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Reading this thread, someone needs to put the home server in a tiny box, preinstalled with all the apps and put a slick user interface on it. I think https://um

by asim 4y ago

Reading this thread, someone needs to put the home server in a tiny box, preinstalled with all the apps and put a slick user interface on it. I think https://umbrel.com https://umbrel.com is a thing but it's not packaged with hardware. Something that packages the hardware and software together would be pretty killer. Plug and play. Instant email. All the apps. Easy migration from existing services.

guntherhermann 4y ago
Part of the fun for me is the tinkering, and I'm not sure if non-techies "get" the benefit of running a home server. Maybe the tide is turning for the younger generation? I can only speak for most people my age (30-40), they are capable of interacting with technology but they have absolutely 0 understanding of how anything actually works. "Why when I can just use Spotify/Netflix/iCloud/etc"? Is the answer I got when telling them about my own home server shiz
- asim 4y ago
  I think it's like most home devices, it comes down to ownership. We've gotten into the habit of streaming everything from someone else e.g we're in cloud rental economy, but there's opportunity to restore ownership. Maybe there's a generation that just wants to rent but it wasn't really by choice, it's because ownership cost too much, ownership of homes, servers, storage, etc. We can reduce these costs and we can make ownership of services a thing once more. Sure, you might need someone else to fix things when they break, but it's not like I'm doing my own plumbing or electrical work in my house either. So it's really this idea of pulling all your services back into your home server. Something you own, something that then becomes private by proxy of that. Something primarily for you and your family, no one else.
  - cm2187 4y ago
    On the other hand one of the benefit of renting is that you don't have to deal with all the maintenance. It's fine to do a little maintenance but if you do that for everything it just absorbs all your time.
- Dalewyn 4y ago
  I know of an avid ham, and one of his favorite jokes is "Why use the radio when I can just call them on my cellphone?". At some point, stuff like home servers really are more about the tinkering rather than any practical desire or need. If someone's only interested in getting from Point A to Point B, he's just not going to care how fancy or interesting the mode of transport is.
- cm2187 4y ago
  I love tinkering but not with my data. For my data storage I want a stable and tested solution. I have done enough "shit I destroyed my RAID array" for my taste.
  - guntherhermann 4y ago
    For important documents (insurance docs, mortgage, etc) I use SyncThing, for media I use my RAID1 array. I'd certainly hope that RAID1 works as I expect it to if one of my HDDs shit the bed! It's a good point though, backups aren't really backups unless they're tested... brb...
    - cm2187 4y ago
      And RAID1 isn't a backup. If you delete a file accidently, it doesn't help you.
      - bluGill 4y ago
        I have snapshots on my NAS, so nothing is really deleted. I supposed in another 10 years I'll have to start pruning old files, but disks are cheap and I don't really have that much data. For that matter I generally don't delete anything. If I save it to my computer odds are it is something I want to keep for the rest of my life (that is family pictures). There are a few distro images that I download once in a while and then delete, but for the most part disk is cheap, and I don't have time to delete old stuff.
        dsr_ 4y ago
        RAID and snapshots aren't a backup either: lightning strikes/house fires/earthquakes/floods kill all the disks together. A backup is a restorable copy in some location not sharing much fate with the primary location. Right now you might consider "all copies in one city" to have too much fate in common, but "all copies in one country" to be acceptable, or "all copies on Earth".
        4y ago
courgette 4y ago
Yunohost ? Then put a sticker on a random box and your done. Seriously, it does most of what you describe : good UI. Excellent user management between apps. Great catalogue ( 500+ all tested with different level of integration)
voltaireodactyl 4y ago
Synology NAS products (using their quickconnect service) get pretty close to this. You have to install their apps from an App Store but that feels reasonable for even the average consumer.
- JamesSwift 4y ago
  Seconded. Just get a Synology NAS. I'm incredibly happy with mine, they really seem to make a great product on both the hardware and software side.
tetris11 4y ago
dietpi.com will get you halfway there
fsflover 4y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreedomBox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreedomBox
rft 4y ago
I would love for something like this to become mainstream, mostly from a privacy PoV. But, I think there are just too many different use cases, pitfalls, user problems and limitations. Something like a plug and play box could work for the very small intersection of "technically inclined and understands how to port forward and how to fix minor problems" and "not interested in tinkering with self hosting". As someone else already mentioned, a big part for people self hosting seems to be the tinkering aspect. For me tinkering and privacy are the main motivators. On the potential problem side you have far too much friction compared to cloud services. It starts with getting a public domain and IP for sharing data with other people. Then you need to setup port forwarding, need a somewhat stable network and internet connection, run into problems with upload bandwidth being usually far less than download. Once you have the connection side taken care of, what about user onboarding, password recovery ("just mount the partition and overwrite the password" will not work), backups? How do you make clear the distinction between my self hosted Spotify and someone else's? Why can they not see my music? Why is there a difference in the first place? I know all/most of this can be solved in some way, but it is hard. There is also never going to be a big (think billion dollar) company involved with creating such a solution as there is no monetization model. You can not go for a subscription (imo), because then you just pay someone to host something at your home using your power and bandwidth. You could say you only pay for support and maybe a relay to workaround NAT, but how would the support look like? Full access via an admin account? Privacy just got downgraded. What happens if the company hosting the relay goes under? Enjoy your brick (local would still work, but the user experience would be far worse). Apart from all these software and user experience problems, we still need the hardware. It needs to be reasonably cheap (US and EU market maybe 200-300USD), but it needs to be reliable (it will live in the worst possible place, like a hot, dusty cupboard) and support some more advanced use cases. Of course >90% will only use it for some light file storage, music streaming and voice control, but 10% will make heavy use of transcoding, invite others to their services, store TBs of media, run their entire home automation on it. How do these 10% know they are in the 10% and need to buy different hardware? Why can the box not do automatic quality adjustment like Netflix does? Do you have a hardware migration path? And what about cross compatibility? In this thread alone you got multiple different systems. This just multiplies user support issues or will lead to vendor lock in, just a different kind. Lastly, you need marketing to bring this to the mainstream. And you need a big selling point to make people migrate from "free" cloud services to something they need to pay upfront. I hate to be this negative about this topic, but I just do not see this being viable outside a relatively small, interested community. Please, correct me here, I would love to see this become real and mainstream!
bluGill 4y ago
That is the easy part. What I really want is someone to administer the upgrades for me. Make sure everything just works, and all security holes are closed. Too often I get things almost working perfect just as some software goes out of support, and next thing I know everything is broke again after I make one upgrade.
chrisdhal 4y ago
unRaid is basically this. Happy user of unRaid for years, just chugs away, easy updates, lots of apps available.

by asim 4y ago

guntherhermann 4y ago

Part of the fun for me is the tinkering, and I'm not sure if non-techies "get" the benefit of running a home server. Maybe the tide is turning for the younger generation? I can only speak for most people my age (30-40), they are capable of interacting with technology but they have absolutely 0 understanding of how anything actually works. "Why when I can just use Spotify/Netflix/iCloud/etc"? Is the answer I got when telling them about my own home server shiz

asim 4y ago
I think it's like most home devices, it comes down to ownership. We've gotten into the habit of streaming everything from someone else e.g we're in cloud rental economy, but there's opportunity to restore ownership. Maybe there's a generation that just wants to rent but it wasn't really by choice, it's because ownership cost too much, ownership of homes, servers, storage, etc. We can reduce these costs and we can make ownership of services a thing once more. Sure, you might need someone else to fix things when they break, but it's not like I'm doing my own plumbing or electrical work in my house either. So it's really this idea of pulling all your services back into your home server. Something you own, something that then becomes private by proxy of that. Something primarily for you and your family, no one else.
- cm2187 4y ago
  On the other hand one of the benefit of renting is that you don't have to deal with all the maintenance. It's fine to do a little maintenance but if you do that for everything it just absorbs all your time.
Dalewyn 4y ago
I know of an avid ham, and one of his favorite jokes is "Why use the radio when I can just call them on my cellphone?". At some point, stuff like home servers really are more about the tinkering rather than any practical desire or need. If someone's only interested in getting from Point A to Point B, he's just not going to care how fancy or interesting the mode of transport is.
cm2187 4y ago
I love tinkering but not with my data. For my data storage I want a stable and tested solution. I have done enough "shit I destroyed my RAID array" for my taste.
- guntherhermann 4y ago
  For important documents (insurance docs, mortgage, etc) I use SyncThing, for media I use my RAID1 array. I'd certainly hope that RAID1 works as I expect it to if one of my HDDs shit the bed! It's a good point though, backups aren't really backups unless they're tested... brb...
  - cm2187 4y ago
    And RAID1 isn't a backup. If you delete a file accidently, it doesn't help you.
    - bluGill 4y ago
      I have snapshots on my NAS, so nothing is really deleted. I supposed in another 10 years I'll have to start pruning old files, but disks are cheap and I don't really have that much data. For that matter I generally don't delete anything. If I save it to my computer odds are it is something I want to keep for the rest of my life (that is family pictures). There are a few distro images that I download once in a while and then delete, but for the most part disk is cheap, and I don't have time to delete old stuff.
      - dsr_ 4y ago
        RAID and snapshots aren't a backup either: lightning strikes/house fires/earthquakes/floods kill all the disks together. A backup is a restorable copy in some location not sharing much fate with the primary location. Right now you might consider "all copies in one city" to have too much fate in common, but "all copies in one country" to be acceptable, or "all copies on Earth".
        4y ago

courgette 4y ago

Yunohost ? Then put a sticker on a random box and your done. Seriously, it does most of what you describe : good UI. Excellent user management between apps. Great catalogue ( 500+ all tested with different level of integration)

voltaireodactyl 4y ago

Synology NAS products (using their quickconnect service) get pretty close to this. You have to install their apps from an App Store but that feels reasonable for even the average consumer.

JamesSwift 4y ago
Seconded. Just get a Synology NAS. I'm incredibly happy with mine, they really seem to make a great product on both the hardware and software side.

tetris11 4y ago

dietpi.com will get you halfway there

fsflover 4y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreedomBox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreedomBox

rft 4y ago

I would love for something like this to become mainstream, mostly from a privacy PoV. But, I think there are just too many different use cases, pitfalls, user problems and limitations. Something like a plug and play box could work for the very small intersection of "technically inclined and understands how to port forward and how to fix minor problems" and "not interested in tinkering with self hosting". As someone else already mentioned, a big part for people self hosting seems to be the tinkering aspect. For me tinkering and privacy are the main motivators. On the potential problem side you have far too much friction compared to cloud services. It starts with getting a public domain and IP for sharing data with other people. Then you need to setup port forwarding, need a somewhat stable network and internet connection, run into problems with upload bandwidth being usually far less than download. Once you have the connection side taken care of, what about user onboarding, password recovery ("just mount the partition and overwrite the password" will not work), backups? How do you make clear the distinction between my self hosted Spotify and someone else's? Why can they not see my music? Why is there a difference in the first place? I know all/most of this can be solved in some way, but it is hard. There is also never going to be a big (think billion dollar) company involved with creating such a solution as there is no monetization model. You can not go for a subscription (imo), because then you just pay someone to host something at your home using your power and bandwidth. You could say you only pay for support and maybe a relay to workaround NAT, but how would the support look like? Full access via an admin account? Privacy just got downgraded. What happens if the company hosting the relay goes under? Enjoy your brick (local would still work, but the user experience would be far worse). Apart from all these software and user experience problems, we still need the hardware. It needs to be reasonably cheap (US and EU market maybe 200-300USD), but it needs to be reliable (it will live in the worst possible place, like a hot, dusty cupboard) and support some more advanced use cases. Of course >90% will only use it for some light file storage, music streaming and voice control, but 10% will make heavy use of transcoding, invite others to their services, store TBs of media, run their entire home automation on it. How do these 10% know they are in the 10% and need to buy different hardware? Why can the box not do automatic quality adjustment like Netflix does? Do you have a hardware migration path? And what about cross compatibility? In this thread alone you got multiple different systems. This just multiplies user support issues or will lead to vendor lock in, just a different kind. Lastly, you need marketing to bring this to the mainstream. And you need a big selling point to make people migrate from "free" cloud services to something they need to pay upfront. I hate to be this negative about this topic, but I just do not see this being viable outside a relatively small, interested community. Please, correct me here, I would love to see this become real and mainstream!

bluGill 4y ago

That is the easy part. What I really want is someone to administer the upgrades for me. Make sure everything just works, and all security holes are closed. Too often I get things almost working perfect just as some software goes out of support, and next thing I know everything is broke again after I make one upgrade.

chrisdhal 4y ago

unRaid is basically this. Happy user of unRaid for years, just chugs away, easy updates, lots of apps available.