[Freedombox-discuss] objectives

[Bob Mottram]

On Sun, 12 Jun 2011 04:48:09 +0200, Jonas Smedegaard wrote:
> Would you be willing to share your setup, and point out what you spot
> yourself as being weak points regarding usability by non-experts?


OS: Debian Squeeze

Wiki - Mediawiki
FTP - vsftpd (with SSL required)
Email - dovecot, spamassassin, roundcube
Web - Apache
Bookmarks - Scuttle
Blog - Wordpress
Social networking - Friendika


I set up disk quotas for FTP users, because I'm only using a 16GB flash 
drive and don't want people clogging up the server with massive files.  
This is ideal for things like transferring family photos or documents.  
Possibly in future I might go over to using SparkleShare, but at the 
moment there isn't a Windows client for that - and yes, some of my 
friends still do use that OS.

Everything is accessible via HTTPS, to avoid the Firesheep issue.

As a backup system I use rsync via cron to copy data (mysql database, 
email, web site) from the USB flash drive to the SD card, then swap the 
SD card occasionally.  I've also made a backup of the flash drive which 
I carry on a keyring.  If the plug was destroyed (in a fire for example) 
or stolen I'd still have a recent copy of everything and as long as 
replacement hardware was available I could be up and running again 
quickly.


> Sounds good.  As for packages to pick, how about you describe the
> packages you have a year of experience using?

So far the main issues I've had have been with Wordpress.  This seems 
to rev frequently, and keeping up with the new versions is a task in 
itself.  Possibly I might try using some other, maybe simpler, blogging 
system.

I've had some issues with Friendika - particularly statusnet 
integration.  This seems to be some sort of Oauth issue.  I'm on the 
latest development code for Friendika, so fixes for these things are 
ongoing.  Other than that Friendika seems like a good replacement for 
Facebook.  I tried to install Diaspora a couple of times, and failed on 
both occasions, but Friendika was much easier to install.  I also tried 
Appleseed, but this seems to still be a long way behind Friendika in 
terms of stability and usability.


The way I have things set up isn't necessarily ideal for the freedombox 
project, but it is an existence proof that it is possible to move out of 
the cloud and have control over your own data without the "spying for 
free".  One obvious limitation is that I'm currently not using an 
encrypted file system, so anyone who could seize my devices could read 
my data.  Nevertheless I think my current setup is a step in the right 
direction, and I'm quite happy with it.  From a practical point of view 
it also saves having to rent web space on someone else's server, or 
subscribe to systems such as DropBox or UbuntuOne.