I’m an English teacher who wanted to “cut the cord” wherever I could, so I started learning about domain hosts, containerization, .yaml files, etc.
Since then, I’ve been hosting several pods for file sharing and streaming for many years, and I’m currently thinking about learning kubernetes for home deployment. But why?
If you aren’t in development, IT, cyber security, or in a related profession, what made you want to learn this on your own? What made you want to pick this up as a hobby?
I’m a mechanic.
This is both my reason and explanation lol.
I do my own work has been said to be taken a bit too literally in my case. I got ripped off by Geek Squad when I was 18 and said “wow, it’s just like getting ripped off at a shitty mechanic shop” and ever since then it’s been all hands-on.
career
I sat on that fence but being a mechanic gives me guaranteed work and I basically work-out every day. It’s hard, but not brutal and the pay is decent. Surrounded by maga tho.
I’m a web developer and whenever I see my (awesome) mechanic I always wonder what it’s like on the “other side.”My dad was a mechanic when I was a child and I always regret never picking up those skills.
A lot of times when they run me through their problem-solving I’m like “damn, that’s just like reproducing a bug to find its root cause.”
I always regret never picking up those skills.
Never too late
Yes, but also factor in information in the mechanic space has no FOSS comparison. Some companies put out their official service manuals after a period of time but most charge your company out the ass to let you view everything in some proprietary walled garden. Troubleshooting a mechanical fault can be very similar to troubleshooting code or software, and sometimes it literally is a vehicle’s software, and out comes a laptop.
“What field am I in, again?”
I quit IT work to be a mechanic. It’s exactly the same problem-solving process, but the problems are almost always way less arcane. I’m very happy with the switch.
If you wanted to make the switch yourself, the skill sets are very interchangeable. You’re just debugging an alternator instead of an Active Directory setup. If you have a willingness to learn you’ll be up to speed in under a year.
I’m also a mechanic, I self host for basically the same reasons and I just don’t like the idea of big tech spying on me . Definitely a lot of MAGA, it’s fucking annoying hahaha.
I guess that allure of rugged individualism attracts a lot of MAGA types to trades and small businesses. It’s been the opposite in education on the teachers’ side, but definitely adversarial with MAGA on the students’ and parents’ side. I used to teach current events, but I haven’t been able to do that for the last 10 years. Kids would find their way into your personal accounts, too, so I switched to federated platforms instead.
Because I hate big tech and I want control of my media.
I’m a social worker by background. It all started with running Linux on my desktop.
From there, the possibilities seemed endless.
Linux - the gateway drug.
Its gotta be the sox.
I was going to think up something more elaborate, but this is enough.
I’m also a bit of an electronics
hoarderrecycler, which probably got me into Linux in the first place. And Linux proved me right: old hardware is still good. My first server was a 32 bit laptop.I also work in the social sector btw.
That’s the way to go! I’m sure you didn’t want to go back to Windows after a while. That was the start for me, too, back with Ubuntu Jaunty Jackalope.
I still have a means of booting up Windows if there’s a need (usually for a firmware flash too that doesn’t have a Linux alternative).
I was dual booting with Windows ME (which worked well for my computer). Distro hopping until I bootstrapped Gentoo from stage one.
as a student, this is much more interesting than studying
As a student, most things are more interesting than studying.
I once wired my whole ass house for ethernet. (Before realizing I was colorblind nonetheless.) Instead of studying.
Never underestimate how you can use study procrastination as a push force for other shit. (Unless you’re a dipshit like me and do it with an imminent exam)
Hey, hosting your own LLM could work out for you in that respect.
i’d rather spend time actually learning and doing things instead of being an LLM slopper lol
Damn, got shot down, lol. I’m not advocating for churning out assignments; just for tinkering with editing and brainstorming. “Actually learning and doing things” is admirable. I’d rather be certain a student is growing instead of the clanker.
One. Of. Us!
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As a cyber student, I have to literally stop myself from researching FOSS apps and homelab setups so I do my actual work that will get me the degree to pay for said projects and setups…
Piracy, basically.
Self-hosting wasn’t my intention, I just wanted a media server. Then a media server that downloaded all my stuff easily. Then a server that was more accessible. Then a server that had better Wife-Approval-Factor.
Piracy, basically.
Lol, you don’t say? Do you use something like Jellyseerr for requests?
Nah.
Piracy was just my gateway.
I dont have a media server anymore.
I fucking hate tech companies
Engineer here, but my technical expertise is about as far away from computing and technology as you can get and still be an engineer.
I was a kid in the 90s and the first album I bought was Metallica’s black album. I spent over $18 in like 1999 so with inflation that’s like $300 or something now. Then the drummer of what was then my favorite band says hey, if you’re downloading our music on Napster, then we don’t want you as a fan. That hit teenage me pretty hard and basically radicalized me to find “alternative methods” for every piece of digital media I could, if that’s how the people I looked up to were going to treat me for not having as much money as them. Everything I host now started at that inflection point, from picking up Linux as a hobby to learning about networking and security. Turned out to be a pretty good path to follow though seeing how Microsoft, Netflix, Spotify et. al. turned out in the end.
I still download and share all of Metallica’s discography out of spite, but haven’t listened to them since.
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Engineer here
What division? Curious. I’m a mech eng specializing in HVAC. I didn’t get to attain my own PE stamp…life happened.
I do civil engineering work, mostly related to soils etc. I have a computer for work but that’s about as far as it gets for me professionally.
Awesome!
I’ve been a media hoarder for decades, my partner is an avid dvd collector. I used to have lofty goals with friends about setting up our own server and media centers so we didn’t have to afford the world we live in. The friends fell off along the way, but I finally managed to make the dream happen. It’s bittersweet that I don’t really have anyone to celebrate it with.
Sorry to hear. On the upside, no one will be upset when the server goes down.
That’s true. Honestly I think it’s fine this way, I just wish I could send out little updates, take requests and stuff. Day to day operations is my love language and not having a valid reason to make an RSS feed or newsletter is just a reminder that I don’t have a community anymore.
“If you build it they will come”
I would love to get your newsletter!
Any chance you’re looking for a free jellyfin with a surplus of weird movies and music? It’s not fast, but it’s free!
Heck yeah! Where do I sign?
The increasing clarity that “big cloud” is one of the most existentially dangerous threats in the long term. The idea of not truly owning my own data, particularly in an era where truth itself is becoming more and more malleable, became intolerable.
Secondarily, the desire to get off the subscription hamster wheel and own all my own media.
Dude, yes! Subscriptions are a scam. They hold your downloads at ransom.
Surgeon.
Seeing tech ceo’s at the trump inauguration got me sick in the stomach. I unsubscribed from everything out of spite and nausea and learned to selfhost over the course of what is almost a year now. At first it took up all my spare time and made my wife crazy. Now it’s been several weeks since i last had to sudo anything.
It also opened my eyes to how stupid everything IT related in my country is. My municipality for example bought for what has now become a billion fucking euros a digital health record system from Epic. It’s the shittiest piece of software ive ever used, fully closed source and there’s ongoing customization costs trying to get it to work. We’re also a 100% onboard with office360 (copilot and all).
Former healthcare IT, holy crap do all digital health records systems seem to suck. Some of them suck in different ways, but none of the big ones anyway are great.
I get that there’s a lot of semi-special use cases and regulatory requirements and so on, but at the end of the day it’s text and images and a record of the changes to them. And it’s not like this is a surprise problem. People have been trying to digitize stuff since at least the 90s. And yet every single system seems like it’s only been in development for a few months and usually has trouble working with itself, much less any other record system.
sad OSCAR noises
Lemmy has been a big part of it.
I’ve never been fond of paying big tech to spy on me. It has been getting gradually more expensive and more intrusive for years. Around the time I reached a breaking point, folks here helped me realize that digital sovereignty is possible.
One day I was just like, “Why does Google need to know when my lightswich is on?” And that was the start of it.
Well… I bought a Philips hue starter set. And I had heard of mqtt, zigbee and pihole. And I had a spare raspberry pi.
Now that got out of hand and I am looking at a proxmox cluster….
I’m an industrial engineer who was hanging out on lemmy and my IT guy was talking about his piracy server, and well I thought that a legitimately aquired media server might be nice, and that home assistant thing sounded cool so he gave me the form to get two used desktops for free from the company. And well now I’m still fucking around with them every once in a while in anticipation for when my space will warrant actually using them full time.
It also helps that my local bdsm community had had self hosters who talked about it for years.
It also helps that my local bdsm community had had self hosters who talked about it for years.
I’ll have to admit, that is one of the most unique statements I’ve heard at Lemmy.
-Cable is insanity. It’s companies are corrupt and awful.
-Watching sports is a maze of what channel/TV package/subscription service did I need again?
-Far fewer means of owning the media today means they can jack up the price as much as they want. Fuck that.
I’m an accountant and tax professional but have always been into computers. I had a social media account breached although it was no issue as hadn’t used it did years. I used a terrible password as thought it did not matter but made me realise I needed to be better generally so started using a password manager.
Then Netflix stopped account sharing. I had just got a 4k TV and only their top level with 4 screens supported it so was pissed off. The fragmentation across services had started so was getting annoyed anyway. This led me to the arr’s.
I decided I could no longer trust Microsoft and hated their pricing structure so was interested in Nextcloud. By then I found the self hosted community (on reddit), bought a desktop PC and after getting the hang of it plus many mistakes I loved my services so will never look back.
Joined the migration to Lemmy. Am based in the UK and joined the anti-US feelings so am setting up more storage, better redundancy and more services for my family. A few family members are interested in helping so can share backups.
This feels like the road I took. Subscription services are a scam, and I can’t trust sharing personal data on somebody else’s hardware. Eventually I’d like to host instances for federated services I already use.
