It's Hard to Stay Motivated

Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨LazerDickMcCheese@sh.itjust.works⁩ to ⁨selfhosted@lemmy.world⁩

I got Jellyfin up and running, it’s 10/10. I love this thing, and it reinvigorated my love for watching movies. So I decided to tackle all the other services I wanted, starting with Paperless-ngx…

What a nightmare. It doesn’t have a Windows install so I made an Ubuntu VM. Don’t get me started on Ubuntu. I just spent about 12hrs trying to get Portainer to cooperate and had to give up. I tried just installing Paperless the “normal way” and had to give up on that too.

My point: if you’re getting started selfhosting you have to embrace and accept the self-inflicted punishment. Good luck everybody, I don’t know if I can keep choosing to get disappointed.

source

Comments

Sort:hotnew top

baduhai@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I know linux isn’t for everyone, but self hosting on windows is self-inflicted punishment. It’s just not the right platform. Sure it’s doable, but it’s death by a thousand papercuts.

source
- mhzawadi@lemmy.horwood.cloud ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  also Ubuntu will add more complexity to things, Debian will cover most of what you need.
  
  source
  - Nouveau_Burnswick@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    I wish I knew this before I started.
    
    But my headless Ubuntu is working now, so I am not changing it.
    
    source
    -> View More Comments
- LazerDickMcCheese@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  How so?
  
  source
  - SeeJayEmm@lemmy.procrastinati.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Took maybe 5 minutes total to install paperless-ngx in docker on a Debian vm. No hassles, no headaches.
    
    The problem is trying to install tools built for Linux on Windows.
    
    source
    -> View More Comments
  - cwagner@lemmy.cwagner.me ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    [deleted]
    source
    -> View More Comments
Vendetta9076@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Absolutely do not do this on windows. It makes everything a nightmare. Bare metal install ubuntu server and install docker/portainer. Its 5 copy pasted commands and you never have to look at the terminal ever again if you don’t want to.

source
amanaftermidnight@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
You must imagine selfhosters happy.

source
- palitu@aussie.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Nice. Sad, but nice
  
  source
SeeJayEmm@lemmy.procrastinati.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
None of this should have been a hassle, to be honest. Even if you were taking the hard route there.

Instead of this post why not try asking for help with what you’re stuck on?

source
- LazerDickMcCheese@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  It’d be an obnoxiously long comment chain, plus its starting to feel like its not worth the effort. I’ve found some Windows alternatives to the stuff I was trying to do since I made the point which has been great! Still missing some functionality, but its better than what I was doing a few hours ago
  
  source
  - SeeJayEmm@lemmy.procrastinati.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Hey, you do what works for you.
    
    Just suggesting, next time, asking for help before you get to frustrated and give up. We all started somewhere and that’s what this community is good at.
    
    source
cwagner@lemmy.cwagner.me ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
[deleted]
source
- LazerDickMcCheese@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  I tried that, but it wouldn’t install for me. I went through many guides and videos on setting it up, but something in the process failed every time
  
  source
eager_eagle@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I recently ditched Portainer entirely - it looks good, but debugging anything is really not helpful. And if it runs on the first try I don’t need a web interface.

My tips:

Run self hosted things on Linux and open their webpages on Windows if you really want or need to keep using Win.

Prefer docker compose “stacks” over docker directly or native installs. Personally, I just use 4 sub-commands for pretty much everything I do: up, down, pull and logs. You (probably) don’t need Portainer.

If after 1. making sure the docker-compose.yaml is right, 2. setting up the .env file if present, and 3. following the instructions in their README; a container stack doesn’t run after 2 or 3 attempts: copy the error message and search the GitHub issues - chances are someone else also faced that problem. If you can’t find anything similar, open a new issue.
source
- Melco@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  [deleted]
  source
  - talbot@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    It’s essentially a GUI for Docker. It has its own quirks that, in my opinion, don’t match Docker’s UX and can make it more complicated to customize deployment. But Portainer can make multiple environments or dozens of containers easier to manage. e.g. I do most of the actual work using compose yamls but use Portainer as a reference to organize subnets, ports, and volumes. Or if I’m unsure what the problem is and just want to see all the details of each container faster.
    
    source
  - zbecker@mastodon.zbecker.cc ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    @Melco @eager_eagle
    I never used portainer. Imo KISS is the best policy
    source
pe1uca@lemmy.pe1uca.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I thought this too, I hated docker because it was supposed to be the solution of “works on my machine” and the only thing that did for me was force me to learn more configurations besides the configuration of the service you wanted to install.
And as you said, plus the hassle of having to run some Linux distro.
But little by little I had to get deeper into docker and Linux, mainly because of my work, and now I can easily deploy any service in the VPS I have or test it with WSL. I even started dockerizing some of my own flows like building and deploying my own projects with docker.

Believe me, it’s worth all the time to learn docker and linux.
Start small, few lines or keywords each day, you won’t have everything you want to deploy in a day or two if you don’t already know all the technologies.
And remember, if you don’t easily find something you can always come to ask in a post and we can try to help you!

source
- LazerDickMcCheese@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  I appreciate the post, but I’m gonna pass on ever using Linux again. I’ll just keep my eyes open for when these things get ported to Windows haha because I think I’ll puke if I have to type sudo or curl again
  
  source
  - prenatal_confusion@lemmy.one ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Okay then.
    
    source
theblandone@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Doing anything new will require work/pain the first few times. It is just part of the learning process. If that sudden jolt of happiness when you get it working can outweigh the depression caused by hours of trudging through the setup/failures, you’ll constantly be improving. Like all things, give it a fair shot and if it brings you more pain than pleasure, stop doing it.

There are now a lot of people who are making a living from providing self-hosted services to others for small fees. Even if you decide to not self-host, there are multiple ways to get the lion’s share of benefits. Its not a binary choice between Google and self-hosting.

source
clavismil@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Maybe it’s hard at the beginning but as you keep doing it becomes easier. If you feel overwhelmed take a break for a few days and try again later. I think we all have been there and hit a wall. Self host, open source and Linux communities are friendly you can ask for help and find someone willing to help you, so don’t be afraid to ask for help (as I was before). Just take small steps.

Don’t give up. Have fun.

source
Rescuer6394@feddit.nl ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
if it helps, here is my setup from bare metal to 30+ services. github.com/simone-viozzi/my-server

including off-site encrypted backups

of course, i wrote this for me, so most stuffs are written like garbage, but fell free to open an issue, and i will fix them

source
TCB13@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

I just spent about 12hrs trying to get Portainer to cooperate and had to give up

If you don’t use Docker / Portainer and friends your life gets easier very quickly. Also you’ll waste less resources.

source
diffuselight@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Proxmox with alpine containers or Unraid are both painless

source