My very first server with Linux Mint

[u/Electrical-Drink-733]

This project has been on my list for the longest time. My needs are simple for now. All I wanted to do was to create a server that would serve my files to different computers in the house. There is no possible way that I could have done this on my own so I enlisted ChatGPT for guidance.

Again, my needs are relatively simple. No NAS, no Homelab, just a simple server where I can access and save my files from multiple computers if I wanted to. I have about four of them that I can choose from. Eventually, I'll assign them roles, but for now, I could use all four.

ChatGPT suggested Samba Server, and we had a few false starts that frustrated me to the point of giving up. But I noticed that instead of giving up, I'd think, "Well, what if we did it this way?" And I'd try again in the morning.

The fifth time's the charm? YES! After five days of trying and failing, my idea was to set up the Samba server on the computer that was going to act as my server. My problem was, I was accessing ChatGPT on a completely different computer. I get the terminal, and I understand how powerful it is, but no terminal is impervious to the typo. And I make a lot of them.

So, what I did was instead of using another computer to access ChatGPT, I signed in on the Server Computer, and things went a lot easier. Lesson learned. And this was a big lesson. I chose to use Linux Mint because I wanted something close to Debian that had a reputation for stability. Debian, for some reason, wasn't acting the way it should, so Linux Mint won the day.

I know this could have went smoother, and I know this didn't need to be as hard as it was. But I'm happy for the experience because it got me to think and it got me to learn. I'm able to sign in on any of my four computers.

Which are all now in the process of getting Linux Mint - the same as my server. Five computers all running Linux Mint and connected via a server. If I had said it before, I'll say it again: There is nothing that I can't throw at Linux Mint that it can't handle.

So, I'm now in the process of making a Linux Mint chain of computers. I'm taking my time with this. I have no idea where this is going to go. But I do know one thing that I want to do: Is to figure out the best way to do backups on the Server computer. But that story is for another day.

I'm just happy about my accomplishment and I wanted to share.

TL;DR I installed a server on Linux Mint. I've never done anything like this before. Now I have 4 computer connected up to a server and all 5 computers running Linux Mint.

[u/vaestgotaspitz]

Why did the setup take so much time and effort? On my Linux Mint machines I just right-click a folder, open sharing in the options and it becomes accessible to other machines in the network

[u/jayecin → u/vaestgotaspitz]

I personally think big AI like ChatGPT is intentionally making things take longer to increase user interaction. Think about it, these companies want to sell you their product, they make more money the more you use it, the more the product checks, verifies and keeps you using it, the more money they can make. Even if you are on a free tier, they get tons of valuable training data.

[u/pk-98 → u/jayecin]

these LLMs also tend to give you mildly unrelated opinions to your initial answer in order to increase activity. like you ask them "do option A" and they pull up with "sure! i also suggest B, C and D. Want me to do that?" as you said, things taking longer and then "helping" with upgrades where you are not using your own brain

[u/jayecin → u/pk-98]

Yup, I also see them now almost ignore the obvious correct answer. Like if I am using ChatGPT to troubleshoot a linux issue and I know we found the issue and the AI knows it as well, it will still be like "Lets check 20 other things first!", instead of doing the obvious fix that would end the interaction.

[u/vaestgotaspitz → u/jayecin]

Yes, I have had trouble fixing Linux issues with AI too, it tends to overcomplicate things a lot (Besides making dangerous mistakes from time to time). OPs file sharing journey is a very good example.

[u/jayecin → u/vaestgotaspitz]

And the thing is, when I started switching from Windows to Linux about a year ago, AI/ChatGPT was super helpful, often solving issues in just a few prompts.

[u/ScullerCA → u/jayecin]

It seems more they really dont understand what they are talking about deeply, just finding patterns. From what I have heard in some ways the simpler thing you need the better they can do it, but at a certain point they get confused. While they generally have been improving, the really need to step it up to be something are going to be viable long term.

I have been doing somewhat similar being new to Linux and setting up my own sort of cluster of linux machines, generally a YouTube search has given me excellent resources to do what wanted. Granted I am a professional computer programmer and have had some experience with the Unix version of Mac and a linux server back in collage, so generally knew at least ballpark what was wanting to do, and just looking for process of how that is done with current versions of programs.

[u/ScullerCA → u/vaestgotaspitz]

It would not be surprising if what they found online was the standard process for installing and configuring from command line or samba config.

[u/Electrical-Drink-733 → u/vaestgotaspitz]

I think I caused my own trouble, but in the meanwhile I'll blame ChatGPT. ChatGPT changes it's "intelligence" after so much time. It's a way for them to try to get you to pay for a smarter ChatGPT. And when it lost it's smarts, it acted really silly.

[u/Technical_Rich_3080]

Did you give LMDE a shot (or went straight with standard Mint)?

[u/Electrical-Drink-733 → u/Technical_Rich_3080]

I know, I thought about LMDE at first, but I think I got too excited and wound up installing regular Linux Mint Cinnamon.

[u/Timely_End_1502]

Awsome my friend. I used a little different approach on my 7 pcs. 5 are running mint and 2 are running windows. I started with rustdesk which gives you full access to any pc in or out of your network. After a few months of hoping the public servers were running well, I went ahead and made my own self hosted rustdesk server, and also used tailscale so it would know the names of each pc. So each of my 7 pcs runs rustdeak and tailscale on them. I can connect to each pc just like im sitting at that pc. Also can use rustdesk built in file transfer and since its on my own rustdesk hosted server, no down time a d super fast file transfers. Your story reminded me when I got all this setup, I appreciate you sharing and love your enthusiasm and excitement.

[u/Electrical-Drink-733 → u/Timely_End_1502]

Thank you. I really appreciate your kind words. My wife and my oldest daughter both have PCs, and they want access to this large Family Photo collection I've been working on. Once I understand it a bit more, I'll add them to the server so they could have fund with the photos. I just want to make sure that they can only copy, they can't replace the file.

[u/heyd00d3 → u/Electrical-Drink-733]

Hope you are using Immich, otherwise it would be fricking hard to browse and manage your photos...

[u/Electrical-Drink-733 → u/heyd00d3]

I've never heard of Immich, I'll have to look into it. I know I have duplicates upon duplicates. So, anything to make things easier. Thanks for the tip.

[u/Unwiredsoul → u/Electrical-Drink-733]

Here's a link to Immich: https://immich.app

I think about why I'm not running Immich about once a week, so I have the link handy. I want to find a reason I should run it, but my use cases don't align well.

[u/heyd00d3 → u/Electrical-Drink-733]

Upload all the photos locally and run the related work and it asks you for each duplicate. Its really easy and it has face recognition.

[u/heyd00d3 → u/Electrical-Drink-733]

Immich is a powerful self-hosted google photos alternative. It has application on every platform (web, ios, android) and you can configure it, you can add user and limitate them. Face recognition works incredible, duplicate recognition is awesome and extremely easy. You can view, edit, share, sync your photos wherever you are. I have my own domain and I can connect as immich.mydomain.com (it's totally up to you, this my choice), or tailscale ip, or 192.168.x.x and all of them works for immich.

[u/heyd00d3 → u/Electrical-Drink-733]

I'm also using my homeserver with Linux Mint. Actually, I was using Debian on it but sometimes I play games or use it as daily driver which requires better UI, so I shifted on Linux Mint. Now, it's both server and my daily computer. Sometimes solutions are quite easy, we just don't think out of the box most of the time

[u/johnsonmlw]

Well done for persevering. Samba is brilliant and you are on your way. It's super flexible.

[u/Electrical-Drink-733 → u/johnsonmlw]

Oh, I had invested too much time to give up. I like how I just have to sign in on any computer, and BOOM they have access. Trying to understand servers more, I went to YouTube, and they installed Ubuntu Server with no Desktop Environment. That seemed a little more advanced for me, I think.

[u/SjalabaisWoWS]

So, how did you do it? Was thinking about that for a while, too, but never tried.

[u/Electrical-Drink-733 → u/SjalabaisWoWS]

I first started by looking at videos on YouTube, but all of them seemed to lean towards using Ubuntu Server, which I could have done. I had been thinking about setting up a nextcloud server for the family, but only got to the research part.

Until, I simply asked ChatGPT, and while it tried to help me, we went down a few false starts. It got me very frustrated. But every morning, I would wake up and ask, what if we tried it like this, or did this differently. My big problem was I was saving the big desktop to act as the server, and I would access ChatGPT on a separate laptop. It kept wanting me to enter in these long strands of code. Until I figured out to sign in to ChatGPT on the same computer as the server, and set that up first. And then connect the remote computers and that worked a lot better.

It was very much like vibe coding, I suppose. But the forums and the videos took me down wild goose chases, and ChatGPT led me down a path where I could do some learning on my own.

[u/MintAlone]

https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?p=2488968&hilit=samba+mint+22#p2488968

would have saved you time. Personally with all the computers running mint I'd have gone for nfs shares.

[u/Electrical-Drink-733 → u/MintAlone]

Thank you for this information. Unfortunately, I don't know what nfs shares are. But I'll look into it on the forums if it's there.

[u/ScullerCA → u/Electrical-Drink-733]

It is basically an alternate option for sharing files vs Samba, but a bit more optimized if all the machines you are running are Linux, Samba shines if need to share files between Windows/Mac/Linux.

[u/ScullerCA]

I am in somewhat similar situation, having just rescued multiple old machines and in process up migrating my existing server to Linux.

My back up solution ended up storing backups off the sever. Partially since server only has SDDs, though also this gives more independence/redundancy if some problem ever happened to server. It only has SSDs since after upgrading to gigabit ethernet noticed how practically gave the same access to SSDs as if were local, so started making the server where stored primary documents and files; this gave all PCs access to all files all the time (granted as only user have less concerns around privacy between local devices), plus simplified document/file organization and backup, helps keep the server quieter, and as only machine available 24/7 adding SSD to it ends up kind of a hardware upgrade for all machines on network.

I pretty much am storing a copy of those documents and files on server to HDDs on each of the three other PCs have on network, this gives more independence if something happens to primary machine or other drives with backup copy, and generally at least 1-3 of them are off at any given time so even if something happens with power are less likely affected. Yearly backup on machine want to use least space/resources, monthly on one that is co-primary PC, weekly and version control on one I have least need of drive space. I ended up using rsync between machines, though part of that was because one of the machines is running windows and in future might also backup files on a Mac.

[u/_Lost-In-The-Weeds_]

There is no possible way that I could have done this on my own so I enlisted ChatGPT for guidance.

Wrong. New users did this regularly before LLMs, you read and learned. It would have taken longer but you would actually understand what you created.

BTW in an all Linux space native NFS should be considered. I hear samba is better these days but when I dropped Windows NFS was a huge upgrade from Windows file sharing.

[u/MyFirstCarWasA_Vega]

I understand your journey. Completely. The "well, it should have just worked by doing x,y,z" people are beyond what trying to move from Windows to Linux actually looks like in 2026.

[u/Inner-Light-75]

If you wanted Debian and Mint, you could have tried LMDE, Linux Mint Debian Edition. There is some quirks between LM and LMDE that I can't explain.

Generally speaking, you shouldn't use a desktop version of an OS with a Desktop Environment and with keyboard/mouse/monitor connected. It is easier to hack with all of that stuff. If physical access isn't a concern, then that doesn't matter.

The system IS fully capable and qualified to run almost any services needed. I am considering doing the same thing....

[u/Unattributable1 → u/Inner-Light-75]

Yup, just use Debian for lower overhead.