Definetly don’t need to go all in, you can start with a few LXCs from the community scripts

Biggest advantage for me is not having to juggle with ports or modify stuff that I already have running to try something new. Each LXC gets its own IP so I can start a new copy of let’s say Jellyfin to tinker with, and use what I learned to fix/improve my running instance.

Another really neat thing is how it handles backups. I have my LXCs on their own ZFS subvolumes and I back them up sporadically to external drives (cold storage). Backups start as a single big file but all the subsequent are way smaller, and checking and restoring them is a 2-click endeavour.

It looks corporate and intimidating, but it has an awesome community and you don’t need to learn all the bells and whistles to get a lot out of it

How can you live like that? I had a single one in a drawer and it drove me nuts, sticking to random crap/tools/pens or to the drawer rails!!

I ended up sticking it on top of the door frame so at least is out of the way

Started with the beta of CasaOS, really welcoming discord community and all, but when I went from a busted laptop to a purpose-built machine, I dove into the deep end and went with Proxmox.

It can be daunting at first with all that lingo but there are plenty of good tutorials. Can’t recommend enough. Also as a gap closer, there’s proxmox community scripts, which are great to spin new LXCs to tinker with and learn/try new stuff without annoying the family with downtime