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One of my favourite types of posts here is people making their first steps - however small - on breaking away from the mainstream to make tech work for their own interests and needs, whether that is:
installing an alternative OS on their phone
trying Linux
switching to LibreOffice
using Firefox
using an ad blocker / PiHole
hosting their own website
and so on.
It may be stuff you, personally, did years ago, but to the person posting their success, it could be a leap.
One of my least favourite types of posts are replies telling someone that they haven’t gone far enough, or that they’ve done it wrong.
Trying Ubuntu, and knowing it is there, is better than not trying it at all. It’s not their fault that they don’t have an immediate, viable alternative to Software X.
Non-Android Linux on the phone isn’t for everyone, by a long shot.
Getting stuck working out DNS, or nginx config on their Pi, or whatever, isn’t a failure, it is the start of learning something.
@neil in some respects I think it is harder now to adopt alternatives because there are so many. Even if you pick a particular distro for an OS, documentation or forum posts from 5+ years ago are no longer accurate (except for when they are). It’s really quite difficult not to end up down the wrong rabbit hole.
@neil I think one of my biggest bugbears is the move from a "stand alone" bit of software to software that is comprised of a multitude of other bits of software and frameworks. You used to install (build, get) a single binary executable and that was it. Now you have to get three package managers, a specific version of ruby, pull down several projects from github, cross your fingers, and hope it works.
Then there is Docker.
@neil I think this was one of the things that put me off running my own Mastodon instance. It isn't just a single binary. It is a huge number of steps just to install. It feels like you are setting up a development environment on your machine.
It's no wonder people virtualise and containerise to bring some order to the chaos.
@neil Gone are the days of running apache, bind, sendmail, and a few other services on a single bare metal machine in the corner of your bedroom.
@danieldurrans I think that's just an artifact of the fact it's written in Ruby and that's the standard way of doing things.
The great thing about Free Software is that alternatives exist - so if you prioritise just having a single binary to download and run, you can start with something like https://github.com/superseriousbusiness/gotosocial#easy-to-run which does fit those requirements.
@danieldurrans
I gave up on docker. A container per binary is just going too far and overcomplicates the process. The networking is just insane.
I have loads of lxc containers.. spin up a usable Debian, install whatever BS the app wants all nicely contained in a single environment. Then blow the lot away when I'm done.. Networking is a simple bridge.. no NAT and ipv6 works.
@neil