# Difficulty Tiers For Self-Hosting

When working with self-hosting software and services you'll find there's a varierty of difficulties. This document helps define some difficulty tiers. You'll also notice references to these difficulties throughout the guides contained in this wiki.

# Easy / Basic

Easy / Basic

No worries here, folks! Everything can be done with a GUI with maybe several commands. It may also involve some editing of text files. Instructions usually include screenshots and/or diagrams. Operating systems in this tier are Ubuntu Linux, Microsoft Windows, and macOS.

# Medium / Intermediate

Medium / Intermediate

This tier is still not very difficult, but you're expected to know how not to break things in a terminal or text-based interface. A GUI is optional, but may be used on occasion. Operating systems in this tier include the ones from the previous tier and Debian Linux, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Rocky Linux, and Alma Linux.

# Hard / Advanced

Hard / Advanced

You are at home with a terminal and all tasks can be accomplished within it. If you break something while in the terminal you're comfortable fixing it. You understand how to fix serious system level issues. Operating systems in this tier include those previously mentioned plus Arch Linux, *BSD, Slackware Linux, and Gentoo Linux.

# Guru / Expert

Guru / Expert

You are able to compile software from source and aren't shy about surfing the web with Lynx. You are a top resource that others come to when they need help. You run Suicide Linux because anything less is for little babies!