If you've met me in person, you know I'm a very techinical person. Something that may be less expected is that I can't stand configuring software for more than a few minutes. I can handle assembling a desktop for an hour or more, no stops and really take my time with every step, no problem.

I can handle working with the operating system installation and installing the dozens of individual softwares I need to do all of my hobbies. I don't mind going through a user interface and searching for a few key features that I feel need adjusted defults. But that's about where m,y enjoyment ends.

Once you tell me I need to write a configuration file from scratch or that I need to be running extra services in the background, I've already started to lose interest. My view of the software experience has slowly evolved from "I want to know everything my system is doing all the time," to "I want to install the service, change some options, and start using it."

If you're familiar at all with Linux, this is against the grain of the whole paradigm, which is so frustrating at times, considering how much I enjoy its endless customization. I think the user interface, KDE, has this concept the closest for what I enjoy in a system. But this type of design usually comes at a cost, and that's complexity.

More often than not, I'll use a system like this for a good few months until something tries to update in a weird way or I install a piece of software that needs a dependancy of something that requires a full OS upgrade, or I find that the distribution I've been using for several months doesn't have compaitibility with a new piece of software I want to use. These are just some examples of why I've had to switch operating systems many times.

I wanted to rebuild the server that runs on my network and have full control and understanding of everything that got installed. I took my time, read instructions, chose software carefully, and finally think I have a configuration I'm proud of and that I consider sustainable. So, without further ado, let's get into it.

The Internet

It's important to point out that the route to my server technically starts outside my control. In this case, my domain, omnigon.network. If you're new to servers and networking, think of the domain as your PO Box. It's something you have someone else hold onto for you so that traffic makes its way to you. We need to have that traffic delivered to our actual location, though. Not just to the PO Box.

For that, we need to give it what's called an A Record. A Records act more like a street address, pointing directly to the route that connects you to the internet via your Internet Service Provider (ISP). Now, whenever someone looks up the domain omnigon.network, they will be pointed to my specific route. We'll get into specifics later on as to how this number is provided to the registrar