Mastodawn

Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂

I was trying to show off my darling little Raspi to my extended family but nobody was impressed. So my #GratefulForYou nod today goes out to all my Fedi friends who enjoy and delight in this kind of stuff. And thank you for always teaching me new things 🥹

#Linux #SmallTech #RaspberryPi

@elena Tell us whats running on your little Pi 😉

Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂Oct 29

@HF9061 it went through a few life cycles: Ubuntu, then the YunoHost image, then Debian and now back to Ubuntu 🥲

@elena I used two with DietPI /Pihole and VPN server, funny little things ...

SnazzyGumball Oct 29

@elena Have you heard of dietpiOS I use it its awesome makes self hosting really simple you just need to read their documentations witch really you IMO.

@SnazzyGumball @elena I love DietPi! It's the best ^^

Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂Oct 30

@joel @SnazzyGumball this is the first I hear of DietPi. Sounds amazing!!! I’ll look into it.

See, you people ALWAYS teach me cool new things. Thank you!!!! 🙏

Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂Oct 30

@joel @SnazzyGumball Update: I see that DietPi could be installed on my old Raspberry Pi 3… it’s sitting at home doing nothing. I can’t wait to try it out! 🤩

Teapot Ben Oct 30

@elena @joel @SnazzyGumball if you fancy trying something a bit different, FreeBSD is also officially available for the Pi 3!

Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂Oct 30

@teapot_ben @joel @SnazzyGumball freeBSD is on my to do list (for maybe late 2026... I've got so much to tackle before then) 😅

kiwiWolle Oct 29

@elena Simply mount a real apple with duct tape right where the raspberry logo is and your peers will immediately be impressed. 😂

Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂Oct 29

@kiwiWolle hahahaha.

To be fair my Mac Mini M4 isn’t much bigger and it has 48GB of RAM 🙊

But I can’t flash different OSs so easily, so the Raspi is a little marvel to me

Christopher Oct 29

@elena @kiwiWolle that’s impressive 😃

Claudius Oct 30

@elena @kiwiWolle the ability to just get a stack of 5€ SD cards and try *everything* was a real game-changer for me!

Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂Oct 30

@claudius @kiwiWolle wow! see, I wanted to ask if people swap microSD cards to try out different distros / things. I was too afraid to ask that, so it looks like I will try this. Thank you! 😅

Claudius Oct 30

@elena @kiwiWolle for a while, I used SD cards as my go-to thing to fill up orders to the "free shipping" minimum order.

Ordering something for fifty bucks where 59 bucks gets you free shipping? I'll just throw two SD-Cards in the mix.

Someone mentions "MITMproxy"? great, pop in a new SD-Card! How about Pi-Hole? Yeah, got a few spares, just go for it :-D

I basically tape micro-SD-Cards to a sticky note and note down what's on it, or passwords, or whatever I think is most useful.

kiwiWolle Oct 30

@claudius @elena Completely understand where you’re coming from. Why waste ten bucks on shipping when twelve gets you something else useful and unlocks free shipping?!!
The weirdest deal in that regards was this year when some vendor clearing inventory offered 40 or 50 new Lexar 32GB fast SD cards for less than 50 bucks. Can’t find the receipt, wanted to add it as proof since it seemed too good to be true, but indeed happened. Cheap way “sharing” no return media.

Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂Oct 30

@claudius pure genius!

✰ 𝔽𝕣𝕖𝕕 ✰ ( to be followed at @[email protected] )Oct 29

@[email protected] it makes a great stratum-1 NTP server, running #FreeBSD

mine is😎

Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂Oct 30

@fd0 👏👏👏👏👏

Reilly Spitzfaden (they/them)Oct 29

@elena love these little things! I have one running Kodi for an open source streaming box and it's lovely.

Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂Oct 30

@reillypascal thanks! I’m taking notes in case I get an extra one 📝 🤗

@elena a year ago one of my best friends came to visit and I proudly showed him my servers... Few times I've seen him as uninterested in something as that time

blobcatnotlikethis

Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂Oct 30

@a 😭🥲

It's really hard when people don't understand how cool this stuff is 😅

But on the other hand, the effect of this stuff is perhaps easier to appreciate? When Amazon's AWS went down recently, self-hosting people were able to carry on just as before, including any services they provided to their family and friends (e.g. home streaming etc).

Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂Oct 30

@FediThing so true! 🙌

in_sympathy Oct 29

@elena it’s amazing how all these people you never knew and will probably never meet in a way can be closer and more empathetic than your actual family.

@elena Families and friends gathering around a freshly baked raspberry pi sounds wholesome. It's a shame they didn't get it.

caffetino Oct 29

@elena lovely! I have a raspberry pi 4 somewhere with that case (my RPi5 is my alternative computer)

Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂Oct 30

@caffetino so cool! My RPi5 is now my Linux desktop computer (running Ubuntu)

caffetino Oct 30

@elena I do enjoy it, and it's my main non-work admin computer (and coding computer for the kids), but it's still a little slow and doesn't have the interoperability with corporate software that I would need for it to be my only computer ☹️

I still hope that day will come though.

Jan Dytrych🇨🇿🇺🇦Oct 29

@elena Raspberry Pi powers my boat's @sunseeker27 system that helps me to steer it, my home Pis runs @homeassistant and my other Raspberry Pi is running @yunohost with few services that are reachable from the Internet. So I'm your guy on this kind of stuff. So let me welcome to this kind of club of RaspberryPi enthusiasts 😂

Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂Oct 30

@jan @sunseeker27 @homeassistant @yunohost wow that’s amazing Jan!

From now on I will see you as my Raspi expert 😄

May I ask you a question? I have an extra Raspberry Pi 3 at home but couldn’t do anything with it last year because I felt it was terribly slow. Do you have recommendations as to what projects I could run with it, given the limited RAM? (even LEGO projects would be wonderful) thanks! 🙏

@elena @jan @sunseeker27 @homeassistant @yunohost I ran PiHole on a 3 until I got a decent home router, do you already have DNS based adblocking at home?

Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂Oct 30

@ainmosni I use a web-based solution (NextDNS) but always wanted to try building a PiHole…

Whatisgoingon Oct 30

@elena @ainmosni PiHole was one of the best self-hosting investment. So many unwanted requests coming from your day to day devices.

Jan Dytrych🇨🇿🇺🇦Oct 30

@elena LEGO projects are running with docker, right? I do remember mentioning it in one of your posts. But I don't remember details?

Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂Oct 30

@jan I saw it mentioned in @shollyethan 's newsletter. Maybe a couple of months ago?

If it requires Docker I'm out of luck because I'm still so far behind in my Docker learning journey 😢

Jan Dytrych🇨🇿🇺🇦Oct 30

@elena @shollyethan it's quite easy to do get docker running. Can make some steps for you to get it running.

Ethan Sholly Oct 30

@elena We need to fix this!

Vincent B. 🌱Oct 30

@jan @shollyethan What you don’t know yet @elena, is that the Docker journey STARTS with running random docker compose files to see what sticks… At least mine did ^^

⊥ᵒᵚ Cᵸᵎᶺᵋᶫ∸ᵒᵘ ☑️Oct 29

@elena I'm impressed! What ya doing with it?

Owl Eyes Oct 29

@elena Philistines!

Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂Oct 30

@d1 😂🤣 TBF I was trying to show off the Raspi as a Linux desktop… but nobody in this house has ever used a desktop computer. Or at least not in decades.

I couldn’t even find a spare keyboard when I had connection issues with my wireless one 🥲

Victoria🏳️‍⚧️Oct 29

@elena Warning: I'm completely green in the space.

What use cases those thingies are best at? I bet they excel at self-hosting, but if someone wanted to use them to run desktop on top of them, how viable would that be? Asking out of curiosity, hoping I didn't asked something dumb xD

Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂Oct 30

@tragivictoria that’s precisely my current use case: I set up my Raspi as a Linux desktop computer running Ubuntu. I love how I can flash distros on a microSD and have them running in no time. Nobody was impressed by that though 🥲

And yes typical use cases are Pis used as inexpensive home servers. They’re just so wonderful!

ClickyMcTicker Oct 30

@tragivictoria @elena May not be quite what you mean with your question but:

I used Ubuntu Desktop to run a server for years. It’s not the ideal solution because the GUI and such eats up resources which could otherwise be used by the services, BUT… It was ideal for me because I was not nearly as confident and capable as I am now. Being able to use the desktop to move files or pull up commands from the Internet was a great help.

That system’s successor now runs Ubuntu Server, but only because I am fully comfortable using the CLI for server administration and no longer have any need for those desktop components.

If this was a machine that quite literally sat at my desk hooked up to my monitor/keyboard/mouse, there’s no reason I couldn’t use my server as a desktop or vice versa. The Pi is on the weak side for a dual-use like that, but the concept remains. You can build a home server into your desktop. It’s a great strategy for the cost savings.

@elena
Oh what a cute baby

Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂Oct 30

@bitzero thank you! ☺️

▄︻デʟɨɮʀɛȶɛֆƈɦ-ֆʏֆȶɛʍֆ══━一,Oct 30

@elena @catsalad nice you got a Nostr relay 👍

@elena To be completely fair, most recent phones are on par or better than a Pi in terms of computing power.

If we didn't have smart phones, I'd bet it would be more impressive.

Some can even output video on their USB-C port and have a desktop environment for when you attach the phone to an external display.