So my experience has been mixed. I should note that I have always run some Linux systems (my pihole as an example), but I did, about 2 months ago, try to switch over my windows media sever to Linux mint.
(Long story short, I am still running the windows server)
I really, really, really liked Linux Mint, I should say at the outset. I wanted to install the same -arr stack I use, and self-host a few web apps that I use to provide convenience in my home. To be very fair to Linux Mint, I’ve been a windows user for 30+ years and I never knew how to auto-start python scripts in windows.
But, to be critical, I spent hours and hours fighting permission settings in every -arr app, Plex, Docker, any kind of virtual desktop software (none of which would run prior to logging in which made running headless impossible), getting scripts to auto-run at startup, compatibility with my mouse/keyboard and lack of a real VPN client from my provider without basically coding the damn thing myself.
After about a month and a half of trying to get it working, I popped over to my windows install to get the docker command that had somehow worked on that OS but not Linux and everything was just working. I am sorry I love Linux but I wanted to get back to actually coding things I wanted to code, not my fucking operating system.
I’ll go back to Linux because Windows is untenable but I’m going to actually have to actually set aside real project time to buckling down and figuring out the remaining “quirks”.
The “arr” stack is a very Windowsey. It’s built in C# and has some baked-in assumptions that mean running it in a container is a bit of a pain. But, I’ve been running it for years on Linux. My linux server boxes are all headless, and I’ve never needed a GUI for anything. I don’t use Plex though, so maybe it’s the difference?
I don’t know why you were trying to run virtual desktop software, or what that has to do with running the “arr” stack. But, of course, a virtual desktop is a GUI thing, so if you want a virtual desktop of course you’ll need some kind of GUI connection. Also, your talk about “getting scripts to auto-run at startup” makes me suspect you were approaching the problem in an usual way, because that’s not how you run services in Linux, and hasn’t been for decades.
If you ever want to try again, I recently migrated my personal kludged-together “arr” stack to the “Home Operations” method of running things. They run a bunch of apps in a local at-home kubernetes cluster using essentially “declarative operations” based on Flux. Basically, you have a git repo, you check in a set of files there describing which parts of the “arr” stack you want to run, and your system picks up those git changes and runs the apps. The documentation is terrible, but the people are friendly and happy to help.
Currently I have the parts of the “arr” stack I want, plus a few other apps, running on an old Mac Mini from 2014.
Oh, and for a VPN on Linux, I recommend gluetun. It’s one app that supports just about every major commercial VPN provider, and provides features like firewalling non-VPNed traffic, and re-connecting if something goes wrong.
There’s actually a good UI for managing permissions I eventually found in Mint, I think the main issues I’m having with it now are the lack of it running headless and unreliability with running my native scripts. I’ll try the Debian version though, that sounds intriguing. When y’all talk about distro hopping, how much re-setup are we talking?
So my experience has been mixed. I should note that I have always run some Linux systems (my pihole as an example), but I did, about 2 months ago, try to switch over my windows media sever to Linux mint.
(Long story short, I am still running the windows server)
I really, really, really liked Linux Mint, I should say at the outset. I wanted to install the same -arr stack I use, and self-host a few web apps that I use to provide convenience in my home. To be very fair to Linux Mint, I’ve been a windows user for 30+ years and I never knew how to auto-start python scripts in windows.
But, to be critical, I spent hours and hours fighting permission settings in every -arr app, Plex, Docker, any kind of virtual desktop software (none of which would run prior to logging in which made running headless impossible), getting scripts to auto-run at startup, compatibility with my mouse/keyboard and lack of a real VPN client from my provider without basically coding the damn thing myself.
After about a month and a half of trying to get it working, I popped over to my windows install to get the docker command that had somehow worked on that OS but not Linux and everything was just working. I am sorry I love Linux but I wanted to get back to actually coding things I wanted to code, not my fucking operating system.
I’ll go back to Linux because Windows is untenable but I’m going to actually have to actually set aside real project time to buckling down and figuring out the remaining “quirks”.
The “arr” stack is a very Windowsey. It’s built in C# and has some baked-in assumptions that mean running it in a container is a bit of a pain. But, I’ve been running it for years on Linux. My linux server boxes are all headless, and I’ve never needed a GUI for anything. I don’t use Plex though, so maybe it’s the difference?
I don’t know why you were trying to run virtual desktop software, or what that has to do with running the “arr” stack. But, of course, a virtual desktop is a GUI thing, so if you want a virtual desktop of course you’ll need some kind of GUI connection. Also, your talk about “getting scripts to auto-run at startup” makes me suspect you were approaching the problem in an usual way, because that’s not how you run services in Linux, and hasn’t been for decades.
If you ever want to try again, I recently migrated my personal kludged-together “arr” stack to the “Home Operations” method of running things. They run a bunch of apps in a local at-home kubernetes cluster using essentially “declarative operations” based on Flux. Basically, you have a git repo, you check in a set of files there describing which parts of the “arr” stack you want to run, and your system picks up those git changes and runs the apps. The documentation is terrible, but the people are friendly and happy to help.
Currently I have the parts of the “arr” stack I want, plus a few other apps, running on an old Mac Mini from 2014.
Oh, and for a VPN on Linux, I recommend gluetun. It’s one app that supports just about every major commercial VPN provider, and provides features like firewalling non-VPNed traffic, and re-connecting if something goes wrong.
If you do try again try lmde (Linux mint Debian edition) you should have less issues Ubuntu has weird permission issues that I’ve ran into before
There’s actually a good UI for managing permissions I eventually found in Mint, I think the main issues I’m having with it now are the lack of it running headless and unreliability with running my native scripts. I’ll try the Debian version though, that sounds intriguing. When y’all talk about distro hopping, how much re-setup are we talking?