Quickly wondering what people recommend as OS for a rpi model 4b, outside of the RaspPiOS ofc. I want to use the RPI for all networking related stuff (dont worry its not using an sd-card). So PiHole, and I’ll also want to use it as my exit-node out of my Tailnet. I will also run ProtonVPN on it so that all my devices indirectly use a vpn, as long as they’re connected over Tailscale. That’s at least what I had in mind so far, please do criticise the idea if there are better alternatives or solutions that you would recommend. I have been looking at running either Alpine or MicroOS. Or should I just go for a server based OS?

Appreciate any suggestions!

    • Padook@feddit.nl
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      1 year ago

      Dietpi is a nice little distro, especially when running it minimal without a GUI. Its added toolkits make farting around on the command line more comfortable

    • Lunch@lemmy.worldOP
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      1 year ago

      Oh nothing wrong with it at all, didn’t mean it like that. Just wanted recommendations outside of the ordinary 😅

  • hottari@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Go with MicroOS. SUSE’s products are criminally underrated for how well designed they are. Plus at some point you are bound to face a brick wall when trying to use software that is not musl compatible on alpine.

  • flashgnash
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    1 year ago

    NixOS runs on a pi quite well and it’s pretty good for setting up self hosted services

    Storage space might be an issue on smaller SDs but I haven’t run into that yet on mine

    • Lunch@lemmy.worldOP
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      1 year ago

      Yeah I really do want to get into NixOS, just not had the time to learn something so different quitr yet. Possibly after Christmas. Would really like to be running the same OS on all of my devices fro sure.

  • SunRed@discuss.tchncs.de
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    1 year ago

    I am running alarm / Arch Linux ARM aarch64 on mine for years already. Just make sure to use the linux-rpi kernel and use rpi4-eeprom for bootloader updates as these are not installed by default.

    • TurboLag@lemmings.world
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      1 year ago

      The same goes for Ubuntu. The aarch64 architecture is supported just like x86-64 and everything works great.

      • Patch@feddit.uk
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        1 year ago

        Ubuntu releases an official RPI image, and Ubuntu Server is a major contender for any serious production server work.

        Obviously that’s not the right answer for the OP (who specifically says that they want to try something more “off the beaten track”), but it’s a solid recommendation in general.

  • Sunoc@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    I’m currently running Alpine on my RPi4 as a host for some Dockers, including pi-hole and it works great! The setup is surprisingly painless and you’ll end up with some insanely fast boot time. Highly recommended !

  • crunchpaste@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 year ago

    It may be a bit minimal for your taste, but I wholeheartedly recommend Alpine. I’m currently running AdGuard and opentracker on a RaspberryPi 1B with Alpine edge, and the experience has been rock solid.

  • bdonvr@thelemmy.club
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    1 year ago

    I’m running OpenSUSE on my pi4, but that’s just preference as I like all my machines on the same OS

    • Lunch@lemmy.worldOP
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      1 year ago

      Thanks but not yet, eventually yes, just to see how it is and learn, but for now still learning the basics.