Proxmox
If one were to peruse the homelab subreddit or other similar ones a common recommendation that comes up is to use proxmox.
- Does not much matter what the use case even is. Someone asks for a recommenation for a home server operating system with no other details. ProxMox
- What about a NAS (network attached storage) operating system. ProxMox
- Recommendation for a firewall or router operating system. ProxMox
Why is proxmox recommended so often?
Well, it can fill many different roles due to it being a hypervisor. It can run other operating systems with very little overhead.
- If you want a NAS you can load TrueNas in a virtual machine and pass through hard disks to it.
- You can virtualize a firewall such as pfSense or opnSense as well.
- Seperate out services and try out different linux distros or versions of Windows
For those looking to get into homelab and posting on reddit without much detail of their goals, it makes sense that proxmox often comes up as the solution over and over.
In my homelab I have been using docker compose on linux. Currently I am using Ubuntu server but I have used Debian and Fedora in the past. I have dabbled with proxmox in the past and I never really saw what the big deal was. All my services run fine with docker or on bare metal. Some things I run include: adguardhome, plex, blog, and home assistant.
Recently I purchased a used tiny desktop: Lenovo M90q ThinkCentre with 12th gen i5-12500T, 16GB DDR5, 256 SSD. Since I was going to be moving services to this new desktop I figured now would be a good chance to use proxmox.
So far I find proxmox more complex than just using docker but that’s likely because I’m used to it. Nevertheless, I want to keep learning proxmox for the challenge and enjoyment of homelab.