A Raspberry Pi makes an excellent low-power home server for file sharing, media streaming, or self-hosted services. This guide sets up the basics.

Install Raspberry Pi OS Lite

Use the headless (Lite) version for a server — no desktop environment needed, saving RAM and CPU.

Assign a Static IP

Edit /etc/dhcpcd.conf:

interface eth0
static ip_address=192.168.1.50/24
static routers=192.168.1.1
static domain_name_servers=1.1.1.1

Install Common Server Software

sudo apt install nginx mariadb-server php-fpm

Enable Auto-start on Boot

sudo systemctl enable nginx