then stick to Ubuntu. There’s no inherent problem with Ubuntu and given that you have experience with it it might actually be the ideal choice for you. There’s no substitute for a distro you know very well.
Ah, that is a good point. I am using 6.5.0 kernel atm, as part of the HWE (hardware enablement) package, which supports QuckSync / hardware encoding of my 12th gen intel processor. I did a quick search, but did not find HWE for Debian is that correct?
HWE for Debian should be in the backports.
I haven’t looked into it tbh, my Intel is 7th gen so I have no problem running with Debian’s older kernel.
Debian has the advantage of not using snapd like Ubuntu does. You have to not only remove snaps but also instruct the package manager not you pull in snaps as dependencies and not to favor snap packages.
I have fond memories of Ubuntu being my first distro many years ago but pushing snaps onto users to compete with flatpak is a nuisance.
Is there a difference between alma and rocky?
what even is the difference?
im using ubuntu rn, but need to redeploy and have been thinking of just switching away to debian.
Debian is community run, which often means all changes and features get implemented because the community wants that, not some corporation. One notable example of that is Snap.
Also, I found (minimal install) Debian a bit more minimalist than Ubuntu server, which is great imo. I just want the bare minimum for my services to work, and pretty much the only thing I expect from my server to have is SSH and Docker.
Debian
Debian, set and forget. Being a server you don’t need the latest version of any software and Debian is timely in security patches. use
unattended-upgradesand forget about what is running your stuff.Yes, I am running unattended-upgrades, and basically my current server is running 24/7 just fine! It is indeed like set and forget already. More reason to move to Debian!
Since you’re already familiar with a debian based distro, switching to the OG debian would be an option.
If you’re using containers for everything anyways, the distro you use doesn’t much matter.
If Ubuntu works for you and switching away would mean significant effort, I see no reason to switch outside of curiosity.
debian. stable, reliable, easy to learn
For your use case, debian. Ubuntu is based on it, it’s stable, it’ll feel like home.
I personally use Gentoo (since you asked what we all use), but based on your reqs, you wouldn’t wanna use it. And I’m probably in the minority anyways.
Proxmox with Debian containers.
Unraid is the GOAT when it comes to being headless for docker. They know how to walk the fine line of “this is too much. It’s bloat,” and “this is minimal and bare bones.” I seriously can’t hype them enough, and can’t do justice to describing their ease of use.
OpenSUSE MicroOS or Fedora CoreOS. If you’ll be using containers you’ll have a great time. If you don’t want to deal with transactional systems, then there is literally nothing I’d rather use than Debian.
Debian, all the way. I’ve got both ubuntu (made by my predecessor) and debian servers at work, and as far as maintenance and administration, they’re more or less identical. The one thing that sometimes catches me off-guard is that sudo is not installed by default, and you have to
su -into a root session.That’s actually a choice you’re offered during Debian’s interactive install. When you’re offered the option to set a root password, if you leave it empty the system will disable direct root login and instead give your first normal user
sudoaccess.
I prefer Fedora Server. It comes with a lot of nice integrations into more enterprise/centralized Linux administration and management tools. A lot of these are FOSS so if you like infrastructure, this is a really good way to take an easy step up.
If you don’t want to be on the bleeding edge and want a distro with longer support, CentOS Stream isn’t bad. Sure, there was some controversy surrounding it, when Red Hat killed the old CentOS. But ignoring that, the distro itself is pretty good and stable.
Personally I prefer Rocky linux. Default to using SElinux which I also like. not a big fan of debian though as things are quite old and sometimes outdated for my needs.
Does someone use nixOS? How does that hold up for this usecase?
I wouldn’t specifically say nixOS is stable in the same sense debian is but yes, it can totally handle this use case. I mainly run k8s on it, but a few home machines run docker (or, rather, podman) containers.
A thing about nixOS is that quite often you won’t need containers at all and would be better off without them, managing your apps as part of the system state as a whole. I only do that because I can’t be bothered to properly switch to nixOS services for ELK (which is supported by nixOS).
It’s a very stable solution in general and usually ends with a configuration that either doesn’t apply at all or applies with no issues. Gitops included for pretty much free. It requires understanding nix, and it can be tricky, but not overly tricky.
All and all I haven’t had an Ubuntu in homelab for two years now and can’t be happier about that.
Still a few Ubuntu Server stragglers here and there, but it works quite well as long as you keep your base config fairly lean and push the complexity into the containers.
Documentation tends to be either good or nonexistent depending on what you’re doing, so for anything beyond standard configuration but it can usually be pieced together from ArchWiki and the systemd docs.
All in all, powerful and repeatable (and a lot less tedious than Ansible, etc), but perhaps not super beginner-friendly once you start getting into the weeds. Ubuntu Server is just better documented and supported if you need something super quick and easy.
Works well for me. Quick to set up as well if you are already familiar for nixos
I also moved to Debian after years of using Ubuntu Server LTS. No problem so far on those servers for container workloads, the small ones run docker compose, the medium ones run k3s, and a small cluster runs rke2.
