linuxusers.in is a Fediverse instance that uses the ActivityPub protocol. In other words, users at this host can communicate with people that use software like Mastodon, Pleroma, Friendica, etc. all around the world.
This server runs the snac software and there is no automatic sign-up process.
I made an account and began using the ACTUALLY open source (glaring at you loops) #TikTok alternative, #vidzy I know they are in an alpha state having just started, but I feel in my heart @vidzy is gonna be really awesome and I'm excited to say I was so early I watched every video on vidzy at some point. Vidzy is #foss supports #activitypub , and all the good things and has both an online interface and app.
When you search for TikTok alternatives on alternative.to, there are 48 options. When you filter for open source, there are 4. Of the four, one is abandoned, one isn't actually open source (Loops), and one is overrun by AI bots pushing crypto (Olas). #Olas is further into development so it works smoother but it has a good amount of spam and is still a bit buggy. I hope it gets better but it's pretty tech-bro scam-y.
#Loops creator dan is problematic for a variety of reason including the fact that he continues to not share current code for Loops, is very immature/rude, and he 'joked' about adding ads.
🚀 New on #TheFutureIsFederated 👩🚀
#PeerTube: the Fediverse’s decentralized video platform (part 1: first impressions)
mentioning @Framasoft @peertube @fedihost@mstdn.social @fedihost@video.fedihost.co @paige @veronicaexplains @ewen @docpop @hikingdude
P.S.: this is the 20th article for The Future is Federated 🤗
#tech #Fediverse #activism #BigTech #SocialMedia #FOSS #blog #ActivityPub #video
Hello #Fediverse and Happy New Year!
I'd like to mark the start of 2025 with the first message from my self-hosted instance. You may already know me as @_elena@mastodon.social. Well, now I also run my own #ActivityPub microblogging server, thanks to the magic of #YunoHost and #GoToSocial (and #Phanpy, which I'm using to compose this).
I registered this domain – aseachange.com – a looooong time ago but never did anything with it. It was the very first domain name I ever bought, even before securing elenarossini.com (!!!). It was so long ago, but I remember I was inspired by Beck's album Sea Change. seachange[dot]com was taken, so I grabbed Aseachange.
I absolutely love its meaning of profound transformation and I think it's PERFECT for my self-hosted #Fediverse instance and what it represents: independence, empowerment and digital sovereignty.
Ever since setting it up, I've been feeling joyful and hopeful. Everytime I look at myself in the mirror, I think: I'm in control of my own social media platform. And it feels SOOO GOOD.
What do I have in store for 2025? I plan to use this account to post messages about #selfhosting, learning #Linux, privacy and digital sovereignty.
I will also keep posting from my Mastodon account because you don't give a Lamborghini to someone who just passed their driver's license. I barely know what I'm doing here, so I feel a lot safer (for now) keeping my mastodon.social account as well... In case anything goes wrong here. Better safe than sorry!
So, this is my #Introduction and if you've read as far as here I just want to thank the Fediverse for being so amazing and allowing me to connect with people on my own terms. And thank you Fedi people for being so generous and supportive with your superb advice and kind words.
This is a really magical, special place.
Happy New Year, everyone!
https://github.com/macports/macports-ports/pull/27816
3 out of 3 GitHub Continuous Integration checks passed already! (I guess whatever was slowing down that third one got resolved somehow?)
Thanks to you and inz for the continued improvements!
It's up to someone else with commit access to merge it.
#snac #MacPorts #OpenSource #ActivityPub #Mastodon #NoDatabaseNeeded
#NoJavaScript #NoCookiesEither #NotMuchBullShit #snacAnnounces
Added support for customizing and translating the web UI language via simple .po
files. For more information on how to install language files or create new ones, please see snac(8)
(the administrator manual).
New user support for blocking hashtags from the web UI.
The Content-Security-Policy
HTTP header is now always sent to disable any JavaScript, instead of just being suggested in the documentation.
Image attachments in SVG format are now disabled by default; you can enable them back by setting the enable_svg
value to true
in server.json
.
Several fixes (contributed by inz).
If you find #snac useful, please consider contributing via LiberaPay: https://liberapay.com/grunfink/
Loops + NLnet
We are thrilled to announce that @nlnet and @loops have signed a MoU for a grant funded through the NGI0 Core Fund!
Just published a guide on setting up Snac on an Ubuntu VM using NGINX Proxy Manager. Snac is an incredibly lightweight #ActivityPub server. A true nom nom among fediverse platforms.
If you're curious about minimal fediverse instances, check it out:
#selfhosting advocates may undermine their own goal of better privacy and data ownership. By promoting open-source, self-hosted tools as the solution for those concerned about their privacy, they provide an escape valve for companies and regulators alike
Meta’s #Threads, with its integration of #ActivityPub, can claim to be open and competitive, deflecting criticism and regulation—despite this openness being largely flowing from Threads to ActivityPub and not the other way around.
Its free #labor
https://matduggan.com/self-hosting-isnt-a-solution-its-a-patch/
There we go. #Snac2 up and running with the preferred installation process. Added custom styling to boot. One confusion point with styling is that it does NOT affect the root page (greeting.html) only the profile pages. So I thought I had done something wrong, but finally figured it out.
an important addendum to my previous toot: to enjoy all the benefits of the Fediverse you only need ONE account – because projects "talk to each other" thanks to the magic of #ActivityPub.
That said, the 2 things I find really empowering are:
1) being familiar with major projects, so I can make an informed decision about which one(s) to use
2) being able to self-host. It's the greatest feeling when it comes to digital sovereignty
And I'm just a filmmaker / creative person with 0 dev skills
https://github.com/macports/macports-ports/pull/27628
1 of 3 GitHub Continuous Integration checks has passed (which is a good sign the other two will pass as well).
I'm still avoiding commit access, so it's up to someone else to merge it.
Thanks to you, inz, lxo and anyone else I may have missed for the continued iterated improvements!
#snac #MacPorts #OpenSource #ActivityPub #Mastodon #NoDatabaseNeeded
#NoJavaScript #NoCookiesEither #NotMuchBullShit #snacAnnounces #FediVerse
Each post can have more than one attachment from the web UI. The maximum number can be configured in server.json
via the max_attachments
value (default: 4).
Each notification includes a link labelled Context
, that leads to a page with the full conversation tree the post is a part of.
Each followed hashtag has now a directly accesible link.
Fixed a search bug (some matches were missed).
Fixed more crashes (contributed by inz).
Fixed link detection in posts (contributed by inz).
Allow multiple editors for command-line posts (contributed by inz).
Separated maximum and default timeline entry count, allowing larger timelines to be requested without having to increase the default (contributed by lxo).
Turned message date into a link to the local post, so that it can be loaded into a separate tab for interacting with (contributed by lxo).
Special thanks to fellow developer inz for bringing my attention to code places where I should have been more careful.
If you find #snac useful, please consider contributing via LiberaPay: https://liberapay.com/grunfink/
This release has been inspired by the song Songe d'un ange by #KyrieKristmanson and #BrendanPerry.
Absolutely loving my Social Media life these days.
As I say to many, your mileage may differ. I think it all comes down to who you chose to engage with, and the topics you reply to.
We all have the choice to be on certain services and not on others. We should all abide and respect the choices others make in this regard.
My main Social Media area these days is the Fediverse, particularly through a GoToSocial ActivityPub instance named Polymaths.social. Wonderful software, instance, admin, and neighbours!
Since 2009 I was on a Mastodon instance named LinuxRocks.online. It started off really well with good chats on the local timeline. However, over the past year certain people and their followers came in, the local chats got strained, and quite painful at times, and I knew I needed to move on. I was friendly with the owner, and moderators, but the time had come.
To access Polymaths.social I use Phanpy on a browser, and Tusky on my Android Phone.
For browser access I did use Semaphore for a while. Very clean and effective, but Phanpy is like KDE vs Mate. To me this is a good thing. I do use Semaphore at times to check on Follow Requests and to currently "Delete and Redraft" as needed.
Telegram is a large part of my life. I use it to talk with many friends, including Arianna and my Sister Catriona, podcrawl and Linux groups, as well as my own Christian group.
I'm still on Facebook, and yes I question that daily.
For now I am there.
As I said at the start, this is my choice, and I am there for really good friends, family, and groups.
A few weeks ago I activated my Instagram account, which had been set up for no follows and privates, just so I could view content as needed.
I was getting so many requests from good friends if I was on there, and ok... "caved in", but my involvement is relatively minimal. Mostly posting my own photos and commenting on those of friends.
Well, that's my online life, and it is good.
Feel free to reply back with questions, and DM as needed.
#SocialMedia #Fediverse #GoToSocial #Mastodon #ActivityPub #Phanpy #Tusky #Semaphore #Telegram #Facebook #Instagram
The #Fediverse is free, free of censorship, federated and full of great content!
Also the Fediverse - instance admins randomly blocking whole instances just because a single user feels offended of a post by a single instance user. Blocking whole instances is just a finger snip away, censoring unwanted content and parenting users of instances. Defederating just because of… ok no clue :) Using content warner for any possible content just to annoy or aeemmm make it more interesting to other users. Thanks, I’m old enough :) Seeing all the spam because it’s just a thing of 5 minutes automation to create randomly new instances on different domains (or subdomains from dynamic-ip hosters) and to fill the network with automated content.
Sometimes, pros can easily switch into cons… luckily more and more single user instances are raising up for exactly this reasons and can still easily federate by using relays…
#networking #activitypub #mastodon #fediverse #gotosocial #snac #snac2 #opensource #community #socialmedia #relay #abuse #moderation
https://github.com/macports/macports-ports/pull/27571
GitHub Continuous Integration checks are running, hopefully without issues? If so, then it will be up to someone else with commit access to merge it.
Thanks for your (and inz's) continued improvements to snac!
#snac #MacPorts #OpenSource #ActivityPub #Mastodon #NoDatabaseNeeded
#NoJavaScript #NoCookiesEither #NotMuchBullShit #snacAnnounces #snacizens
Fixed memory leak (contributed by inz).
Fixed crash.
If you find #snac useful, please consider contributing via LiberaPay: https://liberapay.com/grunfink/
And it’s a wrap for my first (EPIC) day at #FOSDEM.
It’s hard to put into words how incredible - and energizing - it feels to be around the creators of the #ActivityPub protocol, founders of #Fediverse software, admins of popular instances and developers of tools I use every day.
I took the opportunity to thank them in person for their incredible work 😊
It’s also been amazing to finally meet IRL lots of cool people I had been corresponding with for months on the Fediverse.
The best day 💛
✨ EPIC selfies from #FOSDEM part 2 ✨
with two legends: @johnonolan (founder of Ghost) and @pfefferle (creator of the Wordpress #ActivityPub plugin)
@AasaMariaHedberg oh in that case you NEED to look at the #fediverse enabled #castopod :) It works like any other podcast service but allows you to connect to here via #activitypub protocol, which is how things like #pixelfed and #mastodon can follow each other:)
I submitted a Pull Request to update MacPorts' snac to 2.70 here:
https://github.com/macports/macports-ports/pull/27556
1 of 3 GitHub Continuous Integration checks has passed (which is a good sign the other two will as well, eventually).
It's up to someone else with commit access to merge it.
#snac #MacPorts #OpenSource #ActivityPub #Mastodon #NoDatabaseNeeded
#NoJavaScript #NoCookiesEither #NotMuchBullShit #snacAnnounces #snacizens
Notifications are now shown in a more compact way (i.e. all reactions are shown just above your post, instead of repeating the post ad nauseam for every reaction).
New command-line option unmute
to, well, no-longer-mute an actor.
The private timeline now includes an approximate mark between new posts and "already seen" ones.
Fixed a spurious 404 error in the instance root URL for some configurations.
If you find #snac useful, please consider contributing via LiberaPay: https://liberapay.com/grunfink/
This release has been inspired by the song The Answers to the Questions by #Christabell and #DavidLynch.
#HowTo install & run #snac on #FreeBSD - run your own #ActivityPub instance in the #Fediverse!
In the last days I often got asked about #snac / #snac2 as an alternative to #Mastodon and I can highly recommend it! I few months ago, I already wrote a HowTo about setting snac up on a FreeBSD instance - might be worth to share again :) if you’re using snac, you might also want to use my relay service at https://fedi-relay.gyptazy.com to make your posts more visible in the Fediworld.
#opensource #fediverse #fediworld #alternatives #community #FreeBSD #RUNBSD #BoxyBSD #activitypub #mastodon #relay #community #federated
https://gyptazy.com/install-snac2-on-freebsd-an-activitypub-instance-for-the-fediverse/
When I opened up Lemmy this morning I could not believe my eyes. The top story was a headline from Forbes stating:
« ‘Open Source And Ethical’ TikTok, WhatsApp And Instagram Alternatives Could Transform Social Media ».
The article mostly focused on #Pixelfed and did a fairly good job explaining how #ActivityPub works. But they spelled #Mastodon « Mastadon » over and over again with no links to it. Yikes.
B for the effort, but please editors do better!
Just a few days ago, I lunched my new relay service for the #Fediverse and I'm really happy to see that there're already many ones connected to - more than 50 instances in just a few days!
But what makes me even really happy is to see, that my service [2] also gets linked in the release notes of #snac [1] / #snac2 - and I can recommend the usage of relay services (it doesn't matter which one!) to everyone. It provides more content from connected instances to you, but also brings your posts - from your local instance - up to other ones within the federated network where it can get much easier distributed around other instances.
#snac is the perfect way to host an own fediverse instance. Using the #ActivityPub protocol allows you to connect to all other instances. With the integrated #Mastodon API, you can also use most of your usual clients or web clients. Snac is light, fast, does not require any database and follows the KISS way - which the most of us BSD people are living. With relay services, it's the perfect match for singe-user instances and @grunfink is always open for ideas and to help! It does not always need to be #Mastodon, #GoToSocial etc!
And if you're using any other software, you may still benefit by using relay services. And if you're still looking for a guide, howto setup snac2 on #FreeBSD, my howto [3] might help you out.
[1]: https://codeberg.org/grunfink/snac2
[2]: https://fedi-relay.gyptazy.com
[3]: https://gyptazy.com/install-snac2-on-freebsd-an-activitypub-instance-for-the-fediverse/
#community #opensource #development #coding #c #clang #homelab #hosting #BSD #RUNBSD #Howto
Added support for subscribing to LitePub (Pleroma-style) Fediverse Relays like e.g. https://fedi-relay.gyptazy.com to improve federation. See snac(8)
(the Administrator Manual) for more information on how to use this feature.
Added support for following hashtags. This is only useful if your instance is subscribed to relays (see above).
Added support for a Mastodon-like /authorize_interaction
webpoint entry, that allows following, liking and boosting from another account's Mastodon public web interface. To be able to use it, you must reconfigure your https proxy to redirect /authorize_interaction
to snac (see snac(8)
).
Some fixes to accept Event
objects properly (like those coming from implementations like https://gancio.org/ or https://mobilizon.fr).
Added some caching for local Actor
objects.
Hashtags that are not explicitly linked in a post's content are shown below it.
Fixed broken NetBSD build (missing dependency in Makefile.NetBSD).
The user profile can now include longitude and latitude data for your current location.
Mastodon API: implemented limit= on notification fetches (contributed by nowster), implemented faster min_id handling (contributed by nowster), obey the quiet public visibility set for posts, other timeline improvements (contributed by nowster).
Reduced RSA key size for new users from 4096 to 2048. This will be friendlier to smaller machines, and everybody else out there is using 2048.
If the SNAC_BASEDIR
environment variable is defined and set to the base directory of your installation, you don't have to include the base directory in the command line.
Fixed a bug in the generation of the top page (contributed by an-im-dugud).
Added support for Markdown headers and underlining (contributed by an-im-dugud).
If you find #snac useful, please consider contributing via LiberaPay: https://liberapay.com/grunfink/
This release has been inspired by the song Nine Hundred Miles by #BarbaraDane.
Happy 7th anniversary of becoming an official W3C standard, ActivityPub!
https://www.w3.org/news/2018/activitypub-is-now-a-w3c-recommendation/
We're creating something truly special here with the fediverse, and I am so thankful for everyone who contributes to it, whether with your time, money, or just by sharing your thoughts, your creations, your silly little jokes. Keep it up!
My new relay instance in the #Fediverse launched successfully :)
Just added a blog post: As I could see, not everyone was aware of the benefits of using such a service which is especially very important for smaller instances or even single-user instances. So, nothing new in the post - just a recap to summarize the things for newcomers :) #activitypub #mastodon #snac #pleroma #social #socialmedia #community
https://gyptazy.com/hosting-a-new-activitypub-relay-for-the-fediverse-including-mastodon-and-snac/
wow, that was quick - more than 30 instances already connected to my relay in just such a short time :) Let's be federated and help even smaller #instances to distribute their content & posts!
You can find more information at:
https://fedi-relay.gyptazy.com
The instance is reachable on IPv4 and IPv6.
#fediverse #mastodon #snac #snac2 #activitypub #relay #activtypubrelay #Pleroma #BSD #RUNBSD #devops #opensource #ipv6 #gotosocial #community #akkoma #pixelfed #selfhosting #homelab
🚀 New on #TheFutureIsFederated 👩🚀
"My Year of Fediverse explorations"
https://blog.elenarossini.com/my-year-of-fediverse-explorations/
with shout-outs to @pixelfed @dansup @pfefferle @gotosocial @yunohost @phanpy
#tech #Fediverse #BigTech #socialmedia #FOSS #FLOSS #blog #Friendica #Pixelfed #Lemmy #GoToSocial #YunoHost #Mastodon #ActivityPub #Wordpress
And it never gets old: the special thrill of seeing your #Pixelfed post show up in your #Mastodon feed because of the magic of #ActivityPub ✨
Interoperability on the Fediverse is just so so cool!
🔗 : https://photos.elenarossini.com/p/ele/785075267840958818
I submitted a Pull Request to update MacPorts' snac to 2.68 here:
https://github.com/macports/macports-ports/pull/27332
GitHub Continuous Integration checks are running (two out of three completed successfully, which is a good sign, here's hoping the last one has no issues as well).
As usual, it's up to someone else with commit access to merge it.
#snac #MacPorts #OpenSource #ActivityPub #Mastodon #NoDatabaseNeeded
#NoJavaScript #NoCookiesEither #NotMuchBullShit #snacAnnounces
Fixed regression in link verification code (contributed by nowster).
Added ipv6 support for the https frontend connection (contributed by hb9hnt).
New "Like by URL" operation (contributed by dheadshot).
Added support for a Mastodon-like /share
link sharing URL, like the one provided by sites like https://mastodonshare.com/ and such. To be able to use it, you must reconfigure your https proxy to redirect /share
to snac (see snac(8)
).
New linux landlock (sandboxing) support for enhanced security (contributed by shtrophic). It's still a bit experimental, so you have to enable it explicitly by recompiling with the WITH_LINUX_SANDBOX directive (e.g. make CFLAGS=-DWITH_LINUX_SANDBOX
).
Some search fixes regarding repeated matches.
The export_csv
cmdline operation now exports the CSV files inside a user's export/
subdirectory instead of the current directory.
All CSV files to be imported must now be stored inside a user's import/
subdirectory instead of the current directory.
Mastodon API: more timeline paging tunings (contributed by nowster), post language selected in apps is properly set.
The command-line operation note
new reads the LANG
environment variable to set the post's language.
A new command-line operation, note_unlisted
, allows posting "unlisted" or "quiet public" posts.
The maximum number of entries in users' RSS feeds and in outboxes can now be set via the max_public_entries
variable in the server.json
file.
Fixed broken support for Audio
objects.
Made xmpp and mailto URLs clickable.
If you find #snac useful, please consider contributing via LiberaPay: https://liberapay.com/grunfink/
This release has been inspired by the painting Judith Slaying Holofernes by #ArtemisiaGentileschi.
My first post on @pixelfed — it’s awesome to see it pop up in my #Mastodon feed, it feels like magic.
LOVE LOVE LOVE the #Fediverse and #ActivityPub
✨🌳✨
https://github.com/macports/macports-ports/pull/27188
Two of three GitHub Actions Continuous Integration checks passed, which is a good sign; hopefully the others will pass without issues.
As usual, it's up to others with commit access to merge it!
Thanks again for your and others' continued improvements to snac! Specifically I noticed shout outs to nowster and Shamar in the RELEASE_NOTES.md and I seem to recall watching the discourse about the PID locking suggested and discussed rather collaboratively too!
(My apologies for the delay. The Makefile was slightly modified, which in turn broke the $files/Makefile.patch applied by MacPorts so I needed to rework that which took me a bit longer than usual given other work obligations I have had today.
Though not a concern for upstream, for MacPorts users I also noticed the following warning when running % port test:
"Warning: violation by /opt/local/man
Warning: snac violates the layout of the ports-filesystems!
Warning: Please fix or indicate this misbehavior (if it is intended), it will be an error in future releases!"
Though, it appears as if the man pages are where I think they should be for MacPorts? I have never seen that Warning before, so my guess is something about MacPorts intended prescriptive behavior has been changed but I am not exactly certain what the expected behavior is supposed to be now? I will look into it further, but hopefully it isn't a concern for users at the moment; just thought I would mention it for the sake of being thorough!
However, it's entirely possible I messed something up too; so if others with greater wisdom than I see that Warning and know what to do to correct it, or if they encounter any other issues with MacPorts' snac, others are more than welcome to submit Pull Requests with improvements! Or feel free to open up an issue on MacPorts Trac instance at https://trac.macports.org and I'll look into it.)
#snac #MacPorts #OpenSource #ActivityPub #Mastodon #NoDatabaseNeeded
#NoJavaScript #NoCookiesEither#NotMuchBullShit #snacAnnounces
The search box also accepts post URLs; the post is requested and, if it's found, can be interacted with (liked, boosted, replied to, etc.).
IP addresses for failed logins are tracked and throttled to mitigate brute force attacks (see snac(8)
for more information).
Fixed a bug regarding repeated attachments when editing a post.
Mastodon API: Improved timeline pagination in some clients (details: an HTTP Link
header has been added), fixed missing audio attachments, fixed an incorrect value for the bot
field in newly created accounts, fixed a crash, implemented markers (contributed by nowster).
When running in server mode, the pidfile is locked to avoid concurrent running of the same server instance.
Added documentation and some tweaks to enable static compilation with musl (contributed by Shamar).
If you find #snac useful, please consider contributing via LiberaPay: https://liberapay.com/grunfink/
In the northern half we'll celebrate #SolInvictus by listening to the song One Perfect Sunrise by #Orbital.