Good news selfhosted crowd! I pitched the idea of setting up a server, and she is down with the idea!
I want to run Linux and host things like Jellyfin, Audiobookshelf, Navidrome, maybe Plex (I currently host it off my Mac desktop but would move it to a dedicated server).
I know you can host Plex et al on something like a Raspberry Pi, but I want a bit more power. I want something that can push at least 2-3 4K streams.
I’m considering targeting 12th gen i5 with 16GB DDR4. Maybe 32GB if I can swing it. Is that overkill? I know you want 8th gen Intel for hardware transcoding of either x265/HEVC or AV1 (probably the former as the latter is newer).
There are other projects I’d like to run. I’d like to be able to host my own LLM/AI but I’m not trying to go performance overkill here. This would be my first server.
I am somewhat comfortable using the command line, and I would be remoting into the server via my Macs (I have a desktop and a MacBook). However, Linux can run Windows games via Proton and that’s something I’m interested in for some older titles that aren’t on Xbox (like Deus Ex, which came out in 2000 and should run on integrated graphics). I’m not inexperienced with Linux and have been using it off and on (mostly off unfortunately) for over 30 years. My go-to would be Ubuntu, but I’ve heard great things about KDE lately and I know the Internet is in love with Mint these days. Would the distro really matter all that much as long as I have the required services?
Debian is the OS.
Proxmox builds on Debian to turn it into a hypervisor. That’s an OS for managing VMs and containers. Proxmox (like most hypervisors) gives you a handy webinterface.
There are easier hypervisors to use, but Proxmox is great for learning, and allows you to expand well later.
tbh, except for gaming and AI, you don’t need nearly as much processing power as you might think. I run most of my stuff on a (fairly new, can’t remember which one exactly) i5, and it sits at an average 2-3% CPU usage, with the maximum its recorded being 10.9% (there’s two VMs and 8 containers running on it). 11th gen i5 will probably be more than enough to start with.
In my non-professional opinion, what you really want to look at is how much power your system is going to use when idle, since that’s what (small) servers are doing most of the time. This is not something specified by manufacturers, and it depends on all the parts going into the computer (CPU, mainboard, PSU, fans, how the BIOS is set up, …).
I would also recommend getting at least 16 GB of RAM (honestly I would say 32, if not for the current prices). Containers don’t use too much, but if you want to set up VMs for services, each VM will want at least 2-4 GB for itself.
LXC-Containers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LXC) are like extremely lightweight and slightly less secure Linux VMs. They are similar to Docker, but while Docker is containerizing applications, LXC containerizes Linux distros.