Linux has gotten really good over the last ~15 years. It used to be that if you didn’t have the most up to date packages, you would be missing game changing features. Now, the distribution you use almost doesn’t matter because even the older packages are good enough for most things.

To answer your question, if it weren’t for gaming, no I wouldn’t mind using Debian as my daily driver. If I ever needed a new package for whatever reason, I would use flatpaks, snaps, docker, or Distrobox to get it.

Personally, yeah it’s the old packages. I want to play games on my desktop and have the newest DE features. An arch based distro seems like it’ll keep up better than Debian.

For my servers though, I only use Debian.

I’m assuming you mean LXC? It’s doable but without some sort of orchestration tools like Nix or Ansible, I imagine on-going maintenance or migrations would be kind of a headache.

You might come across docker run commands in tutorials. Ignore those. Just focus on learning docker compose. With docker compose, the run command just goes into a yaml file so it’s easier to read and understand what’s going on. Don’t forget to add your user to the docker group so you aren’t having to type sudo for every command.

Commands you’ll use often:

docker compose up - runs container

docker compose up -d - runs container in headless mode

docker compose down - shuts down container

docker compose pull - pulls new images

docker image list - lists all images

docker ps - lists running containers

docker image prune -a - deletes images not being used by containers to free up space

he is still completely new to this so I want things to work out perfectly for his first experience.

Of the two options you gave, I’d go with Mint. If your friend runs into a problem, it would probably be easier to diagnose the issue since it’s just Ubuntu/Debian under the hood.

Once they get used to it, they can try other gaming specific distros if they want to try to get a little more performance.

Should I just learn how to use Docker?

Yes. I put off learning it for so long and now can’t imagine self-hosting anything without it. I think all you have to do is set a static IP to the NIC from your router and then specify the IP and port in a docker-compose.yml file:

Ex: IP-address:external-port:container-port

services:
    app-name:
        ports
            - 192.168.1.42:3000:3000

Shapr3D has been pretty decent and for a hobbiest, $300/yr for their pro version has been tolerable

Edit: I see at least a few people don’t like Shapr3D so I’ll add to my description a little bit because I think it’s great for what I do. Shapr3D has a free tier, is cheaper than programs like Fusion360, Solidworks, Sketchup, etc., has apps for the iPad and desktop, recently added parametric features that OP requested, and is faster (on my machines) than Fusion360 and Sketchup. I haven’t gotten to the point where I’m designing complicated parts that move relative to one another (maybe it can’t do that, I don’t know). I usually just recreate single plastic parts that break around the house or designs for something I’m fabricating. It’s been great for those use cases. It’s also free for students with a school email.

If you know iptables, just stick with that. In my testing, docker containers seem to ignore ufw rules. Supposedly, iptable rules are respected but I haven’t learned iptables yet so I can’t verify.

SerpentOS is it’s own thing. It’s from the same guy who made Solus which was also it’s own thing.

Look up Ikey Doherty if you want to know more.

From my experience with Solus, I don’t have high hopes for SerpentOS but I’d love to be wrong about that

I got an Odroid H4+ and have been extremely happy with it. I’m sure Beelink or GMKtec mini PCs on Amazon would also be fine but I wanted SATA ports for harddrives.

If you end up going with the Odroid, let me know and I’ll send you the links to the few things you’ll need to get going

tldr: keep your smart home seperate from your services and avoid RPI unless you need it specifically for a project

If I were in your shoes, starting from scratch, with the knowledge I have now, I would avoid a raspberry pi and get 2 computers with an Intel N100 (or N97 or N300). Sips electricity and more powerful than a rasberry pi.

A raspberry pi is fine for lights, switches, sensors, a few cameras etc. But if you are at all interested in one day using the voice assistant stuff, the Raspberry pi just isn’t powerful enough.

I suggest 2 computers because once you have home assistant set up, you’ll want to treat it like an appliance. You don’t want to take down your entire smart home because you broke Pixelfed or another service you get into and have to troubleshoot. Speaking from experience, your family won’t appreciate the smart home not working 😓.

Leaves the help/tips app icon in the dock. Proof Mark Rober is a psychopath.

Interesting. Well, when you get some numbers together, I’d be interested to see what you find out

Is the one built into the AMS not good enough? I get that it only gives a level between 1 and 4 but it’s been fine for me with PLA and PETG 🤷‍♂️

I always forget. Can we do a release upgrade to this or do we have to wait until 24.04.1?

Edit: Nvm. You can update today

sudo do-release-upgrade

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