Show HN: I've built a nice home server OS

(lightwhale.asklandd.dk)

31 points | by Zta77 2 hours ago

8 comments

  • happyopossum 1 hour ago
    As long as there is software, you cannot shortcut the need for maintenance. Nothing is bug free, and telling people they will never need to upgrade/patch/maintain a system is a well-paved path to compromised systems.
    • 8fingerlouie 36 minutes ago
      I've been telling people this for years. Yes, you can self host, but you'll end up with a SLA on your spare time as well as you working hours.

      I've long since thrown everything with a user count > 1 out.

  • coreyburnsdev 9 minutes ago
    can't imagine a world in which I'd download a little known distro to put on my home network and use as a server. also, doesn't fedora already have something like this already?
  • darknavi 46 minutes ago
    I'm a novice in this space I think. I've self-hosted for over a decade and around 2019 I moved over to Unraid, which is generally pretty visual (web portal or configuring and doing maintenance). I find the web portal very easy. How does one interact with your home server OS? I assume it's all via terminal because there are no pictures on the website?
  • 9dev 1 hour ago
    I like the idea of something like this for swarm mode clusters; not sure if you’re focused on the home server aspect exclusively, but I’ll be following along.

    Kudos to the great project!

    • Zta77 1 hour ago
      Thanks! I'm only announcing it for home servers because that's where most people are willing to try it out. But Lightwhale is already running in production, and it makes an excellent Swarm cluster.
  • dandano 1 hour ago
    So I’ve just set up my home server with Ubuntu server, installed docker with one line and I’m off to the races. What’s different/ exactly the value prop of this? You mention maintenance, of what exactly? Is your server a slimmed down version to run on less powerful hardware? Genuinely curious as I’m new to setting up a home server so seeing how this would benefit me.
    • zackify 1 hour ago
      I do the same thing. Being immutable is supposed to be great for updates. New image version and if there's a problem you can boot back to the last version no problem.

      But functionally, like you I find Ubuntu server fine. I run apt update and upgrade a couple times a year and its local only with tailscale access.

      I find these immutable OS's really nice on laptop or desktop. The home directory is the only thing that can be written to so the OS is supposed to be more stable and can't break easily

  • nikolay 39 minutes ago
    This is a Linux distro, not an OS!
  • logic-designer 39 minutes ago
    did you say anywhere what package manager it uses (couldnt find that info on the website)
    • gardnr 13 minutes ago
      Looks like it may not have a package manager like apt or dnf:

      > Can you please add wget, nano, $my_fav_app_omg_i_love_it to the root filesystem?

      > No, not likely.

      I am guessing the way to use software not already in the image is to use `docker run`.