I’ve never tried the Proxmox over Debian method, I just know it is an officially supported install method. Good on you for getting that far though!

A hale storm earlier this year and the power outage it caused created some bizarre issue with my home server I have yet to diagnose. All of my containers and VMs corrupted in some way, so I had to restore from backup, but my file server container has some sort of permissions issue on top of that.

Honestly the brownout before the outage is almost definitely what did it, but the cost of a UPS that also protects against brownouts is well outside of my usual hobby budget so it’s hard to justify on ewaste hardware that I got a pallet of for less than what the UPS would cost used

Realistically, comfort comes from experience. The more you use it the more you’ll feel comfortable.

If you want to get a lot of exposure without dedicating too much time to it and limit the risk, I would say, spin up a Debian VM and try to configure it into the server you want the old school way. Setup ssh keys, raid pool and samba share all via ssh. Try to do it like you’re actually deploying it. This will give you real world exposure to the command line and the commands you’d run. Next maintain that server like it’s production, ssh in every couple of weeks to run updates and reboot. Just that muscle memory of logging in and reviewing updates will help you feel more comfortable. Do it again with another service (a VPN server would be an easy choice, a Minecraft server is also a fun one but requires a lot more memory. DNS would be good if you’re feeling brave, but that’s really just because DNS architecture is more complex than most realize) and maintain those servers too

Once you’ve setup a couple of servers and spent a couple of months monitoring and updating them your comfort level should be much higher and you might feel ready to setup some actually home production servers on Debian or the like.

You mentioned running Trunas and wanting to learn Debian and other FLOSS software, the easy button answer is to run Proxmox. Its free and open source with paid enterprise support plans available and has been rapidly improving just in the handful of years I’ve been running it. Proxmox is really just a modified version of Debian. They have some tweaks and custom kernels over stock Debian but impressively actually have a supported install method of installing overtop of an existing Debian install and apparently some Proxmox employees actually run it as their workstation operating system

With an uptime of greater than 5 years I’m going to be concerned about the system potentially not coming back up after a reboot/power outage, especially for physical hardware

At a bank I worked at, we had an old IBM Power server which was at that point purely used for historical data. It had multiple years of uptime and was of course a good 10+ years old. When we went to take it offline, we actually just disabled the nic on the switch so we could reduce the number of powercycles it would see in fear that it would not power on anymore. Theoretically the data on it is purely historical, backed up and not needed, but there was enough question marks on each of those fronts we just played it safe

So honest question, what is everyone’s hopes with the increase in Linux desktop use?

Like when I think about it the only thing I really care about is that I have decent hardware/driver support and holdouts for anti-cheat give up on requiring other operating systems (mostly so that my wife and eldest child stop complaining that I can’t play Fortnite with them) as well as other random stuff that flat-out blocks use with Linux and requires either extra configuration or to keep a spare computer around with Windows.

Basically I hope that Linux can be where MacOS was about a decade ago, a second platform that vendors are aware of and will put in some amount of effort in to support (and will be clear about limitations/lack of support otherwise) and it won’t be as weird to employers or schools if you have a preference for the platform

Is it really “running natively” if it requires running through a translation layer? WINE is not an emulator, but it also isn’t a native runtime library with a stable API, it’s a translation layer translating a reverse engineered, unstable third party’s API

But that’s always a good sign that you’ve dug into the part that actually still works consistently! Once you pop some Windows 2000 era UI you know you’ve struck gold and need to note the path for next time (until Microsoft rearranges their settings for the 5th time this year of course)

Would a safety deposit box at a bank be an appropriate option for your off-site backups?

They actually already do that. Many schools will have dedicated exam rooms setup (some are even certified by Pearson) where you empty your pockets before entering, cameras are trained on you while you take the test, recorded for future review if needed, the computer is configured to be locked down to only the test site and there’s a test proctor actively monitoring as well.

Honestly just give me a printed packet in a classroom with a teacher watching the test takers any day

Except it has gotten that bad and worse I’ve seen other articles detailing similar ransoms and physical beatings to steal folks cryptocurrencies

What happened to all of your 'th’s? Something with a localized keyboard?

The funkiest part here is a lot of big tech keeps acting more and more like an abusive partner.

Gaslights you regarding your desires and choices, tries to get you to stop using any other service so you only use theirs, demands increasing amounts of ad views/dollars in exchange for decreasing quality of service, makes it intentionally difficult to leave etc.

So while comparing the choice to not install a new OS on your computer to an abusive relationship is weird, there’s also some parralels that are getting even weirder

From my MSP and corporate experience it definitely depends on the organization for how viable migrating some users to Linux might be.

I’ve seen some organizations that could be migrated tomorrow if the political will was there, and I’ve seen some organizations where all but 5 of the computer users are running CAD software and interfacing with architectural plotters.

Realistically it all relies on the political will to try something new. With the digital sovereignty push in Europe there’s suddenly a ton of political will to try something new and not just buy whatever Microsoft is selling like many orgs have done for the last nearly 3 decades. It’s also convenient that Microsoft is trying to say tons of perfectly capable machines are ewaste so there’s significant cost savings available to these orgs by switching if they have enough older machines in use still

Who’s holding a gun to your head and forcing you to play games with anticheat?!

Now you’re expecting both an operating system and lifestyle change of people. Are you hearing yourself?

Depends on the organization. During my time at an MSP I saw plenty of orgs that could be switched to Linux tomorrow if the desire arose because everything happens in a web browser, but I also saw orgs where virtually every computer user was using different verieties of CAD so compatibility with both CAD and their fancy architectural plotters was business critical

The important part in business is to not alienate that one power user who does insane Excel magic and singlehandedly keeps the entire company afloat. There’s always one or two of them in any company over a given size

The web version of MS Office is similar enough that for 95% of users it’s no different, but for the other 5% they rely on functionality that hasn’t been ported yet

That said I do think more corporations should be considering Linux as an option for some of their systems. Too many admins insist on installing Windows on everything, refuse to learn Linux and then in the next breath bitch and moan about Microsoft making their lives miserable

They’re out and about. Whereas there’s an undeniable mass of socially inept users that streaming specifically caters to.

Funnily enough this goes both ways. At the first streamer awards there were a lot of jokes about how many of the streamers attending needed a shower and a good number of them showed up in the same clothing they stream in, which is not really appropriate for a publicly broadcast award ceremony

Hey that’s me! I’m one of those 5k new installs!

I ran a mix of Xubuntu and Linux Mint full time for a few years but switched back to Windows just a few weeks before Valve started releasing the crazy updates to proton in the lead up to the Steam Deck launch. I have one laptop which still has the same Linux Mint install that I did a few years ago too! But I ultimately switched back because a couple of games I enjoy were either a royal pain on Linux or did not work at all, plus I’d tinkered with my installs to death so they all had some wild issues that I never could pin down.

Decided with the Windows 10 EOL date that I’d try out Bazzite and see if I liked it, and honestly I expected to have found a blocker by now but everything I keep trying keeps working flawlessly, and I even got a couple of 25 year old games that don’t even work on Windows working flawlessly on Linux with just a couple of toggle switches in Proton

start taking apart things that are no longer necessary to build the things that are

Hey finally a good use for all of those cars, grab the alternators out for small generators (since bicycles are the ultimate apocalypse vehicle: simple, small, easy to maintain and don’t require complex fuels)

Nah I think Ubuntu is more Mormon than anything. It’s heavily influenced by other branches like Protestant and Catholic but also spends a bunch of time going and doing it’s own thing that everyone else agrees is weird and different and probably wrong