and it never required

That’s cool. I was thinking one of the free tiers like Amazon, Google required a CC to open one. Side question: What do you run on Oracle, and how fastidious do you have to be about controlling resource consumption? I’ve read about people on one of the free tiers getting socked a big bill, in fact it’s a meme now.

I know of a few VPS that are ‘free’, and I use that word quite loosely. Long time back I explored a few, and I can tell you that they are not worth the time of day. Very cheap VPS can be had. I had one that ran me $25 USD per year. It wasn’t the most thread rippin’ VPS you could have, but it certainly was cheap, and at one time I had about 25 different containers running on it with out much trouble. A good place to look for cheap VPS is at lowendbox.com.

Oracle offers a free tier, but you really have to watch your consumption of resources, and I believe they require a credit card to open an account. There are horror stories of people who went over the limit and ended up with a good size bill

I realize $25 USD is not free and does not fit within your request, and I empathize. As far as using your own computer with something like Docker, and shutting it down each evening…I shut my server down every evening via a cron job. I am the only user, and I just couldn’t justify letting it run while I slept. So I guess you’d say it’s an intermittent service.

Because that’s just the way I do. LOL

It’s commerial setup to get your dependent on it

Honest question: How is it different than anything else we are dependent on? The ‘dependent on’ list is quite long and includes things like transportation, infrastructure, power grid, fuel, food supply, water supply, industry, internet communications, et al. We are very dependent upon these things. Are they ‘enshitifications’ as well? I’ve tried to construct my life to be as independent as possible. I grow my own food, pump my water from several wells on my property, employ solar power while still connected to the grid. Try as I may, I am still dependent.

I’ve had a computer in front of me since the mid 70s and I’m quite certain I have only barely scratched the surface of what there is to learn.

ETA = Edit To Add

Kind of like P.S.

And that opens the door to making your setup a netbot.

…then you learn. That’s pretty much how I did it. First Linux server I every deployed on a VPS, got taken over almost immediately. So you drop back to your trick bag, and spool up on security.

Never used it, but TugTainer. I use the fork of Watchtower and run it with '--run-once' '--cleanup'. You can run it and let it update your containers as soon as an update is available, but I just like to run it manually.

…aaaaaand away we go! qwerty!

OP, I took a cursory run through of the site. Looks good. Could really have potential for those just dipping their toes in the self hosting pool. I haven’t tested the ISO created tho. One thing, Tailscale client id & secret. I’m not sure I would want to disclose that on an unknown website, because of privacy issues. I understand why you included it, but it seems like an brief explanation as to how to do that manually, once the ISO is deployed, for those who might have some of the same reservations. Perhaps I overlooked that if it exists. Otherwise it looks like it would be a great introductory to self hosting.

Onward and upward.

ETA: I like the name too.

Experience is something you never have until after you need it.

Yeah. Maybe it’s time to adopt some new rule in the selfhosted community.

Tho I chafe against rules and regulations, I realize they are necessary.

I just want some say in what I install on my computer. And not be fooled by someone into using their software.

Me too. It’s why I try to carefully pick seasoned projects, and I don’t jump on the bandwagon just because it’s a new twist to an old solution. I selfishly want others to be my beta testers. LOL Hey, I admit it. Also, I am truly thankful that there exists in the community, those who can and do look at the code and understand the issues involved. I do not possess those skills. I know a limited amount of code and use it for me locally. I would never dare publish it tho. I’m too afraid of what the ramifications would be should someone use my code and the wheels fall off their server. I would feel very responsible. It’s the reason I do not even publish my notes to a wiki of some sort.

Some devs are afraid to admit that they used AI to help them code because there’s so much hatred towards using AI to code.

I would say there is a lot of truth to that statement. The backlash is immediate and punishing. I’ve said before, I think there are a lot of young devs who would like to contribute to the opensource/selfhosting community, but lack the experience.

Here’s the disclosure you need: all projects you see have involved AI somewhere, whether the developers like to admit it or not. End of. The genie is out of the bottle, and it’s not going back in. Railing against it really isn’t going to change anything.

I’ve said it before, AI is here to stay. It’s not a fad. Kind of like when the internet first started to become publicly available. Lots of people deemed it a fad. It’s now a global phenom and it is the basis by which we do business on the daily, minute by minute, globally. I do think that AI needs some heavy governmental regulation. It would be great if we could all play nicely together without involving the government(s). Alas, we don’t seem to be able to do that, and so, government(s) has to step in, unfortunately. The problem with that is, imho, surveillance capitalism has worked so well that governments also want to take a peek at that data too. I have nothing to back up that conspiracy theory, it’s just a feeling I get.

FWIW, I’m not against using AI as an assistant for coding (I do it too, using Claude and Vercel as assistants) just as long as the code is reviewed and understood in full* by the dev before publishing. *my emphasis

A very sane take. I do wish devs would fully disclose this on their github or other. That way, if the project is seasoned, well starred, et al, and the dev used AI as an assistant, then the user gets to decide. Given all the criteria are met, I would deploy it.

I will say that I have observed what seems like a pretty decent up tick in selfhosted apps, and I would be willing to bet a goodly amount of them have at the very least, used AI in some capacity, if not most/all code. I don’t have any solid evidence to back that up but it just seems that way to me.

The effects on the environment

Didn’t down vote you. I hear this line of complaint in conjunction with AI, especially if the person saying it is anti-AI. Without even calculating in AI, some 25 million metric tons of CO2 emissions annually from streaming and content consumption. Computers, smartphones, and tablets can emit around 200 million metric tons CO2 per year in electrical consumption. Take data centers for instance. If they are powered by fossil fuels, this can add about 100 million metric tons of CO2 emissions. Infrastructure contributes around 50 million metric tons of CO2 per year.

Now…who wants to turn off their servers and computers? Volunteers? While it is true that AI does contribute, we’re already pumping out some significant CO2 without it. Until we start switching to renewable energy globally, this will continue to climb with or without AI. It seems tho, that we will have to deplete the fossil fuel supply globally before renewables become the de facto standard.

I run quite a few containers, and I just can’t find anything I’d like to add that would be functional. I’m always tinkering tho, and learning. The learning part is my favorite.

Every time this comes out, it’s like I was a kid waiting for my Pop Sci & Mech mags to arrive in the mail, and later on Byte magazine. The downside is, after you get your server setup and functioning, there’s not much to add to it.

I learn so much :)

I’ve had a computer in front of me since the mid 70s with the Altair. Now, don’t mistake time with skill, but, the learning aspect is what I dig the most.

Welcome! Good to meet you. Looks like you are well on the selfhosting journey.