Totally now giving up ever using NEXTCLOUD

ℹ️ Support
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An extensible and scalable platform like Nextcloud naturally comes with certain levels of complexity. There is no one ideal Nextcloud setup that works as well on a Raspi with two users as it does in a large organisation with 10,000 users. And in some ways, home user setups are often even more complex because they usually want to install all sorts of bells and whistles that businesses don’t normally use :wink:

However, a basic installation with all the “featured” file sharing and groupware apps is not much more complicated to install than other applications running on a LAMP stack. And with Docker and/or AIO, it’s even easier, and the feature set, especially with AIO, should generally be sufficient for most home users and even small and medium-sized businesses.

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Well, not sure if you expect a lot from a installation manual. There are quite a lot of installation tutorials, and some of them seem really good. They don’t leave out steps on purpose, and if parts are missing or less understandable, it is great to give feedback so these parts can be improved.

Here on the forum, we can create wiki entries, that allow editing by a lot of people. There we could try to provide manuals and keep them a active so they can easily be updated. This way, we are a bit more flexible than using the official documentation.

For a bare metal setup, there is a quite complete version from Nextcloud Installationsanleitung - Carsten Rieger IT-Services for Debian/Ubuntu, that a few people used and there were questions and answers about this specific documentation. But it is just in German, and with all the different possible options, it becomes itself a bit complex.

NextcloudPi was a different approach for Raspberry systems, that also comes with a few tools around managing a NC server (inkl. backup).

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And this is half the problem, right here. When I first started (about a year ago), I had absolutely no clue what the h*** a LAMP stack was, or Docker, or AIO, or Portainer, or any of the other million and one buzzwords that get tossed around here like we’re discussing the weather. This kind of stuff scares off beginners faster than you can say “Barrier To Entry”.

I’ve been thinking about writing a guide for how I’ve been doing things. It’s a decidedly non-standard setup, but I’ve got it down to a series of copy-paste commands, it’s configurable, you only need to back up three folders, you can test updates and roll back when bad things happen, and it works just as well locally as it does remotely.

I’d just like some proof-reading and testing done by a third party, and I’m not sure whether to post it in :bookmark_tabs: How to or Wiki.

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Let me chime in here :slight_smile:

First things first: Im IT pro (Solutions Architect) with close to 20 years of experience, so I know the ropes of IT. Can handle things like cli, Linux console and so on.

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@cptnkirk words of advice for you: you seem to be quite newbie in Linux world; so first of all: welcome :slight_smile: there is nothing wrong in being newbie, but please, do not put blame where there is no blame at all. Its not nice and, to same, highly demotivating.

Look: NextCloud may be not perfect, I fully agree with this; there is (and always will be) room for improvements, but current team of developers (so called core-dev team) are doing excellent job in developing NC. At the same time they are doing everything they can to keep both installing it as well as maintaining it, as simple as possible. If you are not comfortable with cli than thats fine; but there is also beatifully designed web-based installer that will guide you (quite literally) through all the steps upto completely usable product; all you need is just webbrowser.

Just the opposite in fact :slight_smile:

You just lost patience, because you are newbie. My advice to you is: just spin up some cheap VPS with Ubuntu (the easiest) and just play with it. Thats the best way of learning.

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So what!? When I started around 10 years ago (I started with OwnCloud), I had no idea either, and it took me about three years until i felt confident enough to use Nextcloud as my main production file storage/sharing and groupware solution. I would still not call me an expert, but I learned a lot, and I had a lot of fun (and frustration) in the process.

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Same here :slight_smile: (and I guess this is true for many many users)

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Like others have said, you want it to just work. Albeit that is an understandable sentiment, you as well as all of us know that computers in general are not like that, specially when trying to make a fairly complex piece of software work from the ground up and if you do not know even the basics. There is always a learning curve and it is not reasonable to assume that it will work like magic.

If you are a newcomer with Linux or command line you will have that learning curve, no different if you were utterly new to Windows or computers in general. On top that there is a difference between being an end user and what you are trying to do, which is to assume a bit of an Administrator role, on top of being an end user.

I get your frustration, yet if you are newbie to the whole environment, it is no different than learning a new instrument. You cannot expect to just be given a violin and then start just playing a piece without issues.

Like others have said, you may need to start learning and playing around with the environment more. I got a coupon for a free VPS for like a month and I just played around and broke it numerous time so I learn what to do and what NOT to do in many situations. Like you I started as a newbie, being afraid of messing stuff up because I did not know or understood what I was doing and I certainly broke my install a number of times but with that came more expertise.

I am no one special in this context, we all go through that and certainly I am no engineer of any sort.

For what I can tell it seems you are using a bit of a throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks and hope that it somehow works. That will just leave you frustrated in the end. It would leave anyone frustrated.

Perhaps take a step back and remove the expectation that doing a few click is all you need. You have to understand the lay of the land before you start deploying software and think that it will just work, or at the very least that is the best approach long term. Not trying to come off as mean, but at the very least if you have no idea of what the Stack is, and do not want to learn then yeah, maybe just quit. It is up to you. But if you want to have it work, whether is Nextcloud or any other complex piece of kit, then you have to go through those growing pains of the learning curve. This applies to any skill.

Like others have said, once you know the basics, it is not only worth it, it totally is, but you only have to learn things once. We all have gone through the same.

You can only get out what you put it, but you have to do it in a way that you are actually learning and it does take time, there are no shortcuts there.

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Thank you DuffyCloud for your reply and time - however, what I have found is that my expectation has been set by NEXTCLOUD - and not me. When I saw they do a version for HOME USE - I immediately worked with it.

Its like buying a car - I’ve been driving all my life - but I’ve no idea how a car is put together and build - this is sold to me by the manufacturer.

Of course I know I have to learn and found out things need to be explored - but I did not expect to nearly build the whole car myself with my own design and then trying to sell it onto new drivers???

That is what is happening here with NEXTCLOUD - the expectations are set to high for HOME USERS.
Its very easy for people who are experts in certain things to advice and make comments - but I also can give advice and make comments as a non expert and set the expectation for new comers to NEXTCLOUD as well.

Anyway, I’m doing my best with this and still trying to get this going.
So far I have 2 videos and 1 website that I’m collating all the configurations from and trying to configure it all such that I’ve no more errors and can sooner or later actually play with NEXTCLOUD - I’m still building the engine - then the bodywork - and who know, although I can drive, I may one day drive a NEXTCLOUD.

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Hi @cptnkirk, as you have seen before, there are many different types of installation of nextcloud to fit with user’s expectations and hardware. In my case, I installed nextcloud manually (with ZIP file) 4 years ago and reinstalled it a lot of times because Linux was new to me. In case you want some tips on nextcloud works and help, don’t hesitate to ask to the community.

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I think one of the reasons why I might get my head around things a little easier than others is that I like tinkering, but also that I’ve been fascinated by computers since I was a kid in the 80s. And back then, starting a game on a PC was as complex as installing Nextcloud. :wink:

Well, not quite, but I had several autoexec.bat and config.sys configuartions for loading different games under MS-DOS. Btw. on MS-DOS there was no GUI, the best you could get was a TUI for some applications, and Windows, which hardly had any native games at the time, was a separate thing that you had to start via command line. There were also no App Stores as we now them now, they emerged nearly 20 years later with the iPhone in 2010. :wink:

Seriously. Compare it to sports or an instrument you want to learn. Nowadays computers are extremely simple, but not because the backend has become simpler, but because a lot of money is being invested in developing services with intuitive user interfaces. The backend, on the other hand, has become much more complex. However, in order to get a Nextcloud running you still don’t have to be a computer scientist, but you have to be willing to take look beyoned the fancy frontends and learn a few new things.

In order to that, I’d guess you should have a certain curiosity and enjoyment in trying out things on a computer that go beyond consuming apps, otherwise it’s probably a pain and won’t work, at least not in the long term.

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If you want to install nextcloud with a simple web interface, install Yunohost with Nextcloud package.

https://yunohost.org/

https://apps.yunohost.org/app/nextcloud

BTW you can copy paste in a terminal, you just need to use Ctrl+shift+C and Ctrl+shift+V. Note that this is also the case in Windows terminal. In a Linux graphic environment you also can copy a text by selecting it with the mouse, and paste in with middle button it the terminal.

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That goes well, until it doesn’t. But sure, one more appliance thingy that people on the respective forums will tell you to edit this file to get that done, when things aren’t working as expected, or the underlying OS needs a release upgrade, which is fine if you see it as an intermediate step, but why not go one step further and do it right?

EDIT:
@cptnkirk Playing around with something like Yunohost can certainly be a good starting point. And maybe you’ll stick with it, which is fine, I guess. But don’t expect it to be as easy as installing an app on your iPhone, and be aware that if you’re using Yuinohost, the YunoHost forum will be your first stop for help if things go sideways, which they will, but’ that’s fine, we’ve all had that bad experiences when we started out, and we still have them now, especially if we are trying something new. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a liar :wink:

EDIT2:
By the way, all the professional and semi-professional Youtubers who make these tutorials on self-hosted apps spend hours and sometimes days putting them together. And I honestly doubt that many of them actually use all the apps they present in production, and even if they do, they don’t show you all the quirks they’ve gone through and probably still go through to keep’em running.

Also, in 2024, even or especially in corporate environments, being an IT administrator is still mainly a problem-solving job, so that users can enjoy the fancy front-ends without interruption. But you’re no longer a user, because the day you decided to run your own Nextcloud, you became an IT administrator. :slight_smile:

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Thats good and well needed.

Not at all! @cptnkirk is newbie, not intermediate (thats the level of knowledge required to operate YNH as root…

Wait a moment: computer software doesnt break without human intervention. If something breaks, its always human’s fault. Admin/root may be not deliberately break things, but still breakage requires human intervention…

Not at all! You know why Ubuntu is considered good starting point in Linux world? Because it tries to be another Windows, but with Unix’s flexibility. Ask around tutors: all will tell you the very same thing.

YunoHost is based on Debian not Ubuntu.

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You first need a driver’s license and learn to drive, you need to get insurance for your car, you have to know to maintain it (put in gas, check oil, tire pressure, …).
And I imagine there are plenty of things you can buy for HOME USE, it doesn’t mean that you master them with ease.
And that a commercial video from a company raised false expectations, well…

If you want to contribute and improve the situations for beginners, you could do a post with things you would have liked to know before you started with Nextcloud, point out parts in the documentation that are misleading, hard to understand, so they can be improved.

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NEXTCLOUD will probably one of my last projects to master - as then I hopefully have my files backed up - in two different places as well with RAID of course accessible from anywhere.
Laptops and desktops will be thing of the past soon anyway - as I’m already using Samsung DEX for everything - this means I will have only one device for everything and anywhere - no more Microsoft - thankfully, no more money spend on anything except my mobile - and already, if I loose it or drop it - you get a new one and all is back to normal again after a few hours and your up and running again. Google will compete with Samsung on this - others might dabble at it if they see a profit. Starlink over a few years will also do mobiles - they unfortunately have to team up with other providers because you have to have line of sight to satellites. We are not far from this now - maybe a decade and we’re they’re. They’ll be ringing us from Mars by then. Linux will stay I think - because its a free society already with proper infrastructure and aims.

Anyway, I think we can close this one now - we all know that NEXTCLOUD need also a few more years to mature and get it right for people like us.

I’m working on getting a script together that will work and is repeatable for what I want.

Thanks to all of you who helped and responded - we know a lot more now than we did.

CptnKirk over and out.

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Sooner or later something is going to break. Hobbyist NAS/app distribution platforms like YunoHost just tend to do that. Most of the time there will be a fix in the forums, but that fix will most likely require you to type some “obscure” commands in the CLI :wink:

Both are pretty similar on a server, in fact most of the things are identical, espeically when it comes to the typical server stuff like configuring web servers, PHP etc… We’re not talking about desktop Linux here.

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Well, to be completely honest, there are some (quite significant) differences between Debian Server & Ubuntu Server. But you’re right: many “standard” things are done the same way…

If one is going to forcefully make it better than the answer is yes. Otherwise no.

Of course not :slight_smile:

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Maybe, it’s been a long time since I tried YunHost, but back then it had applications in the standard repos that wouldn’t even install, and we’re not talking about the community repos, of which I’d estimate about 50% wouldn’t work out of the box.

That was one of the reasons why I decided to go the extra mile and install my applications manually, so I know exactly what I have configured and where.

YunoHost is great in concept and I kind of like it, but in practice I found it was pretty rough around the edges, at least when I tried it. Oh, and by the way, the built-in mail server is something that very few people hosting at home will be able to use, and I’m pretty sure it causes more confusion than it actually helps anyone.

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This conversation feels like it’s moved out of :information_source: Support and into :label: General. Just sayin’ :wink:

Besides:

Have a nice day, everyone!

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Yes, but only because the original post was already in the wrong category. Sould have been in “General” from the beginning. :wink:

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