The water drains the other way

Personally I’d say if you’re coming from a Mac, go Pop!_OS. If you’re coming from Windows, go Linux mint. Both have the option to run from a USB to test before installing.

I’ve been running Pop!_OS for a few years now on my laptop and about a year on my gaming PC. I’ve been very happy with it. Even microsoft Flight Simulator works perfectly. I’ve built a win 10 VM in virtual box for the few pieces of software I can’t get going on Linux (old garmin GPS software and some ham radio programming software).

I’m using a Jellyfin server with Symonium on android. It’s almost as good as plexamp, but sadly not available on other platforms. Symfonium will work with any media player that uses subsonic. My current jellyfin implementation is http with a VPN for external use.

game developers and publishers are hesitant to enable Linux compatibility,

And I am hesitant to spend money on their games.

I’m running the recognize app on nextcloud which I think requires at least 4-5 GB RAM, so I have 6 dedicated to that VM. I’m pretty sure the recommendation for Ubuntu in general was 2 GB RAM so I gave my pihole half that. Home assistant wanted 4 GB, but I gave it 2. I think my Jellyfin server has like 6 and I have another VM with like 4. So that’s a total of like 19gb RAM provisioned. Plus I have a 2 TB zfs pool for my nextcloud VM. When I go into proxmox it tells me I’m using like 29.5 GB.

I suspect if someone was using docker or some other sort of containerization one could expect better performance than what I am getting with VMs.

I recently upgraded my homelab/self-hosting server from an old Dell T410 with dual X5650’s (2 - 6 core/12 thread CPU) and 24 GB ram to an old Dell Optiplex (7020 I think) with an i5-4590 (4 core/4 thread) and 32 GB ram. Its barely enough for a proxmox host with 5 VMs; but way faster than the old T410.

If you are offering some sort of self-hosting box, would it be bundled with some sort of software for someone to easily spin up whatever services they want?

Are you going to be able to make money at the $150 mark with all this hardware and configuration? If you are targeting people who are new to self-hosting, it will need to be a complete package (will need to have ram and storage installed).

I’m currently hosting like 5 vms on a proxmox host (mostly ubuntu vms- pihole, nextcloud, home assistant, etc), which is an i5 4590 with 32 gb ram and I’m running up against the limits of how much ram I can provision and if 2 or more of my vms are doing something intensive at the same time I’m pinning the CPU. I don’t think my use-case is that crazy for someone doing a little self-hosting.

Dual Core ARM Cortex-A7 processor running at 1GHz

1GB DDR3 RAM memory

Doesn’t seem like you could self-host a whole lot with that…

I admire the thought of lowering the barrier to entry to start self-hosting for “normies”. Not sure where you are located, but where I am, this price point is not realistic even for used equipment, not including RAM or storage. I’m not really sure what value add you are bringing to the table that one wouldn’t get from just buying used hardware from an office surplus and if one is very inexperienced in self-hostong, looking into something like LTT is partnered with like Hexos.

OP did not specify what services they were using. I assumed if they were interested in tinkering with this sort of thing, they probably host something like Plex or jellyfin.

Honestly I’d start looking for ssf/tiny PCs being sold off by local businesses. I’d be putting some sort of Linux distro on it. I’ve been meaning to check out a few projects like KDE Big Screen and others. Unless there is some sort of killer Android app you can’t live without.

What is jellystat?

Plus one for the gli.net router. I’ve got the Beryl AX and it’s great. Ended up going with a wireguard VPN rather than tailscale, but either would work.

Pepperridge farms remembers

KDE bigscreen looks perfect for me. I know I have heard of it before but I will need to look a bit more in depth at it.

All I want is Roku, but FOSS, without the ads and tracking.