Hi, so I want to building a pc for a home server (?) or NAS. I dont really know whats the most appropriate term but what I intend to build is a one pc for my household. currently my requirement is one work ‘pc’ capable of heavy 3d modeling one light work pc. two 4k gaming tvs. (they most likely wont be used at the same time)
my knowledge of technical stuff is bretty basic so please be patient with me.
before, i used my steam deck to stream my work pc using parsec but i thought i just want to jump all in on linux and using vm to use more niche 3d softwares.
my budget is flexible as long as i dont need to use enterprise hardware. also i heard nvidia is not good for linux so i’d like to confirm if that is still the case as im thinking of using 5090 if not, i hope amd releases an equivalent capable card or if any according my quick research suggest.
as for linux, the only distro (?) i ever used is the steam deck one and i love it. im not a programmer or even remotely capable one so i’d like to avoid anything that has to be manually typing commands at terminal but im open to surface level tinkering.
thank you for your time
I’m setting up something similar using Unraid and VMs. This route would probably be more of a challenge for you technically… But if you’re willing to learn, and pay, Unraid sounds like it would be a good fit for what you’re trying to accomplish.
For the multi-seating aspect, I’ve just set up something similar using something called a KVM Extender (I got this one). I have my PC set up in my office and another seat set up in my bedroom.
The KVM essentially just transports HDMI and USB a long distance through an ethernet cable, so the bedroom monitor just appears as a second monitor. I’ve set up a keyboard combination to switch between enabled monitors so only one is turned on at once.
Not sure how many seats you could push with this, since you would need a set of KVM extender boxes per seat with its own HDMI/Display and USB ports in the PC. Might be something to look into in case it fits!
Not sure if I understand you correctly.
Your goal is to have a single (1) computer that replaces all computers you currently have by essentially virtualizing different systems?
not exactly replace everything but i can use it to game in my living room and work in my work room. after a discussion at buildapc, the term thats best to describe it is ‘multiseat’
3d heavy modeling
Depending on the program of choice to go with AMD over NVIDIA will heavily impact your performance as cuda is better optimized than rocm. For me rocking rtx3060 it was hit or miss. It mostly depends on the distro if they choose to package the NVIDIA drivers out of the box. Some distros value freedom over usability. Right now I am daily driving bazzite and I am happy with it. For drivers its self I didn’t notice any major issues.
From your convoluted explanation I assume you have one PC already and you want to upgrade. I would just get a new one for work stuff and old one set up as “light work” as you put it or hook up to the TVs
before, i stream my pc at home from my office with steam deck. after a year the inconvenience outweighs the simplicity so i moved my home pc to my office so now im looking for a new build so might as well try to make something i’ve been wondering to do
What exactly are you looking for? “Home Server” and “NAS” are both terms used to describe computers running server software and basically nothing else. Their purpose is to run webservers (the infrastructure behind lemmy.world), game servers (the thing you can connect to in Minecraft, for instance), E-Mail servers (like GMail - not the App on your phone, but what it connects to to get your E-Mails from) and so on. Essentially, they exist just so that other computers can talk to them.
Nearly every server is headless (no mouse and keyboard, no screen). To interface with it, you connect over the internet. You rarely see them run a graphical interface (to save resources) - people use the terminal to administrate them.
Do you want a PC (as in: personal computer) instead? PCs (including laptops and smartphones) run (mostly) graphical applications and end-user applications, such as web browsers, E-Mail clients, office programs, games, etc. In this case, try usual PC hardware. Most will work on Linux (it might be adequate to point out that there are PCs available built specifically to run Linux). General hardware compatibility is pretty good for standard peripherals such as keyboards, mouses, speakers, monitors and cameras (exception for all of them: MacBooks and newer NVIDIA graphics cards). In the Laptop world, many seem to enjoy ThinkPads. Pick a distro (https://distrowiz.pages.dev/, I use Fedora btw), pick a Desktop Environment if you’re allowed to choose (technically you can always install another DE, it might just become messy) (the big ones are all great, the Deck’s desktop mode uses KDE Plasma) and off you go. Tip: Test your distro in a VM.
As for the Terminal: You won’t need it unless you go with Arch. Most of the time. The terminal is just very fast and way more standardized than GUIs. Therefore, Tutorials will use it all of the time. In rare occasions, GUI tools are not available. Good news: Learning the terminal is not as hard as learning to code. Once you feel ready, do try to learn how to use it. It’s a good QOL improvement.
