I am trying to use my old laptops for self-hosting. One has a 6th gen Intel Core i3 (4GB ram), the other has an 11th gen Intel Core i5 (8GB ram). I have previously tried both ubuntu server and desktop but couldn’t get it to work well. For the former I found it difficult to remote ssh and the latter I had difficulty installing Docker containers. (I’m not very good with the command line)
I would like to find an OS that is easier to setup with less of a neccesity for the command line (I would still like to learn how to use it though, I don’t want to get rid of it entirely!). I’ve heard of CasaOS, is that a good option? It seems quite easy to use. What about other alternatives?
YUNOhost is designed for this. You can do almost everything graphically via the webadmin. Mine has been running for a couple of years and I’m very happy with it. I have email, XMPP (both of which were installed out of the box), a website, file sharing and a few other things. There are a tonne of apps available, including Fediverse instances, Nextcloud. It’s a very cool thing to have available for making self-hosting more accessible.
Early on sometime, I deployed Yunohost. At the time there were apps, but the catalog was sparse. I happened upon it again in a search for something else about a week or so ago. Wow! The devs have been really developing it at a cyclical rate. I was impressed. For someone just starting out and trying to get their toes wet, I could see Yunohost being a good starting point.