31–40 of 65 posts
Google or Amazon should offer something like this as a paid-for service on AWS or Google Cloud. That way I wouldn't have to worry about my network connection at home going down. What a suitable privacy agreement this could work online--and I'd be okay trusting a contractual agreement to keep my data safe.
Even if these things were dead simple, I cannot see any of my non-technical friends using products like these. It is simply prohibitively complicated compared to dropbox - that "just works". I even recall a comment on here when Dropbox launched saying something like "why not configure an FTP server to do this". This is that FTP server. Also, personally, I would never host any content on-prem at my home. It is far too…
"For a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem."
This is a perfect example of when tech-minded people get blinded to how complicated some things are for the masses.
Yay, another distro. /s Seriously though, software isn't the issue here, hardware is. Anybody with the skills can slap Linux on an old computer and turn it into a server. It's packaging it up into something you can sell to the non-technical that's the real win. I wish free software advocates would take more lessons from Jobs instead of blindly idealizing Woz.
Still a lot of work, but not as much as creating your own distro from scratch.
The copy and design of the landing page led me to believe that FreedomBox is an actual box that has all that great software preloaded and ready to go. Which made the unlabeled download button jarring. The text should be changed to something like: FreedomBox is designed to [run on/create] your own inexpensive server at home. It [includes/is built with] free software and offers an increasing number of services ranging…
They even have some links to suggested computers: https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/QuestionsAndAnswers#HARDW...
The copy and design of the landing page led me to believe that FreedomBox is an actual box that has all that great software preloaded and ready to go. Which made the unlabeled download button jarring. The text should be changed to something like: FreedomBox is designed to [run on/create] your own inexpensive server at home. It [includes/is built with] free software and offers an increasing number of services ranging…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am technical and I struggle to find a use for my home server. The most common uses I always find are: - Media server: I primarily use streaming services or physical media - File sharing: I rarely ever share files between computers, and if I need to, I just scp them on my home network. - Web hosting: box is too small/old to reliably do this, plus I have cloud hosting already I do use it for private SVN and have plan…
I think the key would be to embed it to some existing appliance; like a router, game console, or other "always-on" and connected device. I don't see the home server being the prime selling point. Everyone needs a router, so if you created a router that was dead simple to configure and use, had some cool extra features, integrated well with your home gadgets ("Alexa, turn off the WiFi", "Alexa, setup a guest wifi netw…
On the other hand there are nice features already: VPN Server, Seedbox, Ad-blocking-proxy
I was hoping the bluebox on the main page was something you could buy and plug in your wall and have it running the software. Kinda like an appliance.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
re: (b) Security Security through delegation vs security through obscurity imo here, follow simple things like use non-standard ports and your changes of getting hacked are likely shockingly low even if your behind on patches.
nmap, a standard pen tool, already sees through port mapping and other convenient obscurity tricks, there's just nothing like actually keeping your system up to date
As is well known, few people will take the trouble to deploy this at home, especially non-technical users. Why not provide one-click (or two- or three-click) deployment to hosting, either a VPS or cloud like Amazon? Data could be encrypted end-to-end so that the hosting provider can't access it, at least in some cases (server-side searches become tricky). 'Create our own private Instagram, iTunes, and more for $x/mon…
The similar project YUNOhost advertises both scenarios. https://yunohost.org/#/install
Yay, another distro. /s Seriously though, software isn't the issue here, hardware is. Anybody with the skills can slap Linux on an old computer and turn it into a server. It's packaging it up into something you can sell to the non-technical that's the real win. I wish free software advocates would take more lessons from Jobs instead of blindly idealizing Woz.
FreemdomBox is a Debian package. It isn't another distro. They are focusing on exactly what you are saying, putting together a UI that non-technicals can use.