I’m pretty new to self-hosting in general, so I’m sorry if I’m not using correct terminology or if this is a dumb question.

I did a big archival project last year, and ripped all 700 or so DVDs/Blu-rays I own. Ngl, I had originally planned on just having them all in a big media folder and picking out whatever I wanted to watch that way. Fortunately, I discovered Jellyfin, and went with that instead.

So I bought a mini pc to run Ubuntu server on, and I just installed Jellyfin directly there. Eventually I decided to try hosting a few other services (like Home Assistant and BookLore (R.I.P.)), which I did through Docker.

So I’m wondering, should I be running Jellyfin through Docker as well? Are there advantages to running Jellyfin through Docker as opposed to installed directly on the server? Would transitioning my Jellyfin instance to Docker be a complicated process (bearing in mind that I’m new and dumb)?

Thanks for any assistance.

  • Dingaling@lemmy.mlEnglish
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    30 days ago

    I run it in docker and it’s fine. It’s not because I don’t know how to run it natively - I’m a linux sysadmin - it’s just that very often, docker is easier to do this stuff with. Easier to migrate to other machines, easier to upgrade, easier to install, easier to remove if you want to.

    By all means go native if you want to learn. Pros and cons in each method, but for me, docker works just fine for most things.

  • freebee@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
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    30 days ago

    Look at DietPi, there a ‘normal pc’ version you can run on your mini pc. DietPi is super lightweight and makes installing and using very popular self hosted services extremely easy.

  • yaroto98@lemmy.worldEnglish
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    30 days ago

    Contrary to the other poster I prefer Docker over directly on the main OS. For one simple reason, uninstall. I tend to install/uninstall stuff frequently. Sure Jellyfin is great now, but what about next year when something happens and I want to switch to a fork, or emby, or something else? Uninstalling in Linux is a crapshoot. Not too bad if you’re using a package manager, but oftentimes the things I install aren’t in the package manager. Uninstalling binaries, cleaning up directories, removing users and groups, and removing dependancies is a massive pain. Back before docker instead of doing dist upgrades on my ubuntu server, I’d reinstall from scratch just to clean everything up.

    With docker, cleanup is a breeze.

  • sudoer777@lemmy.mlEnglish
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    29 days ago

    Imperative installations are messy to deal with and maintain, I recommend using either Docker Compose or NixOS

  • The Picard Maneuver@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    30 days ago

    I’m also relatively new to self-hosting and am not using docker. I don’t fully understand it, and my Jellyfin server is working well already, so I haven’t felt a need to rock the boat.

    I see so many people using docker that I frequently question if I should be too.

  • Synapse@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    29 days ago

    Docker and Docker-compose makes things very easy to maintain, restart, update, migrate. I don’t see downsides, maybe a bit longer to get started in the first place ?

    My recommendation is to go with docker. I don’t know the process to migrate your database from baremetal to container, but I am sure this question has been answered somewhere.