Don't forget to support your local instance, financially and otherwise, to the extent you're able.

@mattblaze Still only half-sure I know what an “instance” is. Is that just Mastodon-speak, or is it a term used elsewhere?

@LauraPhillips99 Mastodon-speak for the server you're signed up with.

@mattblaze @LauraPhillips99 Not just Mastodon. It's #DevOps speak, since in this day and age we don't always run an OS by itself on "bare metal" hardware. We usually use virtual machines and containers. "Instance" is just a generalization of "Server".

@notroot @LauraPhillips99 I’ll check out this virtual machine thing.

@mattblaze @LauraPhillips99 👍 The idea is straightforward: you can run Windows and Mac OS on your Linux box. Or any other combination. There's performance restrictions. Most of the internet works this way, now.