I’m also new to this and have been using Mint for my server, since it’s what I am using for my desktop. I’m planning on testing out moving it to Debian. If I’m being honest, the real reason is because the logo is cooler.

If your current setup is satisfying your needs don’t change it. Linux Mint is quite similar to Debian when it comes to the base.
If you want to try and learn new thing maybe look into Bash scripting or Docker. Think of something useful you would like to have and try creating it.

My recommendation is Debian for a server (real or virtual), or Proxmox. The former is perfectly reasonable and excellent experience; the latter is more flexible and more complex.

Debian is the parent distro of numerous Linux flavours (including *buntu, which aren’t suitable as a server OS, IMHO), so administration and services are all common (apt, etc). No need to learn dnf, pacman/yay, etc.

It’s still my preferred server OS, despite other options and being experienced.

Though I do also have a NUC running Proxmox (for VMs and LXCs), and both a NAS and RasPi running Docker. 🤷‍♂️ My Debian server is a VM inside one of them.

You probably know this, but Mint is kind of just Debian with extra stuff (some might call it bloat, but that’s a matter of use case). So a switch to Debian from Mint should be very straightforward, if not seamless. The package manager is the same, and that’s usually the biggest part of switching distros. Debian is also ideal for hosting specifically; many, many production servers run on Debian. It’s also arguably the best-supported distro out there, so whatever question you have had probably already been answered.

TL;DR you should totally try Debian out (especially a headless version). It mostly like won’t be an issue.

I’m not having any issues with my current setup

I’m lazy. I just want things to work. So in your shoes, I wouldn’t go trying to create work if things work fine.

I run Debian on my home server and my VPS, but I chose it for familiarity and stability. I wouldn’t say Debian is inherently barebones; you can add/build whatever you want. It is a longstanding, capable distro that is the base of many other distros. It’s a solid choice that favors stability. And if things are working with Mint, why break them?

By contrast, I run CachyOS on my laptop because it’s a newer laptop and the rolling release model of CachyOS (and Arch, which it’s built on) gets the updates and hardware support I need to make my laptop work. It’s simpler, better, and less work, and significantly more functional than it’s be with Debian, because the rolling release distro moves fast. My home server is 10 year old hardware, so the more stable Debian is fine.

Debian is … fine. It’s the Toyota Corolla of distros. It’s reliable, it’ll likely do what you need it to do. It’s not fun or exciting or packed with the latest tech, it just does its job with minimum fuss.

Should I be using Debian?

That’s unanswerable but …

I’ve used Debian exclusively for many years. There are several aspects that have served me well:

• debian is one of the older, more popular distros - huge community and catalogue of solved problems.
• it just makes sense to run the same OS on my desktop and on servers, no oddities between them.
• it’s stable and boring.

On that last point, before switching to debian I (like everyone) enjoyed different DE’s and distros because they look great and the constant change gives a feeling of progress. However, at some point I realised that I didn’t want my OS to be a distraction from what I’m actually doing. Like I want to get my work done, and something not working quite right with the OS due to some bug or update is a huge distraction. Debian’s release cycle mitigates that problem.

In the before times it used to be annoying that the software in Debian’s repos lagged a long way behind the current releases, but that’s not really a problem with the advent of flatpak, nix, and (my preference) AppImages.

Recently I was tempted to switch to NixOS, but I didn’t.

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:

[Thread #61 for this comm, first seen 4th Feb 2026, 21:50] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

If your current setup works well for you, there’s no reason to change it.

You could try Debian in a VM (virtual machine) if you want to. If you’re running a desktop environment, GNOME Boxes makes it pretty easy to create VMs. It works even if you don’t use GNOME.

If you want to run it as a headless server (no screen plugged in to it), I’d install Proxmox on the system, and use VMs or LXC containers for everything. Proxmox gives you a web UI to manage VMs and containers.

I’m not having any issues with my current setup

There’s your answer.

I’m running Mint currently

I’m wondering if there is a lot of benefit to going more barebones

Not really. On the scale at which homelabs operate, I doubt you’ll see any difference at all – except what might be the significant time sink to set everything up again.

I’m not having any issues with my current setup

I’d put this firmly in the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” category. Mint is already a distro which is ultimately a Debian derivative. It operates more like Debian as opposed to, say, Fedora or Arch. While it can be enticing to explore the many options of Linux, the benefit isn’t clear here.

Now, distro hopping on a nonproduction system? Something where you don’t care what’s on it and you just want to experiment? That’s one of the best parts of being a Linux user. But at least do that first before even approaching breaking something that isn’t broken.

It sounds more like you want to have fun distro hopping, and believe me: I can tell you from experience that distro hopping isn’t fun if you have to rely on that machine.

Like everyone else said, didn’t fix it, if not broken. Admins like distros like Debian and Arch(sorry) because you have more initial control of what’s on them. Why have a GUI, if you didn’t need it? Mix that with a little OCD and next thing you’re doing is recompiling the kernel. Fun stuff 😀

LMDE is life

Yes. Always. Unless you prefer FreeBSD

That’s what I use, but it’s all preference. If your setup is working the way you want it, I wouldn’t fuck with it.

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.

Distro-hopping is very fun and educational, but don’t dump a working system for an experiment unless you’re forced to or you’re just a masochist.

Play around with it, try and recreate your current setup within it, and once (if) you’re comfortable enough to do that, then consider replacing your main server with it.

There’s plenty of more wild distros out there too. I love Debian, I use it a lot, but you’ll also learn a ton by trying to wrap your head around Fedora Silverblue, NixOS, Arch or Gentoo. It used to be a rite of passage to build your own LFS (Linux From Scratch) distro, not sure if people even do that anymore, but you’ll probably learn a metric shitton if you try.

I have both running right now. Mint on my laptop and media server. Debian only because it was previously required for Home Assistant support, (support which they’ve now dropped.)

Both distros are extraordinarily reliable, but I much prefer Mint. Debian is more focused on security and some of the design choices focus on that over usability. My LAN is completely locked down and only accessible via Wireguard and the physical systems are only accessible to me, so IDK how much better security it provides in my situation. Mint has every package I’ve ever needed prebuilt while I have had to build some packages for Debian.

Bottom line: As much as I like Mint, for me there is not sufficient reason to switch from Debian to Mint or visa-versa, but if I were installing from scratch I’d choose Mint every time.

Don’t tear down your server just to have fun - setup a vm (or get one of those minipcs), call i “playground” and have fun there.

Redo your server after you’ve tried different things, and only if you feel like you found something that is worth it.

Experimenting with different distros can teach you a lot (especially if you try very different ones - mint and debian aren’t that much different) and I do recommend you do it, just don’t do it in production :)

lights fuse* Proxmox! runs*

Debian is what you make of it, definitely. But it is also inanely stability focused to the point of being a detriment. It takes many months for simple package updates to hit Debian repos and it leads to frustration when stuff I expect to be updated is still very much not. As a server distro I recommend it, but as a play around distro it’s a bit more annoying and you have to do a ton more self maintenance on packages to get the latest and greatest.

If it works on mint, it’ll most likely work on debian, with the caveat that debian is a lot more CLI and a lot less handholding. Depending on your setup, debian might be a better choice for you, as Mint is desktop oriented.

But don’t fix something that already works. If there’s no issues with your Mint setup, I’d say keep it. Next time you set up a server, you can go for debian instead.

Source: I use both extensively. Mint on desktop, debian on headless stuff.

Debian is stable. It works well, but the software in its apt/deb repo are relatively outdated compared to what might be in Fedora.

Mint is for desktops. Hands down.

Run something paired down for servers. Fedora Server, or plain Debian are fine. CoreOS or Talos if you’re trying out some k8s stuff.

Yes, it’s mostly just package selection, but you don’t need to sift through the cruft and clean up all the desktop shit running you don’t need.

If nothing is broken don’t fix it…

I have a headless Debian server I’ve used for hosting media for like 10 years now with 0 issues that weren’t hardware failures. It’s solid as a rock. That said if you already have stuff up and running and you’re not having any problems there’s no reason to touch it.

My personal journey:

• arch is annoying to maintain and whil it is mostly stable, you do get some breaking updates here and there. It’s not a bad choice, it just doesn’t makeuch sense for a headless server.
• Ubuntu server, just why? Works fine but why?
• a not headless fedora, worked fine but still annoyed me sometimes
• proxmox (debian based) works great, annoyed me to manage vm resources.
• headless debian. Just works, I rarely if ever encounter OS issues. The only downside is that not everything can be found in the debian repos, but there is almost always an option to add a repo for whatever you want.

My setup is mostly dockers so keep that in mind.

But really, if something works for you go with it. If you are looking to change, I would recommend debian.

i would say no. Debian, imo, is a bit outdated in concept for this usecase.

aside from the “if it’s not broke” advice, i’d say if one is building a new home server today, use podman containers and something like opensuse MicroOS.

Start playing with nixos in a VM

You’ll get the idea I’m sure

  services.immich = {
    enable = true;
    host = "0.0.0.0";
    port = 2283;
    openFirewall = true;
  };

Mint is based on Ubuntu which is based on Debian. If you were spinning up a new server from scratch, I would definitely recommend Debian over Mint, but realistically if you’re not currently having any issues there’s no reason to rearchitect your whole server just for that.

Debian is fine, but if you have technical troubles you don’t want to deal with, then go straight to Ubuntu. Either Kubuntu (Ubuntu with KDE), Ubuntu, or some other Ubuntu variation.

As a new Linux user, I would recommend Ubuntu over Debian. It is easier to setup, has a lot more online documentation, provides various apps to make life a bit simplier like integrations and AppStore (even though you should try to away from Linux app store because of broken apps)

Arch is really the king diamond in desktop Linux in my opinion, due to their rolling releases (I love new stuff even if it may break things), but especially because for the Arch Wiki (which is good for other OS users to read too) and the Arch AUR. If going Arch, I recommend using arch-install to make installing it much easier. Update the default arch-install after booting pacman -Ss arch-install then just run.

Also as a new or intermediate Linux user, I strongly recommend LTS (Long Term Support) versions. For example, Ubuntus latest version is not LTS, and has been out for multiple months, and there are still a huge amount of apps not ready to easily install – and you either have to spend a lot of time to figure it out yourself, or lose the chance to use some apps.

For servers, I usually choose the distro with a version with the EOL scheduled furthest into the future. Usually that means Ubuntu (Server) LTS.

I honestly only use debian headless, and manage the server via ssh and manage docker containers via portainer’s web ui.

I’m not new to linux though, so 100% stay with a desktop environment like the one that comes with Mint, because that makes things much much simpler. It’s all debian under the hood at the end of the day, and 95% of services provide install guides for debian-based systems anyways. Is this optiplex 3050 your first homelabbing system?