My users interface with my server via plex, smb and Nextcloud.

The guts are pretty complicated but from my users’ point of view it’s pretty simple.

You should think about what services you plan to offer and go from there.

Be aware that none of the off the shelf products have a good reputation for being secure when providing services outside your network which is when you may want stuff like Nextcloud.

It’s better since it supports hardware transcoding and seperate user profiles including age ratings.

With the lifetime pass I’d say Plex is better, but without it there’s too many missing features.

Been using it since the start of the pandemic. It’s exactly what I want.

Plex+arrs etc Nextcloud Komga SWAG Photoprism HA

128TB.

My main hypervisor is proxmox which runs an unraid vm with the iGPU passed through to accelerate PLEX and disk controllers to manage the storage. I also have 2 Endeavour OS VMs, one that runs Thunderbird and Insync. Another that has a quadro p2000 passed through to tinker with. I also have a homeassistant vm and a proxmox CT running docker.

I’m working up to transitioning the dockers on unraid to a proxmox container but at the same time if it’s not broke why fix it.

I also want to mess with networking by putting in OPNsense or pfsense and routing some traffic through a vps.

Going to have a look at that. Would give me some peace of mind and highlight anything that bit rot might have effected.

Getting Plex Pass for 75 USD got me into the ecosystem. Now I promote and help support their product for free.

Satisfied customers still provide value to Plex.

How’s the community for that?

I use Endeavor which is what I was going to suggest as an easy to install Arch based distro.

For anyone wanting to learn then going for something Arch based means you’ve got the Arch wiki to back you up.