A couple of weeks ago I spat the dummy with windows and shifted to Linux. I think I am now ready to drink the coolaid.

What I have available currently is an ISP router and a decade-old gaming PC with a failing hdd that used to host games. I also have some budget to spare so that I can set things up nicely or in a way that I can add on it in the future.

Here are my goals are in order:

  1. Proper onsite and maybe offsite backups - my migration to Linux illustrated gaps and I expect in the future I will run VMs that should be backed up
  2. Home security cameras (Which I don’t own yet)
  3. Replacing something like onedrive. I expect this will be NextCloud
  4. Yarr. Sonarr/radarr/jellyfin
  5. Hosting game servers
  6. Block adverts and maintaining privacy
  7. Improve the latency of my steam link to my TV via chromecast
  8. Hosting webscraping and analysis of data off some local websites
  9. Maybe set up some some smart home automation things
  10. I’d like to get solar power and monitor how the whole setup is doing.
  11. Self host my bit warden
  12. I dunno, backup Wikipedia or something. Give me ideas

So where would you recommend I start off with hardware? Simply replace the old pc hdd or look to having a NAS? A better router to handle VLAN? Go all in with Ubiquiti products which I have heard mixed things about? About the only thing I know is that a UPS would be a waste for an aspiring enthusiast like myself.

Any advice or pointing me at wikis or other resources would be greatly appreciated.

  • deltapi@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    1 day ago

    For basic hosting of stuff+storage management, TrueNAS has a highly polished product that lets you install docker containers with ease.

    They have a curated collection that includes every piece of software you mentioned, plus the ability to install dockerhub images as ‘custom’ images.

    Originally I started with a single Pentium 4 with 4x1.5TB disks, and it’s grown over time. Now at home I have 2 TrueNAS machines giving me 80TB of storage, and 3 HP elitedesk Minis running proxmox for general VMs.
    I also have a managed switch, which lets me pipe the raw Internet into it, and deliver it to the proxmox hosts so I can run a virtual router with high-availability.

    OpenZFS, which TrueNAS uses as its primary storage filesystem, has recently gained the ability to increase existing disk arrays by adding additional disks (as opposed to replacing all disks with larger ones) and this makes it even more flexible for future growth.

    I will say though, that if the machine is dated and you load up ‘all the things’ in it, you might not be impressed by performance, so be sure to manage your expectations.

    I also suggest that you consider making yourself a roadmap, so that you can plan out what hardware you’ll need to implement the ‘next big thing’

    Also - the steamlink you mentioned - I’m not sure what you’re chasing there exactly, but if your steam rig is already in your home, the only thing you can do to improve latency is provide Ethernet to both the streaming sender and receiver.

    Good luck!