TL:DR - have you used UmbralOS on a non-umbral device? Is it pretty straightforward? Reliable? Easy to use for a simple media server?

THE TL: SO my mini-pc's M.2 SSD shit the bed, and I'm essentially forced to rebuild my media server from backups, etc. I keep my actual media on USB external drives, and backup my configs/YAML regularly, so not the end of the world. I've put in a new SSD and ready to restart... but as they say, each problem is also an opportunity, and I'm considering switching the structure/interface of the server.

Instead of pure, headless CLI ubuntu server, I previously used CasaOS, as, at the time, I was new to hosting, and other users in my household are absolutely allergic to CLI and pretty much always will be. CasaOS is nice because the Debian CLI is there for me if I need it, but running on top is an "Okay" GUI that has familiar things like "apps" and folders with folder structures. Even though I'm much more experienced than I was, say, a year ago, I still think I'd rather not do "pure" CLI docker compose. I only need a couple, simple services, that are easier for other household members to interact with independently if it has a GUI. If you think there's a compelling reason I should change my mind on that, tell me why.

CasaOS over the past year ish has started to feel very much like abandonware, however, as they've moved to ZimaOS (which is waaay more than we need, I'm not running a RAID or trying to set up 20+self-hosted services...Does anyone have experience with UmbralOS (especially on NON-Umbral hardware, and with USB external HDD storage) It's for a simple media & file hosting experience via Jellyfin, primarily.

We're running an ARR stack, Jellyseer & Jellyfin with Nextcloud for photos & documents. My mini pc is a GEEKOM Air12 LITE which is not particularly beefy on specs... though I'm going to add another 8 gb of RAM to it when I upgrade. Any thoughts/advice are so greatly appreciated. Thank you!

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[–] 4 points 17 minutes ago

Try OpenMediaVault. It’s based on Debian and has an active community.

There is a YouTube channel TechnoDadLife which goes over setup.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 hour ago (2 children)

    @Profligate_parasite Sounds very promising but who is the company behind it and on which OS is umbrelOS based?

    Can't find any further Informations on their website.

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  • [–] 1 point 51 minutes ago

    I have always gone back to the same distribution when my SD card died, or I upgraded my pi setup. So I never have thought about changing distros, however when I found a 2014 Mac mini just hanging out on my desk without a second thought, I downloaded all my itunes purchased music and installed Debian. I thought hey why not, raspberry pi OS is a fork of Debian and I was cool with that. I installed it using the GUI but quickly realized running the GUI on it was pointless so uninstalled it.

    Why did I install Debian over Ubuntu? I don’t know maybe because it was one of if not the longest maintained version of Linux. It is still maintained even though Ian passed away so I feel confident that it will stay maintained well into the future, I do not know if Deb has/had anything to do with it.

    If you want to try something else to reach higher enlightenment may I suggest TempleOS, it may have internet access now but I do not know how the CLI is? If you want to screw with family members may I suggest Hana Montana or Bieber OS.

    Next week I will hopefully be getting a hand me down Mac mini because Apple is no longer supporting it I plan on installing Debian and using it as my Jellyfin set top box with Librewolf adguard and sponsor block for youtube.

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