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Burrowing Beneath
Issue 1 - November 10th, 2024
Author: talos
Contact: mdsj@disroot.org
Index:
Intro: Burrowing in the 21st Century.
Welcome to the first issue of Burrowing Beneath!, where we discuss all things Gopher!
Gopher has been around forever it seems, but rarely do people actually discuss the community
behind it, the people who make it happen, and why it continues to thrive even now. Well
with this zine, I hope to fix that. One of the major hosters of gopher stuff is sdf.org, and they
have been instrumental in getting people to try out small web protocols on a Netbsd based system,
myself included! So a lot of thanks goes out to them and their continuing education regarding Unix
based systems and the web.
Now I'd like to get to the heart of the matter, today we have kinds of social media sites, from Instagram,
Facebook, Twitter/X, Mastodon and many. many others. They(Excepting Mastodon), all seem to be focused
on one thing, building engagement, getting clicks, popularity etc. Gopher is the antithesis of that, having been
created in an environment before the takeover of the web by hostile entities who seem to only want to get money
out of it, instead of creating a good atmosphere that promotes reading, writing and linking. So to me, having a
gopher hole in this day and age is an act of defiance, a way to express that the academically focused, the scientific
, the community orientation of the web is still here to stay.
How can we keep moving forward to promote that way of thinking? I don't have an answer to that, but I ask that
you, the reader, ponder this question to yourself and spread it to others, and collectively we can find a means to
produce an answer that is satisfying to yourself and everyone else. We've seen the results of what bad algorithms
, terrible AI-infused systems and other unnessecary and trite uses of modern technology can do, so I know we can
do better, as people who understand what sets apart the web of old with the shallowness of the web of the new.
People may want flashy websites, easy to use apps and other niceties, which is all well and good, because they can
interact with other people and potentially find useful information. However, more often than not, that useful
info is hidden behind many portals, or nowadays potentially AI hallucinated. Lots of misinformation is easily spread
far and away to every corner. I think it rests on the rest of us, those of the old web, to show that the web(And gopher
of course), can be a way to understand each other without the need for likes, subscriptions, following and many other
algorithmic procedures that get in the way of real human understanding.
Finally, to end this train of thought, I hope to promote a commonality between Gopher and other small web protocols,
such as Gemini, and that together, our communities can provide a greater good for everyone.
Thanks!
Chapter 1: Famous and noteworthy phlogs to get you started.
So now that you've discovered gopher, maybe you're thinking "Where do I go from here?". There's lots of places to go!
First and foremost on my mind at all times is the SDF website, which provides a howto guide for gophering. Whether getting
started on SDF with your free account, or hosting your own gopher hole, it's still important to know who's who in the gopherverse.
So here's a list to get you started:
So once you've checked out those places, I think you'll get a good understanding of how good gopher is and it's impressive, even now
, community. From the first pioneers of gopher holes, to new decentralized zones, gopher encompasses many ideas of communities
and self-actualization through information sharing, phlogging(The gopher term for blogging), file-sharing and the need for open-source
federated protocols and the like. It's truly one of a kind!
Chapter 2: Gopher servers.
So you'd like to run your own server now and join the hundreds of others doing the same, right? Well, to do that, it's "relatively" easy to get
started. First, you do honestly need usually some sort of Unix knowledge, such as how to navigate the command-line, how to create files, and
how to use a text editor such as vi(m) or emacs or nano. Furthermore, it's good to have an understanding of domains and domain names, server
security such as firewalls and such. For newbies this can seem very daunting, so I would recommend starting with an SDF or one of the Tilde's server
and going from there, as they usually feature tutorials and such to use their specific server software. Anyways, if you do choose to do it yourself,
I'd recommend one of the following servers:
to others.
Chapter 3: Gopher clients.
Of course, you wanna see other gopher phlogs as well, and to do that, there are several good clients out there nowadays that are very easy to use!
First, we'll start with GUI clients:
UI similar to popular web browsers.
TUI(Terminal)
So those are my picks for GUI and TUI software, hope this list helps you get started exploring the vast world of gopher!
Chapter 4: Other small web protocols.
There are other protocols out there as well, and I'd like to list a few. First of all is the major player called Gemini.
If you don't know anything about Gemini, it is very similar to Gopher except it has security features using TLS and
links and formatting is generally easier to do than Gopher.
Gemini has been around for a bit by now, and I would recommend checking out some sites on Gemini as well.
Then we have Nex and Spartan, which have similar ideas to Gemini, but par it down to make it more like Gopher. I
believe everyone should also check them out.
Finally, in small web protocol space we have a new email(!) protocol called Misfin. I don't know much regarding it
because I haven't used myself, really, but I'd love to give it a try!
Here's some links to the above:
Outro: We're just getting started!
So now you've seen how cool Gopher(And other small web protocols) is, so get involved in the community with us!
We still can can go so far in what Gopher can inspire in others to do and see!
That's all for now, folks, see you all next issue!
Document License: CC BY
Yeah, everything has gotten all kinda messed up here
lately because of the fact that NixOS screwed up my
Wordpress install. Welp, time to fix things one by
one!
I really should create a new server that runs
ZFS and has a bigger boot partition. I think
what I will do is make a server alongside this
one, and then transfer ALL the content from that
server to the new one.
The new server will of course continue to run NixOS,
and have ZFS as the main filesystem. In addition,
I want continual snapshots taken of the /home dataset,
and perhaps of /root too. And I want those snapshots sent
to me on a certain day. Like perhaps once a month on a
Sunday.
In addition to the services running below,
I now also run the following:
Nex
Spartan
Currently on this site I host the following:
IPFS
I2PD(Untested)
Yggdrasil
IRC(lagrangepoint.xyz, port 6667)
Gemini(You're viewing it)
Web(Wordpress)
Gopher
Feel free to visit any of them!
I really do like Gemini, but one thing I do dislike about it is about how if you run both Gopher
and Gemini, it's hard to do the formatting for both at the same time. So I may drop all of Gemini's
formatting for keeping it super simple like Gopher.
So I run a http site on Tor, and also I use Yggdrasil, I would love to run a Tor version of this
site, but on NixOS that's kinda a pain with everything you have to figure out lol, but maybe
it isn't as bad I think. Also I'd like to run IRC over Yggdrasil, cuz Yggdrasil is a neat service.
I'd also like to experiment with i2p and IPFS, these are all neat services to look into, as long
as you avoid the nasty stuff and want to mainly use it for privacy and security.
Hope everyone is doing well!
Now I have no more decision and option paralysis, it's just going to be my Gemini site and my website.
That's going to be the extent of it all. I'm feeling better about it already!
Hi all,
I think that I have decision and option paralysis. That is to say, I can’t seem to stick with just one thing.
I have too many things to keep track of, to update, to read, to write, to play etc.
So I’ve decided to cut back on some things – I also the following servers besides just this one.
A new protocol, called Nex. I created a service for that. It runs great, but I have to create content for that.
Then I also have a Gopher service, and a Gemini service and finally, a Spartan service.
I have all these things that need content, or so I feel that they do.
In reality most people will probably only visit this site and the content on my Gemini site as well.
The other protocols, while valuable, aren’t as popular today.
I would love for them to be more popular, however. Regardless, I want to make content for others, and I can’t if I have to deal with so many methods of doing so.
Ideally I would just want one way of doing so.
In effect I will however, because the content that goes on my Gemini site will also go on my WordPress, and in the future, a Writefreely site.
Perhaps I will host those other services on another website or home self-host them, who knows. For now, I’m bringing them down.
Took down the Spartan server for now, put up a Nex server instead.
So, probably going to swap out wordpress for hugo or something similar.
I don't have anything against wordpress, other than there seem to be
new vulnerabilities popping up for it all the time.
I also need to add SSL to my site, but hetzner makes this seem so complicated.
I wanted to get a free SSL cert, but I don't really know if that's an option...
maybe I should switch hosting providers, but I don't know of any others except
Linode and DigitalOcean... I admit to still being a newb when it comes to web dev lol.
So I tried Vanilla OS, it's pretty cool. It won't be
replacing NixOS tho! I love the concept of OSTree and
OSTree adjucent systems, but ultimately you can't do
as much as with them, even with the adddition of adding
nixpkgs to the container environment ala Vanilla OS,
but it is getting closer to being more versatile.
Also, I'd like to replace my Wordpess site with Ghost
or some sort of static site. I mean, there's nothing
wrong per se with Wordpress, but I feel like it doesn't
have a lot of flexibility itself. It ends up looking
similar to every other Wordpress site out there, and
there's tons of Wordpress sites that turn people off of
them.
As far as Gemini goes, I still love Gemini a lot, altho
I dislike the TLS requirements, even tho I know that it's
needed to prove identity and for security reasons I suppose.
I really don't know what I want to do with my site if we're
being honest, I just DO know that I need to write more. Like,
a lot more, and read as well. There's no other option than
to take up the pen as much as possible, even when I don't
feel like it.
Anyways, that's all for now!
Hmm, basically I need to figure out how to keep my logs
in sync across all my servers. That is to say, the servers
running Gemini, Gopher, Spartan and Wordpress. I really
wish Wordpress had a way to submit to the site via the
command-line. There's probably a plugin for that, but
I have no idea if that plugin would work with NixOS unless
it required a lot of fiddling around, lol. For now I'll
just work on making sure everything is in sync for
Gemini, Gopher and Spartan.
I keep trying to update every single day, but it's
very difficult for me. Needless to say, I am currently
using Emacs a lot again. In fact I am typing this in
Emacs right now. Emacs+NixOS or Guix makes everything
so easy it's unbelievable, really.
I want to really switch to Guix in the future, mostly
because I feel that Guix has everything I want in an
OS, and I admire their mission. It's just, since they
use the Linux Libre kernel, I can't use my wireless
internet with it and I only have access to the wireless
connection right now because of my home circumstances.
Not much to report today! Just trying to keep things
going!
Edited to add:
Gonna start doing BSD/Linux distro reviews. For new
AND old distros, and from then, howtos and config
files.
You can find it at:
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