i think that would be called remote hosting or cloud hosting? self-hosting is where you host the services your self, without third party hardware or systems.

I don't use a bootloader anymore. I was using systemd-boot for a while, but switched to just use efi stub a couple of years ago. I just use the efi boot menu if I need to use a different partition to boot from, otherwise my system just bits immediately and skips the bootloader step.

i hate using it to, but only because i am comfortable with the freedom linux provides. the majority of people using a windows machine would melt at the first sight of trying to use linux and have no motivation or inclination to learn or use it, and why should they? if windows is a sufficient tool for their use case, then good. the os is just a tool to interact with the machine, and as long as the user gets what they want out of it, then the tool is correct.

exactly this! notes in the config files is all the documentation i need. and scripting and automating is so important to a self running and self healing server.

Non, I use Linux purely at home. Have no way to use it in the heavily regulated world I work which is very corporate and very locked down windows where I cant even access CMD or pin things to the taskbar.

But at home I run Debian and raspberry pi os on my 2 servers, and arch Linux on my desktop, and Debian with retropie and cinnamon on my laptop.

I have no interest in distro wars, no distro is better than any other, they just all cater to different subset of people and users. I don't even believe Linux is superior to any other os. I love Linux, and it is perfect for me, but I would never advise my wife to try it, as it offers nothing she would benefit from over her current use of windows.

And I develop and maintain a package in the aur, but it is minimal, and I have published on GitHub a couple of apps, but I would not describe myself as a developer or maintainer, as they are just tiny personal fun projects.

And finally I am a huge proponent of foss and anti big tech where I can be. I believe I currently have all the benefit of the android ecosystem without using it at all. As in everything is backed up and synced to the cloud, but I own my cloud. Everything except Lemmy and email I self host. Calender, contacts, files, photos, music, DNS, search, pdf editor, notes... That's all I can think of for now.

It depends what your long term goals are. If it's just to run those services as simply as possible, then just run them in docker on windows. If you want to learn Linux, then setup you other hardware and install a server distro. Ubuntu is fine, but I use Debian.

Then once you get used to Linux, one day you could migrate your Plex server to Linux and remove windows from your main server.

I don't think the issue is listening to music, but installing potentially dodgy software that could bring a virus into the corporate network. Hence most businesses handling sensitive information try to protect their systems and networks by preventing unauthorised installation of software.

🤮 I hate gui config! Way too much hassle. Give me cli and a config file anyday! I love being able to just ssh into my server anytime from anywhere and fix, modify or install and setup something.

The key to not being overwhelmed is manageable deployment. Only setup one service at a time, get it working, safe and reliable before switching to actually using full time, then once certain it's solid, implement the next tool or deployment.

My servers have almost no breakages or issues. They run 24/7/365 and are solid and reliable. Only time anything breaks is either an update or new service deployment, but they are just user error by me and not the servers fault.

Although I don't work in IT so maybe the small bits of maintenance I actually do feel less to me?

I have 26 containers running, plus a fair few bare metal services. Plus I do a bit of software dev as a hobby.

I have currently got 23 on my n97 mini pc and 3 on my raspberry pi 4, making 26 in total.

I have no issues managing these. I use docker compose for everything and have about 10 compose.yml files for the 23 containers.

The biggest issue you will find is getting gtk and qt apps to look, feel and integrate together. There is nothing wrong with mixing and matching, it can just get a bit complicated. Lots of people don't even use a de, and just build their own gui with a compositor or window manager, plus all the tools and apps they want to include to make it functional. I haven't used a de in over a decade on my main desktop.

The pi 1, 2 and zero all run on 1.5a power supplies perfectly fine. I have 2 running 24/7/365. So max power is 15w. They don't draw anywhere near that when idle, but mine are rarely idle.

For me I really want to move over to a Linux phone in the next few years. My current phone doesn't support any custom ROMs and I'm not willing to risk a gsi build or similar to get lineage working. I think my current Motorola edge 40 neo will last me another 2 years maybe, but once it starts showing signs of death, I will be buying something either pre-installed with Linux or offers a straight forward enough path to flash Linux of some sort. I am happy with a clean experience with a solid web browser and no other apps. As another option, being able to install android apps would be good, but I don't want that if it compromises the os.