Things we see all the time, but no one can really describe, like
Docker
Federated
Self host
Fork
Container
Instance
Flatpak
Tailscale
Distro
Wayland
Nginx
Etc.
Sure we can search but the terms are just so abstract I can’t understand some of it.
*this is for helping some new users as well as myself -
You can also look up terms you don’t know on urbandictionary or the internet in general.
Tailscale: a VPN -esque service that lets you connect networks together in fun and interesting ways. For instance: I can use tailscale to access my home network from my phone!
Most of these are specifically Linux or developer things. While they are nerds, they’re just one very specific subset of the nerd kingdom. You don’t necessarily need to know what these are unless you’re getting into self-hosting, Linux, or software development.
Federated is the only term that might be useful to a general Lemmy user. It just describes the way that Lemmy talks to itself (through instances sharing posts with each other to make the separate websites run as one service) or to other services like Mastodon or the like, which are part of the larger “Fediverse.”
Docker: it’s a container used as a sort of sandbox environment for running various tools
Federated: uses the activitypub protocol
Self host: Don’t use services in the cloud. Build your own
Fork: Derived from existing project (or process)
Container: Sandboxed part of your OS
Instance: There are multiple definitions but the one probably most relevant to you is a node of a federated network
Flatpak: No idea. I think this is Ubuntu’s containerized deliverable
Tailscale: I think this is a reverse proxy?
Distro: A flavor of Linux
Wayland: Succesor to X11. Gives you graphics on Linux
Nginx: Web server software. Alternative to Apache
Flatpaks: NOT Ubuntu’s containerized deliverable. They use snaps. Flatpaks are more Fedora’s thing. I know Mint uses flatpaks, and Silver blue relies heavily on them. Snaps v Flatpaks are like Coke v Pepsi. It’s all just sugar water, but people care, for reasons.
Flatpak’s back end is open source, Snap isn’t. That’s ugly.
Huh. Today I learned. I avoided snaps because Firefox snap took so dang long to load, and Firefox flatpak just launched…
Flatpak isn’t without its problems, but both front end and back end are open, and one can host his own flatpak repo. Canonical keeps Snap’s back end proprietary, so it is not possible to host your own Snap repo. Canonical being Canonical.
It is my understanding that Snap was at one point intended to be a package manager for their embedded OS, which was more locked down. Then they started pushing it to all flavors of Ubuntu.
Explain to me why, on Ubuntu systems, sudo apt install firefox installs the Snap version? Clem over at Linux Mint asked the same question, which is why Mint ships with Flatpak and not Snap support out of the box, and Mint…I’m going to get the details wrong here, either Firefox themselves packaged the APT version, or the Mint crew did, or both at various times.
i use arch btw (arch linux distro)
An instance is a specific computer a person uses .
Let’s say lem.ee is still up and you login there and have an account there but we both browse the rpgmemes on .ttrpg
Lem.ee is an instance, lemmy.world is an instance the .ttrpg computer is an instance. Like different email servers , these computers all talk with each other to make it seamless. All of the computers use the Lemmy software.
Now lem.ee has shut down, users can’t login there , but a new Lemmy instance could be created by someone and connect to the federated network.
But a university might run it’s own instance of Lemmy, giving students an account and have their own communities which aren’t publicly shared and they aren’t federated.
People can say there’s an issue with federation where people may leave comments on another computers community but they’re not visible to users browsing others. E.g. users on lemmy.workd might see it and .ttrpg but not anywhere else. They are meant to but an issue like slow communication is preventing it not permissions as such.
A fork is a different version of software. Open source software licences allw people to modify and re release the programs.
two developers might have different visions of what a software should look like , and if they want to split and make their own versions, that would be a fork in the development of the program.
All of them 1!1!1! It’s all connected.
After you put your container in the flatpack it will fork itself into an nginx distro.Well these are all nerd terms, because most of the community in here consists of IT guys and people who use Linux, most of the time they are the same. You don’t need to know what Docker, Self host, Fork, Container, Flatpak, Tailscale, Distro, Wayland and Nginx is, unless you are interested in IT.
Knowing Federated and Instance could be beneficial for the Lemmy users I think.
- Federated: Imagine you are the resident of town X, and you frequently communicate and engage in town X, but you can also communicate with your best friend who lives in town Y, and your parents who reside in town Z. This is how Lemmy and Mastodon works instead of social media like Reddit, FB, Insta etc etc, where with my analogue the residents live in 1 capital city with no towns to talk with, and having to abide by their rules, whereas different towns may have different laws.
- Instance: Following my analogue an instance is a town of this federated world. For example you are the resident of sh.itjust.works town and I’m living in sopuli.xyz
because most of the community in here consists of IT guys
Is this data that has been collected, or anecdotal?
I think the only “required” one on your list is Instance: It’s one out of many servers. Lemmy.world, sh.itjust.works, etc.
I find it useful to think of it topologically like an IRC server, if you’re familiar with how those work; many of them connect and share content - You’re on an instance/server, but can interact with users and content from different ones.
The rest are more oriented towards Linux, servers (in general), and aren’t really required for Lemmy use in general.
This is where I started to explain what a codebase fork is, but then I realized that I fucking hate typing on my phone.
We should list in jokes too.
Can’t shit for a week
For reasons
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