Home server/Choosing an Operating System

The most popular choice here is by far any flavour of Linux. BSD is sometimes considered better. Using MacOS will earn you derision from Linux and Windows sysadmins alike. Don't use Windows.

Linux

CentOS

Note: Due to the recent shift in policy by RedHat, CentOS 8 will cease being supported in favor of CentOS Stream, A rolling release style distro. You can still use CentOS, just be aware that it will no longer be supported.

Hypervisor

Proxmox

Proxmox web UI

VMware ESXi

Vmware Vsphere client for ESXi 7

RancherOS

Mostly for advanced docker and kubernetes applications. Not going to cover it here, just know it exists as an option if you want to go full on dockerfag.

NAS Centric

NAS-centric operating system for a home server. Software designed for retards, with simple GUIs to set up your services.

Open Media Vault

Vmware Open Media Vault web UI

Xpenology

A free version of the OS Synology uses for their NAS products. Obviously you won't get any support from Synology if you use this.

Supports differently sized physical disks and adding hard drives to expand as needed.

• Xpenology Forums

unRAID

Unraid 6.60 Dashboard

TrueNAS CORE

Vmware TrueNas CORE web UI

TrueNAS Scale

In development Debian-based version of TrueNas. Boasts new features like KVM, native docker, and more.