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My self-hosting project

Unsurprisingly for someone publishing things on Gemini, I’m some kind of geek. However, don’t be fooled: I’m a dilettante. I don’t work with computers, I don’t know how to code anything and when I open a man page in my terminal, I feel overwhelmed. But even if my skills are *very* limited, I enjoy passing time in Matrix reading a debate between a SomethingBSD lover and someone somehow using Funtoo (this didn’t happen, but you caught the idea), and I’m excited when something doesn’t work anymore in my Manjaro install (but that’s very uncommon).

Beyond the pleasure I feel when I try doing moderately complex things on my computer, I’m actually concerned about my privacy. That’s something I try to take seriously. That’s why you see an AnonAddy address as my contact information; that’s why I ditched Windows for Linux, that’s why I(’m trying to) install CalyxOS on my phone, that’s why I don’t use anymore Gmail and Google more generally, or social medias like Facebook, Instagram or Twitter, or companies like Amazon. It’s one of the reasons I like the Gemini space.

I love to learn about computing because I like computers, but also because knowledge is power. And with the always growing digitization of our world, this knowledge can bring more power, or, at least, protect me and my family more from other powers in this new socioeconomic step that one can call “surveillance capitalism”.

I’m conscious that I’m a beginner, and that the way is still quite long before I can understand what I do and what I should be doing. But I’m also conscious that every step is a small victory.

The next stage for me is self-hosting. Chiefly, again, because that seems fun but also because it’s a new step in my digital life controlling project. If some of *my* data won’t leave *my* home, or at least less so, I’d be happy.

I studied the possibilities for someone like me (that is, like I said, a dilettante). A VPS could have been a good first step, but I kinda wanted to make the cloud more palpable, more physical. And a VPS is still someone else’s computer. Thus, I compared the possibilities that would be cheap and easy to use, and clearly, a single-board computer (SBC) was what I needed. I found chiefly three solutions:

A Raspberry Pi, the well-known SBC, more powerful than the others but more costly;
A Freedombox Pioneer, a 100% free (as in free speech) home server using Freedombox, a “Debian Pure Blend”, as its OS;

“Debian Pure Blend” on the Wikipedia proxy.

A “brique internet”, something proposed by French associative ISPs which is technically very close to the Freedombox Pioneer, but with YunoHost as its OS and which broadcast a Wi-Fi network connecting to the association’s VPN.

And as I’m crazy, I made a PDF comparing these solutions (in French).

I discovered other possibilities after, like the Orange Pi, and some of my ideas changed since when I wrote that, but honestly I don’t think it would have changed the result.

And that, because as a beginner, the most ready to use solution seemed the best. And the Freedombox Pioneer was the solution. I didn’t have to build my solution, like with the Raspberry Pi, choosing blindly. And unlike the “brique internet”, the Freedombox Pioneer was a server, and *only* a server. The only thing I added was the case for the SSD, as the microSD card didn’t seem big (and durable) enough.

Thus, I went to the Olimex store to buy my new toy. Surprisingly, I ordered this thing on Sunday; my payment was accepted on Monday; and Tuesday I already received it, even if it came from the other side of the EU, Bulgaria! It’s quicker than a lot of things I ordered in France... And sure quicker than if I had ordered a Raspberry from the UK. The price, however, was a bad surprise, as the indicated price was without VAT (it’s normal, but sometimes I’m dumb).

The (HTTPS) website of Olimex.

A photo of the Freedombox Pioneer with my hand to see its dimensions. It’s smaller than I thought!

Now, because I’m poor, I had to ask for this server as my birthday present. It’s like I’m thirteen again, and to be honest, it’s quite pleasing to be excited about something just like when I was a child! However, as it’s a present, I have to wait for my birthday to pass to actually play with my new toy...

So, in the meantime, I’m trying to plan what I’ll be doing with it. Actual cloud is out of the question, as I didn’t buy a SSD yet (again, I’m poor), and as my elected solution (Nextcloud) needs some tinkering to work in Debian that I’ll not try before I gained some experience. I’ll first play with the preinstalled or easily installable software.

There’s a list of software I’ll try (from the most useful to the less useful):

Radicale: I’d love to be able to add an event on GNOME Calendar and see it appear on my phone. I know it’s possible without a personal server, but I don’t trust others for that very private kind of information.
TinyTinyRSS: I’d love to centralize my RSS readers.
Tor: to access my Freedombox Pioneer from Tor.
Mediawiki: I’d like to have my own little encyclopedia, where I write things useful for me, information I’d be able to find easily. I could use Ikwiki for that, but as I already know the syntax of Mediawiki *via* Wikipedia, I prefer this solution.
Calibre: I’m not a big user of e-books, but I have some that I like to read both on my computer and on my phone. That would be useful.

And with that, I think I have months of work, if we add all the system utilities. Then, I’ll try to configure my own cloud and, why not, propose some place for my friends. And why not trying to host myself my capsule?

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Author: Adou (CC BY-SA 4.0)

3x37zj4e@anonaddy.me

Subject: Computing