I'm writing this partly because I think others might be interested, partly because I want to know what others think of my setup, and partly because I'm going to upgrade my hardware and need to review my setup so that I can re-create it on the newer hardware.
I have an old 2009 iMac at home that wasn't being used anymore, so I installed Ubuntu server 2022.04 LTS. I have two printers, so I installed the CUPS manager, which allows my to print wirelessly from iPad, iPhones and my MacBook Air. For media, I run PlexMediaServer (video) and Navidrome. For content, I run Transmission, which I can manage from a web browser. For e-books, I use calibre which I access via a web browser (on my iPhone or a Kobo). For coding, I've installed Nginx, MariaDB and PHP.
My router has a built-in VPN, but I'd like to install WireGuard on the server. I'd also like to be able to collect and manage my family's photos. For now, I use MacOS Photos, but since we rarely plug our phones into the computer to sync them, they are usually only backed up to iCloud.
What else should I consider?
Nextcloud (or docker for that matter) are rather complex.
Permission problems are every day life in linux, you always have to sudo or - if you change that - someone else can vaporize your server and steal all your data. Linux is infinitely more secure because it is a nightmare to use casually with a complex setup. Some windows script kiddie is gonna die inside your directories and never be found again.
Writing a script that you need to make executable first? Chowning files that are made by docker? Having to use a specific user inside docker (in case of nextcloud especially)?
All these things are incredibly frustrating but given the sheer complexity of nextcloud, it’s actually working rather good imo. So does linux.
I‘m not shitting on linux, docker or nc. I love them all but saying they’re not working just says they’re not plug and play yet. Other examples: most things snap are a mystery for me. Freakin permissions.