news
HexOS and Lightwhale OS
-
XDA ☛ HexOS can finally manage your NAS locally instead of through the cloud, and it fixes its biggest flaw
When HexOS launched at the end of 2024, I was genuinely excited. Here was a NAS operating system built on top of TrueNAS Scale, one of the most battle-tested storage platforms in the world, but wrapped in an interface that didn't require much of anything by way of advanced Linux knowledge to understand. TrueNAS is phenomenal software, but it's built for enterprises and homelabbers who know what a ZFS vdev is, or is at least capable of learning. HexOS promised to make that power accessible to everyone else.
The catch, and it was a big one, was that HexOS's entire management interface lived in the cloud. You installed the software on your own hardware, but to actually use it, you had to go through the HexOS command deck in your web browser, meaning that your NAS was local, but the UI to manage it wasn't. I highlighted this when I first tested it out last year, and it was easily the most common criticism you'd find across forums, Reddit, and the HexOS community. For a product where the entire value proposition is your data, on your hardware, on your terms, it felt like a contradiction. A local way to use HexOS was quickly promised, but it wasn't clear when it would arrive.
-
XDA ☛ I ditched my Debian VM for the immutable Lightwhale OS, and Docker containers have never been simpler
I've been running Docker containers inside a full Debian VM for almost a year. Initially, that looked fun until I needed fortnightly upgrade scripts and multiple services to keep Linux alive. Still, all of that worked, so I never questioned it.
I tried several Docker managers, including Portainer, Dockge, and a few others. But it still felt overkill. When I stumbled upon Lightwhale, an OS built specifically for Docker that runs entirely from RAM, I had to try it in my home lab. It was enough to make me rethink everything.