I assume most users here have some sort of tech/IT/software background. However, I’ve seen some comments of people who might not have that background (no problem with that) and I wonder if you are self-hosting anything, how did you decide that you would like to self-host?
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I don’t have a tech background. Currently hosting 25 different things in docker. I wonder if there are actually more non-tech people who do it, because tech industry people might want to take a break in their off time.
This is too true, I usually do not touch any tech stuff anymore at home, working in IT all day.
It was self-fulfilling for me. I started self-hosting and messing with networking before I went into IT. I thought I’d be in a very different field until ~10 years ago.
No background but I can read and listen. There are plenty of resources around.
I started out of privacy concerns and I wanted to deGoogle It started this year with a RPI and pihole. Then I saw Mealie, bought a domain, and started sharing recipes with my family.
At first I messed around with Casa OS. It’s like a gateway drug. So easy to use and get stuff running.
Last week a 2nd hand i5 arrived and now I moved everything to proxmox. The RPI is still running pinhole. At the moment I’m setting up Immich and I’m thinking about buying a NAS.
Since it is a new hobby I keep everything low cost. If it sticks I’ll invest in a proper home server.
De-Googling was what got me started as well. Wanted to be able to have my own Google Drive clone with Nextcloud. From there it was just one little improvement / additional service at a time as I learned to use Linux and docker. Now I run a Linux laptop and am considering an android phone.
Engineering background for reference.
Self hosting is your pathway to a tech background.
University for comp sci, in my experience around the space, is a complete waste of time. Just a piece of paper that may or may not equip the recipient with some skills that may or may not be relevant.
University is ok if you’re starting at zero and don’t even know what’s out there. It’s for exposing students to a a breadth of topics and some rationale of why things are as they are, but not necessarily for plugging them into a production environment.
Nothing beats having your own real world project, either for motivation or exposure to cutting edge methods. Universities have tried to replicate that with things like ‘problem based learning,’ and they probably hope that students will be inspired by one or two of the classes to start their own out-of-class project, but school and work are fundamentally different ways of learning with fundamentally different goals.
My one and only reason is that I’m a turbo-nerd. No professional or even educational tech background at all.
Same been using computers my whole life so self hosting was just gonna be apart of it.
When they were installing the alarm at my house I noticed that the main guy had nextcloud on his phone and it sparked a nice conversation about privacy. He has no technical background but managed to self-host it on his old laptop with one of those distros that have an easy UI for self-hosting (don’t remember which one exactly). He’s a pretty cool guy.
Proxmox or Unraid?
I clean construction site toilets. I wanted to run my own game and media severs and ended up with a Dell Poweredge, a synology 1u NAS and some ubiquity gear
I work in logistics. I’ve always had a fascination with tech, and was leery of all these neato things on offer from big tech, from social media to the cloud.
Found out I could self-host, and got to learning.
I started self-hosting a music server locally on a Raspberry Pi long before I switched careers to go into IT. I actually learned a lot that way.
Nope, I work in STEM but not IT nor software.
I’m a serial hobbyist and actively pursue projects outside the scope of my job and education background.
I believe that most self holsters actually are more hobbyist lifestyle than people with actual tech background.
I read and research a whole lot, which has taken me down this rabbit hole.
I’m a farmer that was an IT guy a decade or so ago, which I guess is a background in it, but that’s not why I do it. Self-hosting is a self-reliance thing. I like to fix my own equipment, metal and silicon.
When it comes apart, I want to know the reason, and I like to invent new ways to do things, which means I have to be able to control my infrastructure.
Honestly it would be really cool to see more self hosting in the farming space. I want to see a iot system that it run by the farmer.
Before we know it there will be a server room at each farm
Hosting videogames on a dedicated box for me and the boys when I was 16 got me more interested in networking and when I had finished my mostly unrelated education, I pivoted hard to IT. I don’t currently work in IT and I don’t know if I ever will again because my handicap and location make it hard to find jobs but essentially:
Self-hosting came first, then came the tech ‘background’.
Medical device engineer here (mechanical engineering). I host jellyfin, game servers (Minecraft, factorio, valheim, etc), my website, and a bunch of other minor services I find useful.
I got into it originally through a combination of poor internet, and being fed up with Google and others discontinuing products/features. The internet problem is solved now, so my only goal is not being reliant on someone else’s cloud.
I think you need to be at least somewhat technical
You don’t have to have a technical background though. Anyone from any background could learn it if they wanted too. A technical background obviously helps though.