I’ve been getting more into self hosting lately, grabbed an optiplex 3050 for everything and I’m running Mint currently. Looking more into things though, I saw Debian come up as a more barebones distro and now I’m wondering if there is a lot of benefit to going more barebones. I’m not having any issues with my current setup but now I can’t stop thinking about it. I am newer to Linux but having to learn new things doesn’t wig me out much if there is a lot more involvement with Debian
Edit: I appreciate the responses. I do see where I could just end up creating problems that don’t exist by experimenting with it more. Debian does sound enticing so it’s definitely something I’ll mess about with virtually for now and see how I like it in comparison. But I definitely have to agree on the “don’t mess with a good thing” if it’s working for me. All your answers have definitely given me something to play with now as well, I want the problems to solve but doing it in a separate environment would suit me better to learn a few things. This community rocks.
Consider Debian without a GUI (i.e. “headless”) if you are setting up a new device in the future. There’s no reason you can’t run mint or mint DE for a server, and the presence of a GUI on the install is not significant for self hosting unless you are pushing the limits of your hardware. The differences between mint and Debian when it comes to how all the kernel bits and service configurations are set up aren’t going to be significant for most casual self hosting situations.
But for now, just keep doing what you are doing. Make changes when you move hardware, that way you can test some stuff out on the new hardware while keeping your current setup running.