Dear friends of the BSD Cafe,

As 2024 comes to an end, it’s time to reflect on what we’ve built together during the first full year of life for BSD Cafe. Launched on 20 July 2023, this project has grown far beyond what I could have imagined. While I haven’t tracked full uptime data, I can confidently say that the downtime was less than 30 minutes overall - even though the main VM hosting our services moved multiple times (including a switch from a Proxmox hypervisor to bhyve on FreeBSD, for the sake of alignment with our mission). In a world filled with over-engineered HA systems, we’ve outperformed many “big-name” cloud providers. Not bad for a community project, right?

For me, this has been an incredible journey. The users here are not just participants - they’re collaborators, and their positivity has been inspiring. The content shared and created at BSD Cafe has been valuable not only to the BSD community but beyond. What truly sets BSD Cafe apart is the openness for dialogue and exchange. Whether it’s social media posts, Matrix discussions, repositories in our brew, or RSS feeds, people seem to genuinely appreciate what we create and the conversations we foster.

BSD Cafe is a journey - one that grows, evolves, and continues. Our goal isn’t endless growth (we’re a community, not a business) but rather to maintain a welcoming, inclusive space where everyone feels a sense of positivity and belonging. For me, opening any service with “bsd.cafe” in the domain brings joy and pride. That’s the spirit I’ve tried to convey, and I hope it resonates with all of you, whether you’re active BSD Cafe users or friends of the community.

Promoting self-hosting and #OwnYourData has, as a side effect, inspired some users to “go solo” with their own setups. But even then, they remain part of BSD Cafe - in spirit, in purpose, and in connection.

Here’s a look at what we’ve achieved together this year:

- mastodon.bsd.cafe: 370 total users
Active in the past month: 207
Active in the past six months: 286
- snac.bsd.cafe: 14 total users
Active in the past month: 7
- blendit.bsd.cafe: 61 registered users
- matrix.bsd.cafe: 23 users
- brew.bsd.cafe: 29 users - 80 repositories
- freshrss.bsd.cafe: 25 users
- miniflux.bsd.cafe: 11 users
- press.bsd.cafe: 9 users
- myip.bsd.cafe: Constantly used by various users
- wiki.bsd.cafe: Could use a bit more love and content, but it fulfills its role as a functional homepage.
- tube.bsd.cafe: Still in testing - Peertube 7.0 update is on the way.

For detailed stats from our reverse proxy and general router (excluding media services, which generate most traffic but are handled via caching reverse proxies), you can check here - updated hourly: https://netstats.bsd.cafe

The journey of BSD Cafe continues, and I look forward to seeing where 2025 will take us. Together, we’ve built something special - something driven by passion, shared purpose, and a little bit of the BSD magic that makes all of this possible.

Here’s to a new year full of joy, serenity, and connection. Thank you for being part of this adventure.

Wishing you all a fantastic 2025 - and THANK YOU!
Stefano

#BSDCafe #BSDCafeServices #BSDCafeAnnouncements #BSDCafeUpdates #Fediverse #HappyNewYear #Mastodon #Snac #snac2 #lemmy #matrix #dokuwiki #forgejo #freshrss #miniflux #wallabag #peertube #FreeBSD #OpenBSD #NetBSD #RunBSD #BSD

My relay at https://fedi-relay.gyptazy.com has currently 139 instances connected, mostly tech related sharing the same mindset and interests like #Linux, #BSD, #Ansible, #Proxmox, #Coding, and many more! You can easily join from your instance when using #Pleroma, #snac (#snac2), #Mastodon and its forks 🙂

#fedi #fediworld #fedicommunity #community #FreeBSD #OpenBSD #NetBSD #homelab #Python #Debian #RockyLinux #Feditips

@grunfink #snac

Alt...

SINCE YOU LEFT ME I'VE BEEN SNACPILLED comam.es/what-is-snac

So which is the bigger cult?

#snac #beigeparty

The #BSDCafe #snac instance has been updated to 2.83

#BSDCafeServices #BSDCafeUpdates

The illumos Cafe snac instance has been updated to 2.83

#illumosCafe #illumosCafeUpdates #illumosCafeServices #snac

After receiving a follow confirmation, a bunch of posts from that account are requested and inserted into the timeline as context.

Continuously failing instances are marked as broken after a given number of days (see snac(8) on how to tune this counter). Incoming activity from any of these instances resets the counter.

Fixed a nasty bug that incorrectly deleted private local posts in certain cases.

Scheduled posts can now be sent from the command line (see snac(1) for more information on how to do it).

Docker: add timezone, new examples for building and complete Swarm mode stack with Traefik (contributed by daltux).

Fixed timezone names (contributed by dharmik).

Documented the update command (contributed by xvello).

https://comam.es/what-is-snac

If you find #snac useful, please consider buying grunfink a coffee or contributing via LiberaPay.

#snacAnnounces #FrugalFediverse

@16af93 #snac? I think it's developed primarily as a minimal / single-user instance server, but renders content in static pages that can even be interacted with in @dillo

https://codeberg.org/grunfink/snac2

The folks at bsd.cafe seem to be enjoying their instance.

#snac2 #FediMeteo #FediMeteoAdmin #FediMeteoUpdates

The #illumosCafe #snac instance has been upgraded to 2.82

#illumosCafeServices #illumosCafeUpdates #snac2

The #BSDCafe #snac instance has been upgraded to 2.82

#snac2 #BSDCafeServices #BSDCafeAnnouncements

The language in which a post is written can now be set from the UI; you must configure the list of languages you usually post in in the User Settings.

Added support for bullet points in posts (lines starting with an asterisk or a hyphen, plus a space).

Added Dutch (nl_NL) translation (contributed by martijndeb).

Added Western Frisian (fy_NL) translation (contributed by martijndeb).

Mastodon API: Fixed repeated entries in timelines.

Added nodeinfo 2.1 support.

Fixed boosts from the command line not showing in the public timeline (contributed by xvello).

Updated several language files (contributed by zen and daltux).

Retrieving a post's replies is now possible via ActivityPub.

https://comam.es/what-is-snac

If you find #snac useful, please consider buying grunfink a coffee or contributing via LiberaPay.

#snacAnnounces #FrugalFediverse

I have finally uploaded #snac 2.81 to it

@ilyess well, it seemed more or less like the straightforward choice at the time, since the other alternatives (Email, Fediverse, IRC, etc) were either too heavy / complicated or not federating at all. But yes, since that, I started hosting a few other services for myself: file server, Git repository, Tor node (not an exit proxy) and my website.

I'm not done yet. I want to reboot the idea of hosting my own part of the fediverse via a #snac instance, or some other communication means. The software behind https://peercalls.com sounds nice.

Working on free software is sometimes great because you find people that really care. Men and women that care for others, that weave social fabric, that altruistically share their time in benefits of others.

Stefano (like many others) gives his time as a gift for others to enjoy. He helped me make #snac what it is now.

If you had given up when my software was in its infancy, I would probably gave up and left it unfinished.

So, I dedicate my #ThankyouTuesday back to you, Stefano.

CC: @evan@cosocial.ca

#fediverse #mastodon #activitypub

Alt...

html code in C - in a personal fork of snac by grunfink

http://gyptazy.com/fedi/gyptazy/

#mastodon #alternatives #fediverse #activitypub #customizing

#fediverse #activitypub

My friends, I'm so excited and happy to introduce a new project: the illumos Cafe!

The positive and constructive spirit of the BSD Cafe, created and maintained by all the friends who participated from day one in building a strong and friendly community, deserves to spread to other operating systems. Because there are other OSes that deserve attention, certainly more than they're getting right now.

Operating systems based on illumos (like SmartOS, OmniOS, Tribblix, OpenIndiana, etc.) are mature, stable, secure, and perfectly usable for a wide range of tasks. ZFS is native, zones are an excellent method for containerization, and bhyve and kvm coexist beautifully - and so much more, too much to list in a single post.

So from today, the illumos Cafe will stand alongside the BSD Cafe in creating a positive, respectful, and growth-oriented (but also relaxing!) environment, starting right here in the Fediverse with a Mastodon instance and a snac one.

I've written an introductory article about the project, including some technical details. I invite everyone interested to read it: https://it-notes.dragas.net/2025/08/18/introducing-the-illumos-cafe/

Choose your table, take a seat and enjoy your time at the illumos Cafe!

#SysAdmin #IT #BSDCafe #illumosCafe #Community #OpenSource #OSS #illumos #SmartOS #OpenIndiana #ZFS #bhyve #kvm #Fediverse #Mastodon #snac #ITNotes

Here's something incredibly useless: a tool to convert your public #SNAC timeline into a #GopherProtocol tree.

https://codeberg.org/PurpleJillybeans/snac2gopher/src/branch/main

It's not very pretty at the moment but it *does* work. You can see it in action here:

SNAC: https://blog.n8fq.org/social/jillybeans
Gopher: gopher://lucifer.n8fq.org:70/1/phlog