Discussion
My experience of the #fediverse :
Year 1 (2023):
It feels a little lonely as 99% of my friends stayed on Big Tech platforms.
Year 2 (2024):
I start a blog - #TheFutureIsFederated - to explain the fediverse to "normies"... and I make a lot of new (techie) friends.
Year 3 (2025):
My techie friends encourage me to start self-hosting with #YunoHost... and I do! (GoToSocial, PeerTube, NextCloud...) I LOVE it.
Year 4 (2026):
I'm experimenting with #LoRa off-grid #mesh communication ๐โโ๏ธ
About to create my first cron job. Wish me luck! ๐
@_elena oh I would also suggest looking into systemd timers! I much prefer them to cronjobs.
@_elena
I tried cron jobs and it drove me crazy even with an IT background ;)
All the best!
I fall in live with systemd timers which were much easier to handle/understand/debug to me.
If someday you want to try.
@_elena Is this with the Mesh system?
Good Luck ๐
@_elena Is this with the Mesh system?
@_elena you got this!
@_elena Cron is a life-saver. I also use it to automatically update the base system at night and post an image at a specific time to my Pixelfed server ๐
@_elena
You'll love it, absolutely.
Also, you'll start wondering why TF one needs to be geeky root to have such tool and why "ordinary people" know nothing about it (and grep, and...)
Next up: shell scripting.
Go Elena, you rule!
@_elena
Il cristomadonio lo conosci giร , ti divertirai amche con gli algopirla e i tecnopaninari ๐
(Un neologismo li seppellirร , semicit.)
@_elena itโs fine! Just donโt pick 1am local.
@_elena I feel one of those is optimistic #parenting however :)
Anyway welcome to the world of scheduling.
@_elena cronjobs are the best. all my bots depend on them! very reliable!
one thing that got me early on: any output from a script ran in a cronjob seems to be put in some log file. Left alone that log file can fill all the space in your system.
for reasons I don't fully understand this line fix that by stopping the logging:
MAILTO=""
@_elena good luck! ๐ It will be just fine! Oh, and yesterday I did install Cockpit on my @yunohost VPS. It's great for system management. https://apps.yunohost.org/app/cockpit Even web terminal works great, and YunoHost SSO works too!
@_elena Also, also: https://crontab.guru/#5_8-20/3_*_*_* is such a friendly service to understand the magic of corncobs ๐ @jan
@_elena Fingers and toes all crossed ๐ค๐ค
I guess you know you can simulate a cron tasl with the "at" command.
The "at" command allows to execute another command (usually a shell-script) once at a given time in the same context than cron.
@_elena surely you do it cool
@_elena I recently started self-hosting Mastodon and Peertube. I'm starting to enjoy social media for the first time in a long time. Yay Fedi!
@_elena So recognisable!
(and yes, I've recently purchased a lilygo-tdeck for lora/meshcore communication)
@_elena let us know about the details of your mesh radio experiment, my curiosity is ON. :)
@_elena Be careful! Meshtastic/meshcore starts off cheap. But then you find your house covered in all different types of little radios and wonder how you got here. ๐
GL on the LoRa journey! If your interested, check out the community !meshtastic@mander.xyz
https://mander.xyz/c/meshtastic
@_elena You know...I have a project that uses #yunohost and #meshtastic together. Maybe I should do a blog post or something.
Its a once a day weather report for my region. It posts at around 6:00 am the weather pulled from NWS. Its useful both as a weather report but also a test to see if people get the messages. If they do, they know their node is in a good spot.
Looks like this:
@_elena also been looking for meshtastic stuff, I joined fedi in one of the first big migrations. Never went back haha
@_elena do it. Mesh is a lot of fun
@_elena One day I'll be in year 2
@_elena
Year 5 (2027):
Get into HAB (High Altitude ballooning) and build a federared mesh network with nodes at 10+ km altitude
Year 6 (2028):
Get a ham (amateurradio) license
Year 7 (2029):
Get into amateur satellite and space based mesh networks :-)
@_elena well, next time you come to FOSDEM, feel free to drop by the amateurradio infobooth and will show you all the geekyness and fun radio-technology has to offer.
Usually we are in the AW building. (Can't miss it, it the building with the large radiomast in front of it ๐ )
But, as Michael also mentions below, be carefull, as once you enter the wonderfull and sometimes magical world of radio technology and mesh* networking, there is no way going back. ๐
Enjoy the ride!
@_elena from my personal experience: the #HeltecV3 is not fit for battery use. It simply draws to much current. I am happy with a #HeltecT114. The very same battery that lasts around 16 hrs in the V3 now lasts nearly two weeks.
@_elena
Oh my goddness... I am looking at the mirror
@_elena J'aime le heltec meshpocket parce que c'est aussi une batterie