this post was submitted on 25 Apr 2026
0 points (NaN% liked)

Selfhosted

60281 readers
429 users here now

A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.

Rules:

Detailed Rules Post

  1. Be civil.

  2. No spam.

  3. Posts are to be related to self-hosting.

  4. Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or readme if you're providing a link.

  5. Submission headline should match the article title.

  6. No trolling.

  7. Promotion posts require active participation, with an account that is at least 30 days old. F/LOSS without a paywall has exceptions, with requirements. See the rules link for details.

Resources:

Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.

Questions? DM the mods!

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
ruud@lemmy.world
Loki@lemmy.world
CannaVet@lemmy.world
devve@lemmy.world
ayyy@sh.itjust.works
curbstickle@anarchist.nexus
curbstickle_lw@lemmy.world
0
Ollama Server Component Recommendations (piefed.blahaj.zone)
submitted 2 months ago by irotsoma@piefed.blahaj.zone to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
26 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

I'm looking to build a low-end ollama LLM server to improve home assistant voice control, Immich image recognition and a few other services. With the current cost of hardware components like memory, I'm looking to build something small, but somewhat expandable.

I have an old micro-atx form factor computer that I'm thinking will be a good option to upgrade. I'd love recommendations on motherboards, processors, and video card combos that would likely be compatible and sufficient to run a decent server while keeping costs lower, basically, the best bang for the buck. I have a couple of M.2 SSDs I can re-purpose. Would prefer the motherboard has 2.5Gbit Ethernet, but otherwise I'm open.

Also recommendations on sites to purchase good quality memory at reasonable prices that ship to the US. I'd be willing to look at lightly used components, too.

Any advice on any of these topics would be greatly appreciated. The advice I've found has all been out of date especially with crypto fading so video cards are not as expensive, but LLM data centers eating up and reserving memory before it's even manufactured.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] chrash0@lemmy.world 0 points 2 months ago (2 children)

honestly it’s hard to beat Macs these days in this space for two reasons:

  • unified memory means that you don’t have to load up on RAM just to load the model and then also shell out for a video card with barely enough VRAM to fit a basic language model
  • their supply chain is solid and has mostly avoided the constraints that other OEMs and parts manufacturers are struggling with

pricing is tough. sure, crypto is on its way out, but GPUs are still the platform of choice for most neural net workloads (outside of SoCs like Apple M-series). i built a PC in late 2024, and it’s easily worth twice what i paid for it.

[–] irotsoma@piefed.blahaj.zone 1 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Yeah,but I dont want to get locked into a proprietary OS or have to put a lot of effort into hacking it to run Linux.

[–] p4rzivalrp2@piefed.social 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The framework desktop has unified memory iirc, and that can obviously use any os

[–] irotsoma@piefed.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I didn't realize they were making desktops. I almost bought a laptop from them a few years ago but ended up finding an ASUS laptop that worked well with Linux and was significantly cheaper which fit my needs better for that. I'll check them out.

[–] p4rzivalrp2@piefed.social 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yeah they have soldered ram and cpu but have stays halo so ig that's fine

[–] irotsoma@piefed.blahaj.zone 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

So just glancing at the site, are these basically laptop CPU and RAM parts just packaged in a desktop form-factor case and that's why they're soldered? Seems like they also don't have much expansion capability much like a laptop such as only having a single PCI-E x4 slot with a proprietary connection interface, so I couldn't later add a graphics card for example. Unless, I'm just missing something, and if so please let me know.

Either way thanks for letting me know about the option.

[–] p4rzivalrp2@piefed.social 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The main benefit is the strix halo cpu uses unified memory, thats why it's soldered, not bc it uses laptop parts

[–] irotsoma@piefed.blahaj.zone 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Ok, so short, wide bus from CPU to memory? Makes sense. I didn't really mean the CPU so much as the main board is very laptop like. Very little expansion capabilities other than external connectors like audio, Ethernet, etc., but no ability to add functional or incremental upgrades like a GPU or an additional stick of memory respectively.

[–] p4rzivalrp2@piefed.social 1 points 1 month ago

The point of the stays halo series is the unified memory, so an additional GPU wouldn't be very useful, no?

[–] WASTECH@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I haven’t looked into Asahi Linux in a while now, but I figured the experience would be pretty good by now. You don’t need to “hack” anything to get it to run. Last I read, there were just a few driver issues, but I haven’t looked into it in probably 2-3 years now.

[–] SpatchyIsOnline@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

Last time I checked it only runs well on M1 devices, with M2 being somewhat usable. M3 though M5 are a complete no-go unfortunately :(

[–] ryokimball@infosec.pub 0 points 2 months ago

The apple silicon is more energy efficient but the latest Intel and AMD CPUs deliver more processing power and can also share a significant amount of RAM to the GPU / AI components.

[–] Scipitie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Depends what you want to do... For example I didn't get python whisper in a container to run on Mac in any way that can be called "performance" and I don't want my dev workflow to optimize for an OS I despise :D

[–] chrash0@lemmy.world 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

in a container

well there’s your issue. i get not liking the OS, but actively crippling your project will cripple your project.

containers on macOS do kinda suck

[–] Scipitie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

That's sich a Mac answer it's unbelievable.

Describing "A project aimed to be agnostic of it's environment" as a design mistake and not a inherent flaw of the OS is... Just wow.

Remember in this thread it's about the pro and con of Macos as interference hardware. This is a major flaw which comes baked into the hardware. I tested it and find it an unacceptable limitation. It's important for others to know.

To state "containerization is the issue" though... Just wow.

[–] JadedBlueEyes@programming.dev 0 points 2 months ago

Unfortunately containerisation on macos usually means running virtualized Linux, which of course is going to add overhead and cut off access to apple APIs and some hardware. So yep. There's plenty that runs natively.