Beelink SER8, Ubuntu server, Mosh and Tmux

For a really long time I was using the same setup for development.
Basically a macbook and Sublime text. Then using DDEV for Craft CMS sites, and Laravel Herd for Kirby or general PHP/static sites.

But things started to change when I dove into Omarchy late summer 2025.
I really started to play with the idea of having more Linux in my life, and be a bit less locked to MacOS.

Omarchy was a great adventure for me into Linux land, as I got knee deep into all kinds of configs and terminal challenges. I was close so close to feeling like this is the way that I ordered a Beelink SER8 mini-pc.

Long story short the Omarchy phase got me to a point where I felt I was now handling two competing computers on many areas. I still used the mac daily and the omarchy was kind of the dedicated dev-machine, but it being stationary ment it was sort of unpractical when moving around.
I was also experiencing all kinds of frustrating small issues, especially with wifi drivers. At one point I realized what a time-thief the whole project was, and that I couldn't any longer justify all this time spent on it.

So that left me in a situation where I just went back to the macbook again for everything, and the SER8 didn't have a purpose.

Then what sparked a new idea was hearing Scott Tolinsky talking about Tailscale: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0sEM9ijkTE
That seemed really cool, and felt like something to try out. Only for me I'd use the Beelink and Ubuntu Server instead of a Mac Mini, and Claude Code instead of Opencode.

And man do i like this setup! Now I have the Beelink standing right next to the router, and it runs DDEV and Caddy (no Herd for Linux) with the added benefit of it being long running. So I basically have all sites running always here, and via cron scripts it pulls live content down daily so I always have a fresh copy to develop on.

Added benefits include running Plex on it, so I easily can access videos on the Apple TV.

But the last hurdle I had was long running Claude contexts. I basically dev via Zed to remote folder, and kept a terminal open for claude stuff. But when the macbook went to sleep it broke the ssh and thereby also the claude convo. So to the rescue came Mosh and Tmux.
Now with Mosh (ssh replacement more resilient to sleep/network breaks etc) and Tmux (persistant terminal sessions) I truly have long running ssh sessions regardless of network changes or the macbook going to sleep etc. and it's just such an enjoyable setup.

So, this post is an appreciation post to all the mentioned open source projects along the way!

Also really enjoy the Beelink! Fwiw its a Beelink SER8 AMD Ryzen 7 8745HS 64G DDR5 5600MHz + 2TB Crucial SSD for $669, which I really feel is a good price for what you get. Just remember to tune the fan to make it silent.