Why I self-host my websites, newsletter, and homelab—and the satisfaction that comes from building and using your own digital tools.

“Tech Independence is something I learned from Derek Sivers, and basically means that you do not depend on any particular company or software.”

  • gaael@beehaw.orgEnglish
    3·
    10 hours ago

    I found this guide by Futo’s Louis Rossman pretty beginner friendly and rather complete.
    It’s really recorded with the idea that you can follow it step by step and at the end have something fonctionnal and useful.
    Not overly fond of the guy, but on foss and self hosting at least we share values.
    Also, there’s sometimes a cat on screen :)

    Edits

    • it has some software choices that I do not share, but I don’t think it matters much - once you’ve built something that works and gained experience, you can do it again with other choices if you want
    • IIRC you need 3 computers to follow the guide
      • 1 to act as router and (among other things like network-wide ad blocking) allow access to your self hosted stuff from the outside world
      • 1 to actually host stuff onto
      • 1 to configure everything from
      • you can use pretty much any small cheap-ish computer as long as its processor is of the x86 type (which most are except raspberry pi and anything labeled Atom)
      • you’ll probably have to dance around a bit with screen and keyboard if (like me) you only have one of each, so having the 3rd computer as a laptop (with an RJ45 port) or watchig the video from a tablet is recommanded
    • the video is really meant as a complete do-along (even telling you where to find the ISOs to download) which is IMO quite rare and really nice

    If you find steps in the video or stuff in my comment that don’t make sense to you, please ask and I’ll do my best to provide useful and understandable explanations.