Hey everyone. Klebs here and today, I’m going to talk about changes in my journey on the web and why it took me so long to post something.

When I started blogging three years ago, I was following the crowd by using Windows, Gmail and social media like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. However, I’ve slowly started to turn towards something that actually respects my privacy like Linux and I’ve since closed all my social media accounts to then use Mastodon instead. Moreover, I’ve started following influencers that preach digital minimalism and encourage people to host everything themselves. One of them, Luke Smith, helped me get started with his Landchad guide. I’ve been working on it ever since.

Host my own website

Although Wordpress allowed me to make my website prettier, it was also slower and required too much disk space. Now, I’m using a virtual private server (VPS) to host my new site that I’ve rebuilt from the ground up using the Jekyll static site generator. Working on this made me realize there was more I could do with a VPS besides web hosting and this was only the beginning. As a disclaimer, I’ve followed the steps in Landchad to register a domain and get a VPS to put Debian on it but used other providers than those recommended by Luke Smith since they didn’t fully meet my needs.

Host my own chat service and social network

It’s been a while since I’ve left Twitter for Mastodon where I was happier but I found out I could host my own social network. For that, Pleroma seemed like a better option because it was more lightweight and less demanding towards my VPS. Also, it still allows me to communicate with Mastodon users. I’ve then setup my own server using Biased Riot’s guide and now talk to Mastodon users using my Pleroma account. I’ve also briefly tried Matrix with Element but ultimately went with XMPP, a lighter and less demanding solution. Thanks to both Luke Smith’s et Biased Riot’s guides, I now have my own XMPP account.

Host my own git server

Like most people, I’ve first created an account on GitHub but right after it was acquired by Microsoft, I’ve switched over to GitLab. While I’ve had no issue with the latter so far, I wanted to try to create my own Git server and did just that thanks to Martin Chrzanowski’s and Ariel Costas’s guides for the server and the web interface respectively.

Host my own RSS feed generator

Closing my Twitter account meant it was harder to stay up-to-date with some communities. Creating a RSS feed generator using Jesper Bak Handskemager’s guide was the next step.

That was just the beginning

I haven’t even finished playing around with the Landchad guide I found out there’s more from guest writers. Some of them have other tutorials on either video or written format on their own platforms. I believe I’ve just gone down the rabbit hole and will be busy for a little bit longer.

Don’t hesitate to send me your questions and comments on Pleroma or XMPP.

Also, if you like what I do and would like to support me, please consider donating Monero or Bitcoin. You can also use this affiliate link if you plan to buy games, books or more on Humble Bundle.

Thanks for reading and I’ll talk to you soon. Laters.