I’ve migrated my FileMaker Intel Servers from macOS to Ubuntu. It’s incredible how fast an Intel Mac Mini runs with Ubuntu and how few resources FileMaker actually requires. Access to the FileMaker database has become significantly faster on the same hardware. Installing Let’s Encrypt works without any issues. I’ve also set up automated backups to an S3 server — I can highly recommend the s3cmd tool for this purpose. From my point of view, there’s no plausible reason to run a FileMaker Server on macOS anymore. Unfortunately, native support for Ubuntu on Apple Silicon is still not available without virtualization.
Best Wishes
Jan
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Can you give us more info? What are the specs on the Mac mini? Which version of Ubuntu did you use?
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Of course — it’s an Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8700B CPU @ 3.20GHz (12 cores), with 32 GB of RAM and a 512 GB SSD. Ubuntu is running in version 22.04.5 LTS.
I have an earlier model, the i5 CPU 16GB. It’s stuck on macOS 12, so it can’t go past FMS v19. Switching OS to Ubuntu would allow me to bring the server up to date.
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I believe that my aged Mac Mini is the same vintage/model/specs as @Malcolm. I was hoping that one of my projects this year could be to convert that machine into a linux machine, possibly to run recent version of FMS. Thus, this thread is of great interest to me. Thank you for starting it, @janhagemeister , and same to Malcolm for asking the questions that I, too, have been interested in.
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Since Ubuntu is much less memory-hungry, 16GB is usually more than sufficient.
I'm planning to do this over the weekend, so I'll report back. @janhagemeister noted that Ubuntu has less memory needs, this will be noticable as I won't be installing the desktop/GUI.
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Please remember to install the exact required version of Ubuntu.
And under no circumstances should you install a desktop GUI.
I have disabled partitioning with LVM and used the entire hard disk.
However, you should install SSH.
Jan
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I've just completed the transformation of my MacMini from MacOS to Ubuntu.
I made it a little harder than I needed to. Instead of reading the instructions and following them, I simply went ahead and did everything. I tripped over a couple of times on the way and when I did read the instructions there were clear warnings that would have guided me past those pitfalls.
Anyway, the server is running, it feels pretty snappy. I have a couple of databases that were feeling very slow. They're much more responsive, so that's a nice result.
The reason that I wanted to move was that the CPU was often spiking and the memory usage was often in the range between 50% and 80%.
Running under Ubuntu the CPU usage is currently less than 1% and the memory chart shows a flat line at 18%.
I'm very pleased with the change.
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Yes, a FileMaker installation on Ubuntu really has to be done strictly by the book. Great that you got it working — and that you’re seeing the same performance gains!
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