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Have to Replace SSD and Thinking of Migrating to Alpine


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2022 Oct 21, 12:07pm   711 views  8 comments

by NuttBoxer   ➕follow (0)   💰tip   ignore  

I've been using Ubuntu headless servers for years, but starting to feel a bit bloated for what I do. Was thinking of Alpine Linux. Any other suggestions? Will hopefully get it setup this weekend.

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1   Booger   2022 Oct 21, 2:19pm  

Go ahead and use Alpine
2   Patrick   2022 Oct 23, 2:40am  

I've heard good things about Alpine too, but never tried it myself.
3   Karloff   2022 Oct 23, 8:00am  

Not sure of your intended use, but for anyone interested, I don't think Alpine is meant for daily desktop usage. The focus is a small OS that's enough to run some service you need. Like DNS or a file server. Any OS that uses busybox is geared this way.
4   NuttBoxer   2022 Oct 23, 12:51pm  

I run a media server(plex), and a torrent service(Deluge). And I have a backup disk.

I have a pretty big issue, I can't access docker hub from the machine. Over tor browser the DNS resolves, but otherwise no. As muscl is not as widely supported, docker is the go-to method for installing and running most apps. Deluge actually does have an Alpine package, but will need to figure out the diffs between systemd setup and open-rc.

As I mentioned in the OP, this is a headless server install, no UI/desktop necessary. I did find it a little funny that I had to install lsblk, it is not a standard package. Very stream-lined..
5   Patrick   2022 Oct 24, 11:52pm  

NuttBoxer says

docker is the go-to method for installing and running most apps


I was never sold on docker. It's another layer of cruft to deal with even if it does make things portable.

I just use apt-get to install things directly.
6   Karloff   2022 Oct 25, 9:50am  

I hate docker.
7   NuttBoxer   2022 Oct 25, 11:08am  

I'm not against it, but yes, I would just use the apk(Alpine) package manager normally. Unfortunately no one has made a Plex version that compiles using musl.

I decided to give Devuan a shot. They REALLY hate systemd, so back to init. I heard systemd brings it own set of bloat, so looking forward to seeing how it goes. Plex was a snap. Deluge I'm gonna try to re-install. Was working off the init setup in their docs, then found out someone had replicated it in the Debian Deluge app. Gonna try to purge and re-install with their default files and see how it goes.

On a side note, Roku has blocked my devices from updating apps, or using them in online mode, and the new installation of Plex requires I'm able to sign out and back in(despite the fact that I only use Plex at home). So the last useful purpose of Roku is now dead. The other media boxes out there are all from big tech, or use big tech extensively. Thinking I'll just buy another pi and install a basic OS with browser, and wireless keyboard/remote.
8   NuttBoxer   2022 Oct 31, 10:10am  

Finally completed by migration. The biggest unexpected consumer of time was having to move from Roku to RetroPi. First tried Kodi, but they didn't recognize a number of my movies and shows. Tried the Plex addon from Kodi's official list, but only on 0.2.3, and it showed. Kept getting message it couldn't find my Plex server. Final solution, found a git repo where the guy re-writes the Kodi db to utilize Plex functionality using an addon. It works, although there are a few shows and movies that take too long to load. I think I'm running into a RAM constraint as my Pi is only a 3 or maybe 3b. I noticed with the 4 you can pay for extra RAM.

There's always one catch you don't expect when installing SW. And it's really hard to find the time when you have a family. But overall very happy with my new SSD and Distro.

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