Quoted Strings

My Server Experiment

  2024/01/14

Posted Tag: #Linux
Other Tags: #Windows, #Personal, #All

Within the last few weeks I became a little disgruntled with Ubuntu Server LTS. I at times can get like that and curiosity gets the best of me like it does with practically everything else in my life. But I discovered how to use hard drives external to a QEMU virtual machine actually in the machine. I like Ubuntu Server as a file server but little else mainly because you can freely use ZFS for your pools. So I thought that I could run Ubuntu Server LTS in a virtual machine and use ZFS for my pools allowing me to use an Linux operating system for running any other virtual machines using QEMU. So I chose Arch Linux as that operating system. I installed Arch Linux with a Cinnamon desktop on both of my servers and used NoMachine to manage the desktop. I created a virtual machine for Ubuntu Server LTS and off I went.

Well until a recent Arch Linux update had a key issue. Fixing this on my everyday computer was not super difficult but to do it to both servers would have been a pain. So I started trying to find a way to operate my servers using ESXI, ProxMox, XCP-ng or Debian. So I am going to express my difficulties with each below.

ESXI – Will not install on my main server. I get a memory error and a pink screen when trying to install 6.7 or 7.1. Sure I can use it on my backup server mainly because it has a SuperMicro server motherboard in it, which ESXI supports. But I have not decided that yet. I do admit NoMachine is great and I could use that with ESXI virtual machines make managing a virtual machine easier to deal with.

ProxMox – Bottom line it is overkill for what I need and during install it creates an LVM which GParted straight up can not delete. Thankfully gedit in Linux will.

XCP-ng – Way more that I need and you need to compile from source Xen Orchestra to make it useful.

Debian – Tried as a minimal installation. It doesn’t support ZFS so I would have to do pools in a virtual machine and that would be just like using Arch Linux which I am escaping. Although Debian is a lot more stable.

So for my main server I have installed Ubuntu Server LTS again with ZFS and I am right now copying over my data from the backup server into my new pools. After the data is restored, I will consider using EXSI on the backup server. Although VMWare has been purchased by BroadCom and my free license for ESXI non commercial use, who knows how long I can use it. One reason I would like to install it while my key is still good. And NoMachine would make managing a virtual machine easier.

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