Did someone suggested Debian already? If not I would suggest Debian.

I like debian

Dietpi. It’s debian with a small package repo of common selfhosting software pre-configured to work out of the box. It also has a dedicated community and very helpful maintainers!

You can go for Alpine Linux: https://www.alpinelinux.org/

I went Debian without a Desktop for my server. I later installed a desktop for the occasion that I need it. But mostly, I use SSH

MicroOS has worked well as a server for me. Run everything as a container. Use caddy and portainer for reverse proxy and container manager respectively. Auto updates, immutable, and has been bulletproof for me for awhile now.

Apart from Debian, I guess Alpine. It's quite popular in containers for its small size. Even Arch will be much bigger in that case because the packages are much less granular and install development libraries and headers for about everything.

This is what Debian is for.

Dietpi

Debian netinst. The network installable iso is much smaller than the full image as you only download stuff you actually want to install. Ubuntu used to have a mini.iso but sadly they got rid of it AFAIK.

• OpenSuse
• Debian
• Alpine

Would be the three I’d choose from atleast.

I run Debian

Slackware

Debian.

Probably Debian. It’s basically the most used distro, and therefore has many online resources.

• Old software, but very stable.
• No bloat, very clean.
• No custom programs interfering with any configurations etc.
• Support for many server software etc.

If you want an even cleaner OS, where (nearly) everything is under your control and as lightweight as possible, Arch would be for you. There’s the bonus of the AUR, but the huge problem of newest, “unstable” software, though I’ve yet to experience any problem on testing repos, except for the Nvidia drivers. In general, Debian should be enough of lightweightiness and control.