I’m looking for a specific distro to handle some tasks.

I got a second hand rig with Nvidia GTX 1050 that I want to use as a home server. I wanted to use HoloISO but it doesn’t support nvidia. If someone says “do it anyway, it’s fine” I’ll install it though.

The idea is to support a Jellyfin server and Steam Link gaming but steam is not big on Nvidia so it’s hard to narrow down “black screen” issues etc. I’m also planning to manage it via VNC and SSH.

I’m familiar with Ubuntu based systems since I develop software on Ubuntu based KDE distro but never had a graphics card.

So it boils down to:

  • Ease of setup including nvidia drivers
  • Ease of update via command line (I’m not going to download nvidia drivers from their website to update proprietary drivers)
  • Graphics performance
  • Prefer Ubuntu based

I’m up for Gnome, Xface, Cinnamon, KDE or whatever DE.

Edit: Changed title to better reflect requirements and not have misleading “headless” and “server” in it

  • ipsirc@lemmy.world
    331·
    2 years ago

    Ubuntu is primarily Ubuntu-based for example.

    I’m up for Gnome, Xface, Cinnamon, KDE or whatever DE.

    …on a headless server. What does the word “headless” mean to you?

  • Guenther_Amanita@feddit.de
    6·
    2 years ago

    I think many here misunderstood your intention. The combination of “server” and “what DE?” is a weird thing for most of us, especially since you said headless, which usually means no desktop, only ssh and stuff.

    But I think I understand what you are up to.
    You want something mainly for gaming, where the PC acts as “brain” of the games, and you only stream them to a low-power device, similar to what Stadia was planned. Right?

    For that, I’ll recommend Bazzite with Moonlight or how it’s called.
    Bazzite is a gaming oriented Fedora Atomic spin that has Nvidia-drivers already baked in, updates itself (you only need to reboot once in a while) and gives you a great experience, even offering to boot straight into Steam’s BPM.

    Moonlight/ Sunshine/ whatever is a screen sharing protocol or software that allows you to stream games without latency or much quality loss.

    I’m no pro tho, so take my suggestions with a grain of salt :)

    • Caveman@lemmy.worldOP
      1·
      2 years ago

      You’re spot on, I’ll give Bazzite a shot and see where it goes. Booting straight into BPM sounds very good. :)

      If you want to also go down this route I heard that using a HDMI dummy plug allows GPU acceleration with Moonlight. It’s $2 on Aliexpress.

    • Caveman@lemmy.worldOP
      1·
      2 years ago

      SteamOS doesn’t support Nvidia even though Arch does. It also has a lot of optimizations that are made specifically for AMD cards which could cause a slowdown.

      I originally planned on using Fedora or PopOS but I thought I would ask around to see if there’s something that’s more specialised for a local “cloud gaming” setup.

        • Caveman@lemmy.worldOP
          1·
          2 years ago

          I don’t know why someone downvoted you either, it was a good post and way better than the “just use Ubuntu” which contribute nothing to the conversation. Everybody in this community knows Ubuntu works and you can do pretty much anything with it. I liked your comment so you can take my upvote to offset the other one. :)

          On another note, do you use Moonlight, Sunshine, SteamLink or something along those lines? And do you use a dummy HDMI plug or have a screen connected that’s turned off or some sort of virtual display to get the GPU acceleration up and running after restarting without a monitor?

            • Caveman@lemmy.worldOP
              1·
              2 years ago

              Oh wow, you saved me a lot of trouble by telling me about EDID. I borked a test installation by doing hacky stuff instead of waiting for HDMI dongle. I think this is the last piece of the puzzle for me to set the system up. Wish me luck 🤞 and thanks again. :)

  • Pantherina@feddit.de
    1·
    2 years ago

    I would recommend ublue bazzite or secureblue (nvidia userns kinoite). Never used VNC on wayland as clients that dont need static IPs suck or have no wayland support. KDE has software for that.

    Bazzite would be the easy solution as it is a very well curated image (with lots of variants) for gaming.

    Secureblue is not for gaming, so you will need Flatpak for Steam, Bottles, Lutris and PupGui or whatever you use. Or you layer everything, which will slow down updates but as a server its not that bad. But secureblue is a “proof of concept” of a secure Fedora. You might encounter new bugs as its currently not meant for gaming, and this will be helpful to improve radical security trends for Fedora (secureblue does lots of things Fedora doesnt, as it is a clear secure distro, not “it works kinda and always”).

    Ublue (and all derivates like bazzite or secureblue) has the drivers preinstalled and if the addition breaks something you will likely just not get an update, rather than have a broken local system.

    Please report your findings!

  • thehatfox@lemmy.worldEnglish
    21·
    2 years ago

    If you familiar with Ubuntu and its derivatives, just use Ubuntu.

    Ubuntu provides a server version called Ubuntu Server alongside the desktop versions if needed, and Ubuntu provides easy access to things like ZFS.

    You can always switch in the future if you find you have server needs or preferences the Ubuntu doesn’t suit.

  • LoETR9@feddit.it
    21·
    2 years ago

    Ubuntu Server seems the obvious choice. Just roll with the DE it will install as dependency for one of your needed apps.

  • Caveman@lemmy.worldOP
    11·
    2 years ago

    After doing some research I’m surprised that nobody here mentioned Nobara. I think it fits neatly here.

    • Pantherina@feddit.de
      3·
      2 years ago

      Nobara is a half baked not well maintained and very hacky fork of Fedora.

      It is substantially less secure, even though you might squeeze out some performance percents using their hardware optimizations.

      This may not be worse as it fits the purpose, would still kinda advise against.

        • Pantherina@feddit.de
          1·
          2 years ago
          • very slow and seemingly manual updates, unlike the CI/CD of ublue
          • replaced SELinux with Apparmor, not sure about the used profiles but just assume that this “at most few person” project is less secure
          • bundling in a ton of fixes that may break

          It is a cool project as a proof of concept, but extremely hacky with drawbacks