Can someone suggest a good resource or two for someone who wants to setup their own Lighting Node in their house on linux or openbsd using open source software? Do I need the full blockchain? What software is good? Please I want to avoid software that is heavy on the installation and setup (e.g. no docker (easy but heavy) or ruby package nightmare crap). Thanks.
Discussion
Sadly I think an Umbrel node is “easiest” but it’s not as feature rich unless you add a lightning node manager app. You do have to have the whole chain I believe which is the most time consuming part.
I'll not use Umbrel every again. their apps aren't up to date and they do this weird wrapper thing with the lightning cli
What wrapper thing? GitHub links?
IIRC, its not the original lncli, they wrapped it with their script of the same name and dropped access to some commands
Look to be the original to me, built from sources
https://github.com/getumbrel/docker-lnd/blob/master/0.9/Dockerfile
Are you talking about the app script?
The most popular node implementations are LND (https://github.com/lightningnetwork/lnd) and CoreLN (https://github.com/elementsproject/lightning)
LND seems to have more plugins and tools that integrate with it, and CoreLN seems to be more performant. Both require connecting to a bitcoin node either locally or remotely (doesn't have to be yours).
An alternative option would be to install something like Umbrel which has a nice GUI and makes things easy to install, sets up your node behind Tor automatically, etc. I believe it works fine on Debian/Ubuntu: https://umbrel.com/
You being a Rust and C guy who loves the 1990s, I would tend to suggest and lean towards CLN + bitcoind and run it barebones on some old hardware.
Would also not just run it on a raspi, but install links are below if you want to use their setup on any hardware, its mostly scripts and you can dive in. If you want further info on guides for channels, I'd highly recommend DarthCoin's guides. If you're running neutrino you don't need the full blockchain.
Docs for CLN https://docs.corelightning.org/docs
Oh an i forgot if turns out you don't like CLN and want to run LND, you can do both on raspiblitz.
I set up a lightning node on Ubuntu using Ketan's guide a couple years ago.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCRbH-IWlcW2A_kpx2XwAMgT0rcZEZ2Cg
I did this as well. Highly recommend.
I predominantly use Raspibolt. Full Bitcoin node needed for Lightning
No actually you don't . Fiatjaf and benarc came up with this hack about 3 years ago, using Trustedcoin
Also if you don't have a full copy of the bitcoin blockchain and/or don't want to wait to sync forever you can grab a snapshot from the BTCPay team, signed and verified by a group of devs, including yours truly. 😉
If you really want to learn what is happening under the hood, follow the raspibold setup („Do-everything-yourself“) Minimum would be Bitcoin core and a lightning node. Everything else is nice to have.