this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2026
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I use Debian as my daily driver, but I'm still a newbie. I would like to selfhost a few apps, initially on a VPS, but I will probably move to a local PC once I diagnose what is broken with my old computer.

The guides at https://selfhosting.sh/ always recommend Ubuntu Server LTS for newbies, but Ubuntu seems to have bad PR and I already run Debian on my home PC. On one hand, I am a newbie and I guess Ubuntu might be easier to set up and maintain. Though, I don't HOW exactly? On the other hand, if I have Debian on my home PC and on my server, they are the same system, so I'd be learning the same system at two places and with two usage scenarios. But it might be easier to make mistakes on Debian..?

What is your opinion/recommendation?

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[–] nitrolife@hikki.team 3 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

If you're planning to use old hardware for hosting, don't use Ubuntu. SNAP will kill performance.

So your choice is Debian.

P.S. VPS is already a Virtual Private Server and you can't install ProxMox or any virtualization on it. If you want experiments, look into containers.

[–] khanh@lemmy.zip 2 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

i don't recall snap being installed on ubuntu server. but yes, go with debian always.

[–] nitrolife@hikki.team 1 points 8 hours ago

SNAP in the recommended packages of the ubuntu-server metapackage. Ubuntu installs all recommended packages by default. So SNAP is in the server installation, moreover, it can't even be simply removed without completely blocking in apt policy.