i am new to dietpi and i’m trying to understand how to best setup my dietpi system on an old dell micropc.
when i’m not using the system as a desktop (multiboot windows/macos/popos/fydeos/dietpi) it will be running dietpi as a homeserver (about 90% of the time)
the pc is setup using wifi only (for now)
the plan is to setup the dietpi with:
dns: adguard & unbound
smarthome: home assistent
cloud storage: filebrowser
download: qbittorrent, radarr, sonarr, lidarr, readarr and prowlarr
media streaming: jellyfin
my main question is when setting up my device and because the linux filesystem and ownership of files etc. is quiete difficult to understand, what is the best option when installing the software do i install everything with root and just always run the system as root user or do i install everything under user dietpi and run the system as this user?
You typically need to run all installations as root (via dietpi-software).
If you are user dietpi, which would be preferred, you need to run it via sudo dietpi-software.
In both cases, dietpi-software runs with root rights, but the general usage around is more secure in regard of unwanted commands when using the dietpi login.
Using dietpi-software will setup all apps according to best practices automatically. This includes operating system user and file system permissions. Usually there is nothing you need to take care of.
Something you need to think off if you really plan to use your device as lokal DNS sever. Because if you switch to another multiboot os, your DietPi / DNS server will be offline that moment and you might have DNS resolution issues within your local networl. Typically a local DNS server should be available 24/7.
Think on this as well. WiFi might not be the fastes one and can slow down DNS resolution a bit. I would recommend a Ethernet connection for a DNS server.
at the moment i do have a pi2b with dietpi running as a dedicated dns server with adguard and unbound
i’ll remove adguard and unbound from the minipc
so it does not matter if i install from root or dietpi using dietpi-software
i was confused when i installed everything from root user and then logged in to user dietpi all the settings in firefox on LXQt desktop where gone thats why.
and also i put photos and music on a dedicated drive when logged in as root user and after i logged in as dietpi i coulnd delete them
so im trying to see what would be the best option for me
In a desktop environment the settings you make are only stored for the specific user, like in any other distro. Sure, with the root user you have access to everything, in the most cases.
So you need to install e.g. firefox with dietpi-software as root, this script only runs with root privileges. then log into LXQt with the user dietpi and modify everything you want. But IMO best practice is to use the desktop always as root user, but you can handle it how you like it.
This is a permission problem of your drive / folder where you put your files.
well, we can’t setup all permissions for all possible use case. usually, files are stored with the permission for the user who copy them to disk. But this is not DietPi specific. File system permission are working same way on all Linux based systems.
but willing to learn
to learn more about the linux filesystem