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Personally I don't use the too-dumbed-down OS flavors (e.g. Ubuntu is already at the edge of this) because I always feel constrained when I do and feel too dependent on maintainers - I cannot tell from any recent experience. I have 2 local boxes, one of them runs Debian (this runs my local node), the other FreeBSD (storage only).
What you need as a minimum is 3 layers:
- Isolation on network - you often do this on your router (or non-cheap managed switch)
- Firewalling on the OS - most of the simplified linux and BSD flavors do offer this, often even with a nice GUI
- Software updates, available as fast as possible - especially in 2026, because things get exploited quickly now.
As long as it offers that, you can in theory make it work, as long as you're careful what you install on there. Doesn't mean you'll have the fort knox among NAS' but you'll be able to reasonably protect yourself.
I want to test freebsd really bad, but my knowledge about this is about 0, I don’t think that learning whileI setup my NAS is a good idea. By what I could see this OS is not newbie friendly.
too-dumbed-down OS flavors
dependent on maintainers
I followed a linux youtubers to setup using my very cheap hardware – proof of dumb tutorial. It’s a fork of casaOS, so you are right on that.
- Isolation on network - you often do this on your router (or non-cheap managed switch)
I had to trust OS maintainers and testers about isolation.
I mean dumbed down as in it pushes you into a framework that is often incomplete because it is made to be "more user friendly", and while often the underlying kernel features are available, activating them will put you in a world of pain because often something will break in the user-friendly layer.
want to test freebsd really bad, but my knowledge about this is about 0, I don’t think that learning whileI setup my NAS is a good idea.
Yeah I'd not do that either. You'll want to do learn on a spare or on a VM. Not on a live device.
you are asking for too much from people that still keep all their photos on icloud/gdrive...
half of SN users are now asking shitGPT: "what is a NAS?"
Lets save everyone some tokens: https://chatgpt.com/s/t_6a0086dc8d5081918c71293f457918e3
Don't forget to secure said NAS.
DMZ it, firewall it on OS layer, SELinux, configure
fail2ban, runpcapif you can. And most importantly: make backups.