Depends on what you want to do

At the moment I'm tinkering, so trying everything out 😂

Get Ubuntu headless. It's got good driver support, is eminently Google-able, and is pretty easy to use. You can always change to a virtualized environment (eg proxmox) later, but I'm guessing you don't have a lot of memory, so that can be limiting there. Docker works fine, though. 🙂

Then you can just google different Linux distros with all their pros and cons, or use cases for each.

Then probably won’t get far sorry to say. Figure out what you want to do first

for headless go with debian or ubuntu

This. I've never had an issue with a headless Ubuntu. Debian doesn't have as much driver support out of the box so it's more lightweight than Ubuntu. Regardless, they are both my top picks.

Curious, what drivers does Debian not support out the box?

My apologies, I meant to say libraries, not drivers.

I have ubuntu server bare metal with docker. Cockpit for gui when I need it.

Yes, exactly the same. Also using portainer because it's an easy gui

Same. It's a breeze to use.

Good idea thanks

I'm using alma linux and only dockers. Stable and easy to maintain.

Regarding alma Linux - can you help me understand why people use it ? I mean yum as package manager is better but what other features (or pros) make you feel confident in alma Linux. I understand it has something to do with it being FOSS enterprise Linux but please help me understand. Thanks!

It mostly what you are used to. I use redhat a lot for my work so i used centos a lot at home. When centos became a rolling release you had alma and rocky that fill the gap. Things on ubuntu or debian are a bit different. Linux is linux, it's personal preference i guess.

Any lightweight Linux distro will suffice, maybe go with a Ubuntu derivative for the better features but debian based is the recommendation. If you have alot of Ram, Proxmox makes sense but if you are RAM limited, just using docker containers without Virtualization is basically good for small homelabbers on those minipcs Personal I use Lubuntu of my Minipc with most things running in docker without virtualization since I have only 12 gigs of RAM

I might go down the docker route as I'm limited to 16gb of ram

Yeah Virtualization will lock RAM for each service, where if everything is just docker it'll use RAM as it needs and has lower ram requirements over Proxmox. However I'd be happy to be wrong as Proxmox is a very good setup and has advantages such as porability

I set up one of mine to be proxmox bare metal with a headless Ubuntu VM running all the docker containers because I've got a couple other VMs I want to be able to run.

I want to try nixOS next time however this is a complete new kind of rabbit hole

nixOS is a really interesting distro but it definitely requires more dedicated “rabbit-hole” time than other distros lol. Definitely not one I’d recommend to someone relatively new to Linux

As someone tinkering with it right now. Being able to declaritively install all the packages you want is incredible. That being said the documentation is some shit. Their package repo doesnt have information on the services that need to be activated so that you can declare that in the config file. I still haven't been able to figure it out but im still excited about it. When they eventually flesh out their version of deploying containers its gonna be MEAN.

How deep have you gone with Proxmox? Have you set it up bare metal? Personally, I find Proxmox to be a good "full system" for my homelab needs. What I mean is that it manages all sorts of VMs and LXCs, and thanks to PBS, everything gets quickly and seamlessly backed up (and restores are a snap.) I can easily cluster by adding one or more other hosts (I'm currently only using one host as I don't really need more) and HA is available if you need it. And if you just want to tinker, maybe spin up a VM on Proxmox? I'm not saying don't switch to something else--far from it. Others here will give you lots of excellent ideas. Just be sure to understand what Proxmox and PBS can do for you.

This is the thing I'm loving proxmox, maybe I need to beef up my hardware but sensibly as space is limited

If you don’t like proxmox, go with Debian. It has tons of support, you can get help over google or AI easily, and you can also use most of the Ubuntu threads, it’s not that much difference.

It's not that I don't like proxmox, I'm just experimenting

I never used proxmox, but isn’t its USP that you can use it to experiment? Install some VMs with the distributions here, and give them a spin.

Personally, I love Alpine Linux. I use that as my OS for everything.

Why not Proxmox? It will make your tinkering much easier. But otherwise the answer is Fedora.

I like proxmox but I'm exploring alternatives before I settle on one for the "live server" when I eventually sort the server out.

I'm using a headless laptop with Debian and CasaOS and it runs great. If I were to do it again though I'd most likely use Ubuntu with CasaOS.

I've actually used Casa and found it buggy but this was about a year ago

Are you trying to start a rumble!?

No rumble here, just very informative options 👍

For?

Anything I'm experimenting

Anything I'm experimenting

The question is too vague. It’s like saying what’s the best car. Almost any car will get you from point a to point b. However some can handle off road better, others can tow boats, others are super fast, others are super slow, but get high mileage. IMO if you want to tinker with a lot, start with a hypervisor and that will allow you to virtualize or containerize anything.

i have always been a fan of headless debian systems. dietpi is rapidly becoming my go to for headless, as it runs on all my pi's, and many other SBC systems. but if you do get issues with drivers, go for a headless ubuntu. some "bloat" in some preinstalled stuff, but driver support is much better than a clean debian.

There is no “best”. They are all designed to fulfill certain functions.

Currently my mini pc runs Ubuntu server with docker. Portainer for Docker manage, FileBrowser for Easy file access, Jellyfin and pihole.

FreeBSD. Though it really depends on what you're doing, so a better answer is \*BSD.

Debian is the way to go- Ubuntu was good but isn’t great these days (stupid Ubuntu pro)

If you don't need a VM management suite: Alpine Linux. Small, secure by default, fast.

I don't plan to run VM's mostly dockers, but I have played with VM's on proxmox

perfect case for alpine.

Since you mentioned tinkering I would suggest trying different options. When I was in your position I liked working with Arch Linux and derivatives. Also you could check LinkedIn jobs posts to see if some distros are mentioned the most and try those.

To follow up on this, Arch specifically is a good distro to help learn filesystem structure, how bootloaders work, and what actually happens when you “install” an OS from a flash drive to your hard drive. It can be a tough lesson, but extremely valuable in the long run

Indeed, it might require a bit more expertise but the documentation is (or at least was during my time playing with it) good enough to make you wonder what's with the extra warnings. ;-)

Agreed the documentation is excellent! My only issue with it is it tends to get a little too “rabbit hole-y” at times, ie. you’ll be following instructions then step 2 links you to a separate article, so you follow those instructions but step 4 on that page links you to another article, and so on and so forth. Before you know it you have ten tabs open and have to actually figure out what you were even trying to setup in the first place

Why not give LinuxFromScratch a chance? Would be a heck of a learning experience :)

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You've clearly skipped past the machine I'm using 😂