build VS omnios-build

https://github.com/armbian/build

There isn't any hypervisor running on that and still no SVE

The number of boards supported by these two distros is astonishing:

https://www.armbian.com/download/

https://dietpi.com/#download

The NanoPC-T6 is already supported by Armbian build system:

https://github.com/armbian/build/tree/main/config/boards

It's my understanding that https://www.armbian.com/ has quite broad hardware support, and there are boards from Orange Pi and Pine64 that boast actual mainline kernel support, so this is more a case of a fragmented ecosystem than there being zero competitors that can meet or exceed pis.

The normal Raspberry Pi OS Lite is pretty okay.

https://www.armbian.com/ is also pretty awesome and also supports bunch of other RaspberryPi clones for cheaper price.

git clone https://github.com/armbian/build cd build ./compile.sh BOARD=orangepi5-plus RELEASE=jammy BUILD_MINIMAL=yes KERNEL_GIT=full BUILD_DESKTOP=no BUILD_ONLY="u-boot,kernel,armbian-config,armbian-zsh,bootstrap" KERNEL_CONFIGURE=no

If the SBC is supported by Armbian then the software support is usually pretty good.

https://www.armbian.com/

I use an old Android media player, repurposed with Ubuntu OS instead of Android (https://www.armbian.com/). Works fine, cost me nothing ($40 originally AFAIK, but it was being retired anyway). It has low power consumption, good reliability, more-than-adequate performance for HA and Plex media server. Equipped with multiple USB ports, ethernet, WiFi, HDMI.

key features at OmniOS Community Edition

OS Challenge: Try out an Illumos (OpenSolaris) image in a VM (there are Solaris kernel options available in Proxmox). If you want something fun, install OmniOS and create a Linux zone on it. So cool to run Linux on Solaris. https://omnios.org/

While UTM is much better at resource usage, it's not perfect. Virtualbox seems to emulate more of a system instead of passing it through to the hypervisor and so is better for running more unusual OSes. I have two VMs there running Illumos which I have yet to figure out how to boot in UTM. A problem that I think is related to UTM's greater use of the hypervisor is that you can't suspend and resume VMs that use it instead of being emulated, so I've still got a few VMs hanging around in Virtualbox which spend most of their time suspended. Finally, what stops me from using UTM at work is that you can't use it as a Vagrant provider. This is incredibly annoying, as the lack of a decent virtualization application makes the otherwise very nice M1 Macs nothing more than pretty toys. I expect that this glaring lack will be fixed within the next couple of years.

Can anyone recommend a good place to start learning OmniOS? Coming from Debain world. Other than the documentation on omnios.org, I only found a few blog posts here and there...

OpenIndiana is pretty neat. It has quite a few cool features like Zones, DTrace and Crossbow. ZFS is another big feature but you have already said that you don't really care about that. Hardware support is kinda lacking, but improving. Also it's rolling release so if you're like me and don't like that, OmniOS might be a better option; it's another illumos based OS.