Self-hosted news, updates, launches, and content for the week ending Friday, May 23, 2025

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Just learned that POCKET will shut down in July 2025. It is a great service to collect articles on various devices and read later on a tablet & offline.

Which alternatives are out there?

Hello folks,

I have a mini PC which I use to host my website and some lightweight services. The mini PC idles at ~10% cpu usage. I was wondering if I can contribute 90% of CPU to the community. Thinking that maybe I can host other people's websites for free.

How can I do that? Should I host some fediverse software? What do I do with this much processing power?

Thanks in advance!

Today's game is The Legend of Zelda Spirit Tracks. I was stuck in a car for a bit today and had my 3DS on hand, so i booted this up to play it. The 3DS is why these images are so pixelated (low screen resolution) and why there's so few of them (i had to connect to my 3DS as an FTP Server, extract the tar archive that the TwilightMenu++ saves them too, convert them too a PNG since the images are in bmp format, and then upscale the pictures one at a time with a pixel up scaling application (it has to be a specific one because a lot of generic image upscalers now use AI upscaling which will absolutely butcher a pixelart image in my experience, especially one so low resolution). And even with all this fancy stuff some of the pictures did not turn out well, such as this lovely one where everything is a little fuzzy still because of how pixelated it is:

I had this game on the DS Lite, though i never really understood what was going on until i played it again as an adult. I had one save i remember prominently that was at the Tower of Spirits. I'd just load into that as a child and dick around in there for a while and get scared by the Phantoms. That tower's lobby theme is forever ingrained in my head as what i associate as "DS Music" just because of how memorable it is for me. I'm literally listening to it as i type this now lol.

It's a short but fun Zelda game, controls take some getting used to though. One of my favorite parts is that Zelda takes on the role as the "companion character" and actually joins link for the game (she's also probably one of my favorites next to Navi). It's something i wish was done more often because i really like their friendship in this game. Being able to control Zelda and take over Phantoms makes her actually involved in the Gameplay and puzzle solving which i love.

The train being the primary method to get around is a fun compromise for me with the DS's limited power. I honestly have a lot of fun just driving the thing around from location to location and will try to park it perfectly and everything.

I desperately wish this game got a remake just so i could drive the train on more modern hardware (and obviously experience it all over again) and not have to break out the DS just to play. It's one of those Niche Zelda games that i feel like people forget about sometimes and it can be hard for people to get into with how many compromises it made, so i doubt it will ever get a remake. But i can dream. i feel like Minish Cap was also like that for a while until it became the Zelda "Deep Cut" i see a lot of people suggest it as, so who knows. Maybe Spirit Tracks will one day get it's chance.

I always hear that a normal computer user would never install an OS and that is the main reason Linux has not a higher market share. But I guess what we mean by that is that a user would never create a live usb, access the boot options and boot from there to install the new OS.

Is there a hard technical limitation when it comes to create a tool that installs a linux distro from a "normal" windows exe file, provided that the user first disables secure boot and fast boot (which are things a tool with admin privileges should also be able do on first run)?

Does such a tool already exist?

I feel like there's something I'm missing, forgive my ignorance

• Anthropic’s new Claude 4 features an aspect that may be cause for concern.
• The company’s latest safety report says the AI model attempted to “blackmail” developers.
• It resorted to such tactics in a bid of self-preservation.

The thing I hate the most about AI and it's ease of access; the slow, painful death of the hacker soul—brought not by war or scarcity, but by convenience. By buttons. By bots. [...]

There was once magic here. There was once madness.

Kids would stay up all night on IRC with bloodshot eyes, trying to render a cube in OpenGL without segfaulting their future. They cared. They would install Gentoo on a toaster just to see if it’d boot. They knew the smell of burnt voltage regulators and the exact line of assembly where Doom hit 10 FPS on their calculator. These were artists. They wrote code like jazz musicians—full of rage, precision, and divine chaos.

Now? We’re building a world where that curiosity gets lobotomized at the door. Some poor bastard—born to be great—is going to get told to "review this AI-generated patchset" for eight hours a day, until all that wonder calcifies into apathy. The terminal will become a spreadsheet. The debugger a coffin.

Unusually well-written piece on the threat AI poses to programming as an art form.

Ibis is a federated encyclopedia with numerous features. If you want to start a wiki for a TV series, a videogame, or an open source project then Ibis is for you! You can register on an existing instance or install it on your own server. Then you can start editing on the topic of your choice, and connect to other Ibis instances for different topics. Federation ensures that articles get mirrored across many servers, and can be read even if the original instance goes down. Ibis is written in Rust and Webassembly, fully open source to make future enshittification impossible.

With this version Ibis can finally federate with other Fediverse platforms such as Lemmy (example) and others. If you notice any federation problems please open an issue. Note that Mastodon currently ignores activities sent by Ibis for unknown reasons. See the article for more details how federation works.

There are many improvements to signup and account management. Admins can configure OAuth so that users can login with existing accounts from other platforms. Email is also supported now, with a config option email_required to enable email verification for new users. Notifications can also be sent by email if desired. And there is an account settings page to change password and email.

When creating a new article, users can choose which instance it should reside on. Admins can remove articles, making the config option article_approval obsolete. Various other parts of the api were also changed. Additionally the code was split into different crates for faster development. There have also been many bug fixes and minor improvements.

If you are interested what a federated wiki can do, join and give it a try. You can register on ibis.wiki, open.ibis.wiki or other instances. You can also install Ibis on your own server. It is very lightweight and can easily run on an existing server alongside other software. This release includes an additional installation method using Docker. To discuss the project, report problems or get support use the following links:

Lemmy | Matrix | Github

Here is a (somewhat messy) list of all the changes in this version.

I removed the link to the article, since the article is on Medium, and Medium is becoming a shithole too. So here is the article. It was written by JA Westenberg and she's at https://www.joanwestenberg.com/

Subscription payments are the best thing that ever happened to software companies. And they’re arguably the worst thing that ever happened to their customers.

When I started as an aspiring digital artist in the early 2000s, saving up to purchase software like Adobe Photoshop felt like an investment — once bought, it was mine to use indefinitely. I remember putting away dollars from my paper route to buy my first copy as a kid, already dreaming about my future as a creator.

Later, as a teenager working at McDonald’s, I repeated the ritual of patient saving until I could finally purchase music production software such as Ableton Live. Owning those tools outright meant using them freely without worrying about ongoing costs. My creative output wasn’t bound to what I could afford month-to-month.

Now, companies like Adobe solely offer subscriptions — monthly fees and essentially renting in perpetuity. We no longer own our software; we pay a licensing fee.

This gives us access to regular updates, but it also means the sword of Damocles hangs over creatives — miss a payment, lose access. The freedom of creation I once relished has been supplanted by nagging financial anxiety. I miss the days when the tools felt like mine, not someone else’s borrowed goods, and when I didn’t open up a tool and wonder how much longer I’d be able to keep using it.

The Drawbacks for Customers Here’s the drawback. If I live as long as I want, paying for Photoshop every month will be very, very bloody expensive.

Yes, subscriptions provide convenience and access to varied services and products. But convenience just isn’t enough.

Psychologically, subscriptions drive overconsumption. Our paychecks are eaten away in advance before we realise how many 30-day free trials and monthly tithes we’ve committed ourselves to. And while the subscriptions seem small enough on paper, their cumulative cost is straining the budget for consumers and creatives.

We’re told repeatedly that it’s just the price of one coffee a month, but the combined cost of every single tool, service, app and game demanding one coffee a month becomes the equivalent of paying for enough caffeine to poison even the strongest constitution.

The proliferation of subscription services has led to increasing fragmentation of content. As platforms vie for customer attention, consumers confront myriad fragmented options, each requiring an individual subscription. This results in higher costs for accessing content and a disempowering user experience of juggling multiple platforms and subscriptions. The promised convenience of subscriptions is eroded, leaving customers questioning the true benefits.

It’s easy to understand why company after company is shifting their model. The allure of stability is compelling, and subscription payment models provide just that for businesses. Rather than relying on sporadic one-time purchases, companies can enjoy consistent, predictable revenue streams month after month thanks to loyal subscribers. This stable financial base allows businesses to plan for and invest in future growth, pleasing investors and looking good on paper. But that stability is hardly a victory for users who just want good software and aren’t particularly interested in quarterly earnings reports.

Customer loyalty is the holy grail for companies, and in theory, subscriptions foster (aka coerce) enduring relationships with customers, reducing the risk of losing them to competitors. This is achieved through the “lock-in effect,” where the convenience and perceived value of continuing a subscription discourages customers from seeking alternatives.

But instead of using the foundation of a subscription to cultivate long-term relationships and capitalize on increased customer lifetime value, companies treat users like a Sure Thing, taking them for granted and adding little in terms of value to justify the monthly fee.

There’s a popular argument that subscription payment models championed entrepreneurs and startups, levelling the playing field in an industry historically dominated by major players. It allows smaller companies to enter the marketplace with minimal upfront costs and directly compete with industry giants. But when all these startups want to do is sell more subscription services, it starts to seem at least a little Ponzi-esque.

And then there’s the unfortunate reality that when the economy is tanking, rents are going up, housing is unattainable, food is an arm and a leg, and it’s too expensive to put petrol in the car, more than a few users are going to look at the laundry list of adorably vowel-averse SaaS startups they keep throwing their money at and ask whether they actually need them. There’s a perfectly good email app that comes pre-installed on their phones. The same goes for the To-Do list and Notes apps. At some point, the subscription creep stops making sense.

The ongoing commitment of subscriptions is a massive burden, limiting our flexibility to adapt our spending as needs change. This financial load becomes a significant barrier to achieving financial well-being. We’re stuck in a subscription payment hamster wheel. And something is going to have to give.

Companies recognizing the potential drawbacks of subscriptions have started innovating within the model. Some offer flexible subscription options, allowing customers to pay for services or products on a usage basis. Others are exploring bundled subscriptions, providing diverse content or services at a reduced cost. These approaches address customer concerns while maintaining business benefits by prioritising customer value and flexibility.

But they’re still dodging around one simple fact. The best way for consumers to access software is to buy an app that does what they need and then choose whether or not to upgrade to the next version later. It’s a model that doesn’t require a spreadsheet of monthly expenses to wrangle alongside gas, electricity and medical bills. Although I’m sure there’s a subscription-based app to make it all easier. Roughly the cost of a coffee a month?

Hi fellow selfhosters!

i pay (i know, i know) for Spotify Premium and i would like to progressively build my self-hosted music collection leveraging the fact that i am a paying customer and i would hate if the pull songs under my rug over time.

Any good self-hostable approach here? Ideally, the flow would be:

• I listen to spotify on my mobile devices, add songs to playlists and such
• my self-host setup syncs those playlists
• ... and download the songs using my paid for premium account from spotify itself
• Doean't really needs to be web-based, i can access my server anbd run anything CLI based or even plain old GUI (linux).

I don't want fake solutions that use Google Music or Deezer to download, i pay spotify and expect somehow to be able to download 320Kbps music from it.

The overall process can be manual, but better automated.

I already have lidarr, but it's basically impossible to download the same music from it, at least not the music i listen to.

A viable workaround could be something that builds by spotify playlists using what music i have downloaded with lidarr, maybe notifying me what is missing...

EDIT: somebody pointed out this is against Spotify TOS. Anyway i found a solution using Spotizerr, which is a self-hosted web app that does exactly what i was looking for. You still need a paid spotify account unless you want to download low-res from Deezer.