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Self-Host and Tech Independence: The Joy of Building Your Own

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Re: Self-Host and Tech Independence: The Joy of Building Your Own

#211

Post by dd_xplore »

Abishek_Muthian wrote: post #210
kassner wrote: post #73

Warning: shameless plug ahead Self-hosting doesn’t mean you have to buy hardware. After a few years, low-end machines are borderline unusable with Windows, but they are still plenty strong for a Linux server. It’s quite likely you or a friend has an old laptop laying around, which can be repurposed. I’ve done this with an i3 from 2011 [1] for two users, and in 2025 I have no signs that I need an upgrade. Laptops are…

> I recommend everyone to remove the battery before using it plugged 24x7 I agree but not all laptops can run without battery being plugged in. I use a Acer E5 575 as a home-lab and it can’t run without battery being plugged in, but interestingly the laptop has decided to bypass the battery completely after it died. Operating Systems detect no battery but its there and without it the laptop won’t boot.

There would be some sort of internal ‘switch’ that can be bypassed I believe

Re: Self-Host and Tech Independence: The Joy of Building Your Own

#212

Post by esskay »

briHass wrote: post #140

I highly recommend anyone going this route to use Proxmox as your base install on the (old) hardware, and then use individual LXCs/VMs for the services you run. Maybe it's just me, but I find LXCs to be much easier to manage and reason about than Docker containers, and the excellent collection of scripts maintained by the community: https://community-scripts.github.io/ProxmoxVE/scripts makes it just as easy as a Dock…

I think it depends on the usecase (and budget) as to what's 'best' really. I've got Proxmox running on a couple of servers and it's great.

But I also run Unraid on the main NAS server purely for its ZFS drive setup. Being able to throw in a bunch of drives of various sizes and brands on a home machine is pretty valuable and saves a huge amount of money.

Re: Self-Host and Tech Independence: The Joy of Building Your Own

#213

Post by dd_xplore »

motorest wrote: post #89
kassner wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My laptop from 2011 idles at 8W, with two SATA SSDs. I have an Intel 10th-gen mini PC that idles at 5W with one SSD. 3W is not groundbreaking, but for a computer you paid $0, it would take many years to offset the $180 paid on a mini PC.

> My laptop from 2011 idles at 8W, with two SATA SSDs. some benchmarks show the Raspberry Pi 4 idling below 3W and consuming a tad over 6W under sustained high load. Power consumption is not an argument that's in favor of old laptops.

RPi is amazing for IOT tasks cuz it’s pretty portable but not for running general purpose server tasks, you’d get better performance per watt with used gear

Re: Self-Host and Tech Independence: The Joy of Building Your Own

#214

Post by internet101010 »

briHass wrote: post #140

I highly recommend anyone going this route to use Proxmox as your base install on the (old) hardware, and then use individual LXCs/VMs for the services you run. Maybe it's just me, but I find LXCs to be much easier to manage and reason about than Docker containers, and the excellent collection of scripts maintained by the community: https://community-scripts.github.io/ProxmoxVE/scripts makes it just as easy as a Dock…

Yep my entire set up is based on Proxmox VE and Proxmox Backup Server. Even my gaming PC is Proxmox with GPU being passed through to a VM. Couldn't be happier.

Re: Self-Host and Tech Independence: The Joy of Building Your Own

#215

Post by dd_xplore »

movedx wrote: post #107
motorest wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's your problem. Docker adds indirection on storage, networking, etc., and also makes upgrades difficult as you have to either rebuild the container, or rely on others to do so to get security and other updates. None of your points make any sense. Docker works beautifully well as an abstraction layer. It makes trivially simple to upgrade anything and everything running on it, to the point you do not even consi…

Absolutely everything they said makes sense. Everything you're saying is complete overkill, even in most Enterprise environments. We're talking about a home server here for hosting eBooks and paperless documents, and you're implying Kubernetes clusters are easy enough to run and so are a good solution here. Madness. > I have news for you. I have news for _you_: using Docker to run anything that doesn't need it (i.e.…

I self host: Jellyfin qbit Authentik Budibase Pihole Nginx proxy manager Immich Jupyter ….. The list goes on, these software have tons of dependencies, installing everything on a single OS would break them! Containers are godsend for self hosting and for anyone deploying many tools at a time!

Re: Self-Host and Tech Independence: The Joy of Building Your Own

#217

Post by kassner »

Infernal wrote: post #199
kassner wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I bet Framework laptops would take this dynamic into overdrive It’s in my (long-term) TODO list to build my own enclosure for a Framework motherboard, to make a portable server to carry around during long trips. Something compact that carries the punch of an i7. One day…

Similar to this? https://frame.work/products/cooler-master-mainboard-case

Yes, but custom to my needs (disks and connections).

Re: Self-Host and Tech Independence: The Joy of Building Your Own

#219

Post by sylens »

klabb3 wrote: post #46

I propose a slightly different boundary: not ”to self-host” but ”ability to self-host”. It simply means that you can if you want to, but you can let someone else host it. This is a lot more inclusive, both to those who are less technical and those who are willing to pay for it. People who don’t care, ”I’ll just pay”, are especially affected, and the ones who should care the most. Why? Because today, businesses are mo…

This is why I like what Ente Photos offers. Pay for them today but you can self host using their software so it is a really nice exit path if you need one.

Re: Self-Host and Tech Independence: The Joy of Building Your Own

#220

Post by robertlagrant »

movedx wrote: post #107
motorest wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's your problem. Docker adds indirection on storage, networking, etc., and also makes upgrades difficult as you have to either rebuild the container, or rely on others to do so to get security and other updates. None of your points make any sense. Docker works beautifully well as an abstraction layer. It makes trivially simple to upgrade anything and everything running on it, to the point you do not even consi…

Absolutely everything they said makes sense. Everything you're saying is complete overkill, even in most Enterprise environments. We're talking about a home server here for hosting eBooks and paperless documents, and you're implying Kubernetes clusters are easy enough to run and so are a good solution here. Madness. > I have news for you. I have news for _you_: using Docker to run anything that doesn't need it (i.e.…

> We're talking about a home server here for hosting eBooks and paperless documents, and you're implying Kubernetes clusters are easy enough to run and so are a good solution here

It's pretty simple these days I think to run k3s or something similar and then deploy stuff how you like via a yaml file. I'll agree though if you need services to share filesystem for some reason it gets more complicated with storage mounts.

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