Replacing Umbrel with Start9.
Discussion
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What pushed you to change?
Most excited about feature for Start9?
Honestly, I just didn't do much research before installing Umbrel. Just used it because "it's the one everyone else is using."
Start9 is what I would have gone with if I looked at the options in the first place. Far more power user focused. Encourages you to use the command line and SSH, much more customisable, just all round more my kind of speed.
Plus it's fully FOSS whereas Umbrel isn't.
Thanks for your insight! That’ll be a task to ✅ on the horizon so starting to do a little research 🧐🧡🤙
If you want something that's user friendly and "just works" without having to think about the technical details, Umbrel is a fine choice.
If like me you prefer to know exactly how everything works, have the freedom to tweak it, like using the terminal, etc... Start9 is the best option hands down.
Or do it all yourself - https://raspibolt.org/
You can also run Start9 and Umbrel on a Pi. And there's other node projects specifically designed for the Pi too.
I do have a spare Pi 4 so I've been thinking of giving it a go just to compare performance vs running a node on my Asus mini PC which is what I'm doing now.
Interesting idea 💡
I tried, but they need an alternative to tor. They are supposedly working on it, but connecting through tor is a slog. Tailscale on Umbrel makes the whole experience 10x better.
With both Umbrel and Start9 allowing side-loading community supported apps, it’s bummer there’s not an easy way of finding what’s out there. Being that all these node-in-a-box setups are based on docker containers… the install has to be very similar. Likely someone has already made it available.
Look up guides on how to setup Wireguard. You can do it with SSH on Start9 for sure. It's just Debian after all and Wireguard config is pretty easy.
Follow this tutorial to setup wireguard with your node.. don't use tailscale.
There we go. Good advice: setup your own Wireguard VPN instead of letting a proprietary platform have full access to your LAN unnecessarily.
I eventually just spun up a Debian VM on my homelab proxmox server and spun up the docker containers myself. I manage them with portainer to make it a little nicer to work with.
I prefer this way as well. Proxmox is awesome 👍
I gotta look into Portainer/Proxmox.
I have to say though I do like the convenience of just hitting install in an "app store" UX and everything else being automatic.
It's kinda like Arch vs Ubuntu. Can I use Arch? Absolutely. Can and have.
But do I prefer to not have to dive into config files whenever I wanna change some settings? Also yes.
And especially when it's something that holds money and transmits it - that's something I'd rather have "just work" with minimal config.
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Even if you still want to use the node-in-a-box setup, Proxmox is great to segment out the services. First instance of Umbrel or Start9 with just your node and payment apps running in on VM and another VM running the self-hosting type stuff. Or to run several node packages on one machine.
Tipi is a fun one to mess with.
I couldn't get Tailscale to work on my network for whatever reason so I just stuck to Tor on Umbrel anyway. I don't mind a few seconds extra latency.
Also, the Tailscale VPN that comes with Umbrel is terrible for privacy and security. You're letting a service operated by a company access your LAN, after already letting it into your Google account to login.
Why? It's very easy to setup Wireguard locally without a centralised middleman.
I imagine Start9 wants to avoid that shitty OPSEC approach and is working on a stable implementation of Wireguard for their OS. That's the right move.
Right, until then you can use TOR.
Good decision 💪
