What is Amahi?
Amahi, according to the official server website at amahi.org, is the software that powers the PC that acts as a central computer for your home network.
Amahi handles the storage, entertainment and computing aspects of your home network. You can watch your downloaded TV shows on your laptop, listen to music files on an Android tablet, and work on documents on another PC without having to copy these files to your separate devices. It remains on the central PC.
Developers like to present Amahi as a home digital assistant that offers all the functionality of a home server while being very easy to use.
Amahi for Ubuntu: features and benefits
Amahi is easy to install and maintain and ultimately makes your home network simple as well.
With Amahi, you can easily:
• Protect all your devices by letting you back up all your connected computers. This means you can easily restore your machines when the need arises.
• Set up your own VPN. Having your own VPN allows you to securely access your home network from anywhere.
• Organize files on any computer. With Amahi, you can find, access, and share files on almost any PC you have on your network.
• Extend capabilities with apps. With Amahi, it’s something built on open source standards: Linux. But even if you don’t have any experience working with Linux, you will still be able to download, install and use web applications that could help you enjoy your PCs more.
Amahai now has a list of web applications that you can easily use with your system. You can view the list at amahi.org.
So whether you need to install Wiki software to help you manage your affairs at home, or have an easy to use backup solution, or an alternative to iTunes, or have time to play some games, there is an Amahi app for you. it’s. !
While Amahi has been around for a while, it was only in 2012 that it released a version for Ubuntu. Amahi’s Ubuntu uses Greyhole 0.9, which was the latest storage pool technology at the time of its release, while it was made to be more reliable and featured a more polished look. Amahi for Ubuntu included support for 32-bit and 64-bit machines and had additional cloud storage via Amahi Synch.
What others say:
Amahi has been collecting a lot of rave reviews from experts.
Luke Addison switched from Windows Home Server to Amahi and stated that Amahi seemed to perform much better than WHS and used fewer resources.
Addison noted that everything was so easy from installation to set up. Not to mention, with Amahi, he doesn’t have to worry about viruses and having to recover data, reformat and reinstall everything just because the operating system has been messing everything up in just several months of operations.
MaximumPC had an article comparing different free server installations and noted that Amahi is easy to use, simple and free. Plus, you’ll benefit from the rich Amahi community, where you can get support and even plugins without having to learn a single command line.
However, to give you an idea of how good Amahi is for Ubuntu as a home server, it would be instructive to compare it to Windows Home Server, which many would be more familiar with.
Amahi vs. Windows home server
Traditionally, Windows has been releasing network software aimed at businesses. But with the increasing use of home networking and the need to connect devices like PCs, laptops, smartphones, tablets, consoles, smart TVs, and other such devices, Microsoft realized it needed something more fine-tuned for the home.
Microsoft addressed this by creating Windows Home Server. But when Server 2012 was released with four different flavors, Microsoft also announced that it would discontinue Windows Home Server.
WHS is actually a very nice piece of software that allows your devices to talk to each other. Very easy to use, too.
But having been discontinued, people would have to find an alternative for it.
When it comes to functionality and features, there isn’t much of a difference between WHS and Amahi. But Amahi might not be so intuitive. With Amahi, you’ll need to do smaller tasks before you can complete a larger task, unlike WHS which uses simple GUIs. Fortunately, Ubuntu has a great support community that you can consult with.
Here is a comparison of the features:
• Storage pool. This is where all your hard drives act as a single storage medium, making it easy to add or remove hard drives. Amahi has this feature, while WHS removed their Drive Extender feature in later releases.
• Automated backups. While Amahi offers several backup solutions and can automatically backup all of your devices, WHS has good automated backup systems that Amahi can’t beat.
• File sharing. Both Amahi and WHS are very compliant with regulated file sharing.
• Multimedia transmission. WHS can immediately stream any movie, video or music file to any DLNA device. However, with Amahi, you’ll need to install an app to handle streaming media.
• Security. Because Amahi is based on Linux, it is much more secure and reliable than any Windows server. Linux is known for more secure servers that crash less frequently than Windows servers.
• App Center. WHS does not have its own official application center.
Amahi for Ubuntu comes from a long line of notable releases that garnered many positive reviews from IT professionals. Simply put, Amahi is easy to install and use. It may not be as polished as Windows Home Server, but it does the job pretty well. But what takes it to the top is its apps and the support it gets from the community, so you don’t have any problem extending its functionalities even if you’re not familiar with Linux or Ubuntu.
