Submitted 3 weeks ago by 
GatesMcBalmer@lemmy.world to selfhosted@lemmy.world
I’m a Windows guy since forever and I recently got into selfhosting. So far its a blast! Are posts about that welcome here?
Shimitar@downonthestreet.eu 3 weeks ago I don’t think that Linux is in the title or description of this community!
You pick your own poison …
Mine is Gentoo Linux all the way, yours is Windows. Find two more selfhosters and they will criticize both of us! We are kind of the two extreme of the spectrum…
Welcome!
GatesMcBalmer@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago So true! I met a friend of a friend at a church social last week and he spent the whole time trying to convince me to try FreeBSD instead of selfhosting on Windows. I might try it someday but as polite as he was about it he just couldn’t get the hint lol
Yeah, but you’ll probably figure it out eventually.
IsoKiero@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago Find two more selfhosters and they will criticize both of us!
Absolutely. However I’d argue that some BSD variant is at the other end, not Gentoo, so there’s at least some critics to you ;).
I’m running proxmox and (mostly) Debian on top of that, and I’m sure that there’s someone thinking I’m doing things the wrong way.
With Windows Servers I think the bigger problem is that there’s way less people running things on top of it, so there’s less knowledge about problems and solving them. However, many of us are on corporate IT jobs too and thus have to work with Windows, so that might somewhat cancel out the difference in popularity.
Gentoo taught me a lot. I ran hardened gentoo with grsec, pax, and selinux ~20 years ago. That was really a nag. I’m glad for the experience though, I’m never afraid to compile my own kernel now. I just prefer the convenience of debian or fedora based distros now.
When I do a hardware refresh on my self hosted machines(typically over 5 years) I usually wait for a bleeding edge brand new socket, and have to compile the latest kernel for reasonable performance and stability until maintainers backport or the distro moves forward.
How does Gentoo work for you? Is it true, that an update takes like a week, because you have to compile everything from scratch?
Shimitar@downonthestreet.eu 2 weeks ago It’s a myth.
Yes it takes longer, but specialy on headless server updates are pretty fast
Big boys like LibreOffice Firefox have also pre built binaries if you so prefer as well …
I use Gentoo since amd k6-400 MHz times so today build times feel like no wait at all
Well, if masochism is your kink…
Being a former pure windows guy it’s more like battered wife syndrome.
Its an abusive relationship but its all you know and hard to leave.
I’m on bazzite now with a Debian homelab on a SFF.
Still really new to Linux but I’m trying.
Good for you. If the way Windows behaves now doesn’t drive people to Linux, they’ll never jump. They’ll just keep taking the abuse because they like it.
I don’t understand starting out on Linux in an immutable distro, but maybe that’s the oldhead in me, I’ve been on Linux since the 90s. I find adding software in those distros to be a massive pain in the ass, as well as dealing with its constraints on configurability. But if it’s working for you, fill your boots. Welcome to the dark side.
Sure, if that’s what you want to do. Though, you’ll probably find less references and expertise here. There is a reason that even Microsoft runs Linux on most of its own servers.
Sure ! But… How !? I don’t have even the first idea how you’d host… Almost anything on Windows 😅 and I would be concerned by the power consumption of any non-minimalist OS.
Windows Server exists.
It really shouldn't, but it does.
…. I’m stealing that 😀
Hyper-v server can get pretty damn lightwieght as it ships without a GUI
+1 for Hyper-V, despite being glitchy and only sustaining Home Assistant for about 12 hours this and VirtualBox were my best chance at self hosting VMs on a Windows host. The problem wasn’t the virtualization, but the rest of the OS and its persistent maintenance cycles. Antivirus (MsMpEng.exe) and its NTFS scanning running more and more resources until the CPU was clogged. OP has gotta start somewhere.
Docker for desktop will also let you run a lot of services
xavier666@lemmy.umucat.day 3 weeks ago Isn’t docker on windows just Linux in a trenchcoat?
My ESXi box draws 20 watts at idle with 3 Windows VMs and 3 Linux VMs.
Guess which of those VMs draws the most power (hint: it’s not Windows).
Did you install the guest tools and set the CPU governor to the correct scheduler? Do the Windows boxes host the same applications as the Linux boxes?
Idle windows is so damn heavy on io :(
I wouldn’t recommend it personally
Mordikan@kbin.earth 3 weeks ago 
irmadlad@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago Are posts about that welcome here?
Absolutely. The gate’s open…come on in. It’s been quite a while since I’ve had a Windows based server. I still run Windows 10 in the lab, plus Linux and Mac. I don’t really discriminate. All OS’s have their place imho.
So far its a blast!
That is one of the prime directives of selfhosting. I have a ton of fun learning about new stuff to do and how to do it. Tell us all about it man. What do you selfhost? Are you running any Docker containers? I’m all ears, which in reality isn’t too far from the truth with my Jumbo ears. Share! Share!
Shimitar@downonthestreet.eu 3 weeks ago Now, let me be polemical here …
(And this is to be read with a pinch of /s)
Selfhosting on windows and understanding what you do is so much better than selfhost on CasaOS/ZimaOS/FancyWebGui/Synology and just spin up containers randomly without even understand what a container is and how it does work at all …
Now roast me :)
than selfhost on CasaOS/ZimaOS/FancyWebGui/Synology and just spin up containers randomly without even understand what a container is and how it does work at all
Didnt find any /s there. That’s one of the reasons why I dislike docker, it supports not understanding stuff. But then that’s just me, who wants to understand stuff. Enabling less tech savvy ppl is also great I guess.
Shimitar@downonthestreet.eu 2 weeks ago Lowering the entry barrier is a good thing… Self hosting need critical mass to support and use all the nice things we like to selfhost
More so, from the point of view of nig tech independence, for those who care, again lowering the barrier is very important
So welcome to docker and stuff, I use docker for half my stuff or more, it’s just so much more convenient.
But never stop trying to understand and don’t be a passive docker-puller whenever possible :)
I feel with you, but at the same time I remember trying to setup Apache Guacamole and failing miserably. Doing it now with docker would remove everything that made me fail 10 years ago.
Temporary becomes permanent. When I was experiencing severe long-term symptoms of Covid, I bought a refurbished computer to use as a NAS with Jellyfin, Sonarr, and indexers. I kept the installed Windows 10 because I simply did not have the energy to do more. Then, when I felt better, I told myself, “Let me add more services.”
Now, it’s a Frankenstein computer where Windows 10 acts as the hypervisor, running Caddy as my reverse proxy. Crowdsec protects my services, and my Flint 2’s firewall acts as the Crowdsec bouncer. A VirtualBox VM runs in Windows 10 and hosts most of my Docker containers. Stablebits DrivePool manages my drive pool.
I’ve been running this setup for over a year, and I haven’t had any issues. I know I should switch to Linux, but since it’s been working great and I’m busy, I’ve been procrastinating.
I have seen the temporary->permanent happen so many times even in enterprise IT.
It’s only temporary, unless it works.
irmadlad@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago severe long-term symptoms of Covid
Sure hope you’re doing better now, and no ‘long Covid’ after effects.
I had long covid for 3 years after that. But I’m feeling better nowadays, thanks.
Sure, but know you’re doing things the hard way. I started with Win 10, WSL, and Docker Desktop but moving to Linux made things 10x easier, Windows is… difficult.
I agree with this comment. Switching to Linux, with minimal experience, has been so much easier than trying to arse around with Docker Desktop on Windows.
Tell us what you are hosting! Tell us now! Lol
irmadlad@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago Tell us what you are hosting! Tell us now! Lol
IKR! You can’t just tease us OP.
Sure are. I started self hosting with a VM on Hyper-V.
Oh, I’m sorry. Lol.
Hyper-V is just so bad. Decided to run it for a while as a test, I couldn’t get back to ESXi fast enough, haha. And I come from the Enterprise world where Hyper-V is common.
Honestly I find hyper v to be easier to work with then virtual box for home stuff and with what Broadcom has done to VMware I am staying away from it.
GatesMcBalmer@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago Nice to hear it!
Always. Started on windows hypervisors and windows as they were relevant to my work and I was trying to skill up at the time. Since moved to a Linux stack as the lab grew in scope and my distaste for MS grew as well.
s38b35M5@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago my distaste for MS grew
This is a natural progression. Inescapable.
Verily. Especially after working with heavily windows/MS environments for a decade and change. Intune makes my blood boil.
Linux is favored because the ecosystem is more open but you can also run it on low power devices which isn’t really the case with Windows (and getting worse over time) and it’s free with Windows, to be legal, you need to license the cores/VM. Now does anyone actually do that?! I wouldn’t think so.
Welcome sure, but few and far between. Check out JimsGarage on YouTube. He does a lot of windows selfhosting content
Most self-hosted solutions come as dockers, dockers are Linux only and on Windows they run under the WSL VM, so eventually (if you are not doing full installs) you are still using Linux
Well yeah but… Why would you? It’s unnecessarily making things hard on yourself for so many reasons.
My Linux computer is like a giant basket of free Legos and I can build whatever the hell I want easily
For learning. Most enterprises use windows servers. The IT job market is mostly windows server for entry / mid level jobs.
Even if you don’t use it day to day. Its great to understand how it works.
I would recommend at most ruining windows as the hypervisor then running Linux virtual machines. Maybe run a windows VM if you have a specific need.
This is mainly because Linux is much better “supported” for the majority of self hosted projects.
But you can of course do whatever you want.
I also recommend ruining windows
One step at a time, you will eventually move to GNU/Linux in the future if this new hobby persist. But there is nothing wrong with beginning using software and tools you are already familiar with. However you will probably have to use WSL (Linux inside Windows basically) to make things work and all guides you will find will mostly be based on Docker and/or Linux. So you will definitely use Linux on your Microslop owned machine.
If you don’t have the time to learn a new OS it’s fine, but it will not necessarly make things easier, especially on the long run. That’s my take on it.
My very first self-hosting homelab was a Linux Mint old refurbished desktop PC that I was remotely accessing through AnyDesk (I was a Windows kid user at that time). Now I’m on NixOS through SSH and still learning, I do not completely comfortable but I am able to use it and learn while doing so.
I would highly encourage you to try to run a lightweight beginer friendly Linux distro such as debian, Linux Mint XFCE or Kubuntu if you feel like you need a desktop environement and graphic user interfaces but if you really want to use that Microslop license you bought it’s fine, you will probably switch in the following months or years. Okay maybe not, some people are fine using it.
You can also take a look at stuff like runtipi, yunohost, CasaOS, ZimaOS, Umbrel, Cloudron and stuff like that. They aim to be beginner friendly self-hosting “OS” or “WebUI”.
Hey! I started running a home server on Windows 10. It was a great easy way to get started. The only problem for me that I found with time was that Windows updates would take everything that I was running offline, which was a nuisance to log back in and open everything up.
You may find you gradually move towards Linux :P
srvany
popekingjoe@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago My homelab is a mishmash of Windows and Linux machines. The primary game server is Windows and the rest others are Linux.
I was at this point for a while, believing gaming on Linux wasn’t up to par, until I discovered that Linux has a decent translation layer (Proton/Wine) that means even though the vast majority of Steam games are Windows only, Steam or other launchers like Heroic just run them in a container, and from my experience none of my games have had issues. This has only improved massively over the years.
popekingjoe@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago Oh don’t misunderstand. I run Linux on my personal machines. Arch on desktop and Cachy on laptop. My game server is only Windows because the Linux Palworld server software would just not recognize the server files from the Windows machine and I eventually just gave up trying to transfer. We are endgame and unless everyone decides to start a new server with 1.0, it’ll remain that way for the foreseeable future.
GatesMcBalmer@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago That’s so cool! Have you ever tried a BSD?
popekingjoe@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago I’ve experimented with OpenBSD in the past, but it was back when I was solely a Windows kid before embracing and clicking with Linux. It just never really meshed with me.
That’s just silly.
Self hosting is all about Digital Autonomy; that’s just not possible with a windows OS.
Apart from that it would just make your life harder, as the vast majority of documentation and tutorials and helper scripts are based on some linux like OS.
I self hosted windows for many years, mostly because that is what I used at work. I liked it because it hid some of the low level details and worked most of the time.
The thing that finally made me switch was the exorbitant cost of licenses and the need to run services on older hardware.
DM me if you want some keys. I have a few copies of win10 and winIOT laying around that I’m not going to use.
I’m not a windows hater per se, but I am for using the best tool for the job.
And in my opinion windows is not the best tool for self hosting. There are things windows does work well for that meshes well with self hosting and that’s docker. Honestly I’d focus on that for a lot of reasons but primarily because it’s a very easy to deploy self contained way to provide services. And the differences between docker on windows and Linux is almost negligible.
100% there is room for Windows self hosters. Welcome. May your self hosting be productive, secure and fun.
I self host on windows. It just happened to be what I had on the box. Then I got started with docker. So that was great. When I have the time, I hope to switch to unraid, but need the time to be open enough to deal with the problem that will arise in getting the system set up just right.
I started out self hosting with windows server 2012 because my school was a Microsoft and Cisco partner but mostly ran Linux VMs on it using hardware raid. Ran bitwarden, Plex and a wiki plus a VM with a bunch of docker containers. Ran that for about 3 years and now have been on Unraid for 6 or so years and loving it.
They better be! I’ve got a mix of proxmox running Windows and Linux machines, as well as a bare metal Windows machine for streaming gaming, as wells as Linux laptops to access all this.
… My only shame is using Windows server to host my DHCP server.
Yes, masochists are welcome.
neidu3@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Yup, there’s no kinkshaming here
surewhynotlem@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
So I’ve got this Solaris Sparc cluster…
That’s kinda the core of self-hosting, isn’t it? We are taking back digital sovereignty but giving our time and mental health to the Machine God.
Ibuthyr@lemmy.wtf 2 weeks ago
Meh, so far it has been a smooth ride for me. Though I’m using Unraid. Not ready for CLI-only.