That is fair, and I appreciate the explanation.

Edit: Author says GenAI was not used for code, see below.

Original comment, observing signs of GenAI project:

What’s up with these brand-new “Discord alternatives” being cranked out en masse? Would be easier to contribute to XMPP or Matrix IMO.

Initial commit 14,203 files changed +2872320

AI? Or “i worked on this for 10 years and uploaded just now”? /s

Overabundance of emojis in description. Probably AI.

Would be cool to see if anyone manages to get it running.

Were you able to run it yourself? What.

I knew of some of these issues with the protocol, but this article definitely gives an impression that Matrix was built as a “cool protocol” first, with messaging applied on top as an afterthought.

It’s possible to run the services without Kubernetes, but official ESS Community uses Kubernetes.

ESS Community works ‘out-of-the-box’ on a single machine or existing Kubernetes cluster using the provided Helm charts.

TLDR: bare Synapse was fine on 1CPU 1GB RAM VPS, but uses lots of disk space (from large rooms). Current/future ESS requires Kubernetes and several services to be functional.

More info in my blog post

Thank you for the queries. The rhetorical question is why isn’t the server handling this.

I have ran Synapse natively on 1 CPU 1GB RAM VPS for years. But it fills up a lot of disk space, eapecially with larger rooms, so get at least 100GB? (I had 20GB on my VPS, and with 4 regular users, was using up 15GB)

If you are looking at (new) official ESS Community, they recommend 2 CPU, 2GB RAM minimum for Kubernetes.

Matrix clients aren’t great

IMO the main advantage that Matrix-Element has for normal users is the branding: Element is Element on the web, Android and iOS. (Snikket is trying to do the same for XMPP though)

Matrix is too difficult for “normal” people

Agreed. Simple user+password login to a hosted (non-matrixdotorg) server takes 5-6 pages to click through.

Matrix public rooms have a CP problem

I was spammed with racist copypasta on XMPP once too. But being in large Matrix chats guarantees being invited/messaged.

…Matrix also pisses metadata to any server it federates with, including matrix [.] org

Replication+sync is a strange decision for chats. It sort of makes sense for slower fediverse posts, but creates a lot of strange scenarios and privacy issues with chats. Also, matrixdotorg is used for key backups and vectordotim is used for integrations IIRC.

I hosted Matrix for several years. It mostly works fine, apps look consistent, bridges are nice, but is a pain in the ass in some aspects. Onboarding sucks. Data needs constant cleanup (or gigabytes of storage, even for a dozen users). Sometimes notifications are delayed hours. Sometimes images don’t load.

New Element Server Suite is more corporate-oriented, requires Kubernetes (!) to run, includes defacto mandatory services. Element X has no feature parity with Element Classic, especially calls.

I ran Snikket many years ago for a few months. But now they have smooth invites/onboarding, admin panel, and always had reliable notifications. Even bridges through Slidge. I plan to switch back to Snikket soon.

More details

Looks like it is partially supported: https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Nokia_Lumia_520_(nokia-fame)

I have a Lumia 635 and got tmpfs to start, but then I am lost at “locate your ramdisk” https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Nokia_Lumia_630_(nokia-moneypenny)

IMO you would need a large capacitor between power (after diode) and ground, to provide enough current when device’s power consumption spikes (otherwise, it will shut down)

Here is my version without touching BMS or original battery: https://yaky.dev/2022-09-06-smartphone-without-battery/

IMO Snikket (XMPP) is the easiest all-in-one solution with audio/video chat at the moment. Pretty good on resources too.

I currently host a Matrix Synapse server, but:

• Matrix seems to be expanding in the corporate / institutional direction, more services are expected for regular functionality
• Element X (upcoming client) breaks calls compatibility with old Element, now requiring Element Call. It’s kind of a mess, I presume this is to support group calls, but makes it a PITA to use currently.
• Even with small number of users, Synapse DB grows in size due to state_groups_state table, non-deletable users, and copying ALL data from other servers’ rooms (this one is by design but still…)

I ran prosody server and used Siskin IM as a client, it worked pretty well. But as others mentioned, since this is Apple, the client developer has to run a push server, no background processes and long-polling allowed. Some other XMPP clients (Secret Messenger I think) did not have that set up and do not have notifications.

Profanity for XMPP and gomuks for Matrix are both neat ncurses clients that work pretty well.

Nice! Writing a similar converter was my first step when I set up my parallel site-capsule.

Love gemtext, it’s so simple yet pragmatic. (And there is just one version of it, unlike Markdown)

(I haven’t really used them a lot in the heat yet) Last enclosure was ASA, but AFAIK, black ABS is OK too because black pigment absorbs most of the light/UV, preventing plastic from degrading as fast

For offline navigation on Linux, have you looked at osmin? It was pretty decent on a PinePhone.

How do you handle power-off? Does Raspberry Pi just shut down? My thoughts were to use Alpine or some RAM-based OS that would not corrupt SD card or the hard drive.

I have been messing around with building an in-car navigation from e-waste for a while now. Right now, I settled on an old smartphone with OsmAnd and wrote my own app to view the reverse camera.

I just installed Miniflux on my server as well.

Advantages (in my opinion) are: Package is in Debian repos (safe and no compilation needed), software is a static binary (thus does not require docker and only needs postgreSQL), documentation is good.

This tool looks fantastic, thank you!

And Snikket for super-easy setup and management