I recently got into the world of self-hosting, and although I’m doing it through a VPS I’ve learned many interesting things, even so, I’ve only had my VPS contracted for 10 days, and of those 10 days, 8 I spent burning my head learning concepts that I had never heard or understood, and actually it’s funny because I remember that’s what it was like to learn to use Linux.
To begin with, I started with Ubuntu 22.04 and docker, in some situations installing the service was simple, running a command in my console and opening a browser in localhost and the port used, simple, but as I was installing services I found some that they simply exceeded my patience and knowledge, as was Peertube where I simply do not understand why I need to put a name and a password to a thousand different databases, and many times they use concepts like <SECRET KEY> I don’t have the slightest idea what it means.
And so, I came across Yunohost, who makes the selfhosting process miserably easy, but so easy it honestly makes me feel dirty, to the point that I remember dualbooting Windows simply out of fear of Linux.
Now, I have 100% intentions to learn all those concepts that I don’t know and manage my servers on my own and it’s not that I’m “afraid” to do things on my own, but I need a stable server where I can have my services hosted, I can’t create a docker instance to realize the following week that I restart the server to update that I forgot to point to a persistent volume and I lost all my data, which didn’t happen to me but it was possible because in the end I do this for hobby and I’m experimenting.
And I don’t know, I don’t feel exactly “good” with Yunohost, I mean, it works great but what if for example I want to host something that is not in their list of supported services? I basically screwed myself. I feel like I’m in the same situation where I dualbooted Windows just for fear of Linux.
Edit: Thank you all for commenting! I am not answering them one by one because it would take me too long, but I want to clarify that I do read the messages and I agree with most of the comments, if not all! Although yes, I won’t keep burning my head over it, while my VPS works, I’ll learn everything I can virtualizing on my own PC.
If it works for you and allows you to start learning, there’s no problem with it. Too many people seem to think that if you haven’t compiled whatever yourself, it’s not true “self hosting” but you should do what works best for you to get to the goal you want.
You’re absolutely right! It is still participating in the hobby. It’s not as immersive in it but it’s participation nevertheless. I do like to encourage people to make things more challenging to increase their levels of learning and satisfaction though.