I’ve been getting more into self hosting lately, grabbed an optiplex 3050 for everything and I’m running Mint currently. Looking more into things though, I saw Debian come up as a more barebones distro and now I’m wondering if there is a lot of benefit to going more barebones. I’m not having any issues with my current setup but now I can’t stop thinking about it. I am newer to Linux but having to learn new things doesn’t wig me out much if there is a lot more involvement with Debian

Edit: I appreciate the responses. I do see where I could just end up creating problems that don’t exist by experimenting with it more. Debian does sound enticing so it’s definitely something I’ll mess about with virtually for now and see how I like it in comparison. But I definitely have to agree on the “don’t mess with a good thing” if it’s working for me. All your answers have definitely given me something to play with now as well, I want the problems to solve but doing it in a separate environment would suit me better to learn a few things. This community rocks.

  • circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    4·
    3 hours ago

    I’m running Mint currently

    I’m wondering if there is a lot of benefit to going more barebones

    Not really. On the scale at which homelabs operate, I doubt you’ll see any difference at all – except what might be the significant time sink to set everything up again.

    I’m not having any issues with my current setup

    I’d put this firmly in the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” category. Mint is already a distro which is ultimately a Debian derivative. It operates more like Debian as opposed to, say, Fedora or Arch. While it can be enticing to explore the many options of Linux, the benefit isn’t clear here.

    Now, distro hopping on a nonproduction system? Something where you don’t care what’s on it and you just want to experiment? That’s one of the best parts of being a Linux user. But at least do that first before even approaching breaking something that isn’t broken.

    It sounds more like you want to have fun distro hopping, and believe me: I can tell you from experience that distro hopping isn’t fun if you have to rely on that machine.

    • cenzorrll@piefed.caEnglish
      3·
      2 hours ago

      It sounds more like you want to have fun distro hopping, and believe me: I can tell you from experience that distro hopping isn’t fun if you have to rely on that machine.

      This is 95% of my use case for VMs. Want to check out opensuse? Set up a VM and try to do something in it.

      • circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
        1·
        9 minutes ago

        Definitely makes a lot of sense to use a VM for it. Though there is something fun about having a spare laptop and just playing on bare metal.