Hey all,
Who's still here in the big year 2026? I couldn't help but notice that we're a few versions behind on OpenBSD releases, and that the https cert has expired recently.
I know this is just a hobby project, and I want to make it clear that I expect no kind of SLA or anything, just checking in.
Me? Jeeze, I've had a heck of a few years. Got fired, got a great new job, lost that job due to... Uhh, real life stuff we don't need to get into, had some shit jobs and now I'm in probably the best job I've ever had. What about you?
Is the UNIX social network stil there? What neat stuff have you seen in this space lately?
Love and peace,
~rdh
On Mon, 2026-04-06 at 07:35 +0000, rdh@tilde.institute wrote:
Hey all,
Hi one!
Who's still here in the big year 2026? I couldn't help but notice that we're a few versions behind on OpenBSD releases, and that the https cert has expired recently.
I've no answers to this.
Is the UNIX social network stil there?
The mailing lists are even more silent than the ~verse's news server. There are some other media too, but I seem to lack the New-Fediverse genes. I prefer the original Federation (SMTP, NNTP, IRC). Imo pubnixes often run far too many competing services and that spreads the few active users over far too many lonely places. Am I active? I mainly play with my Nixens at home and only occasionally try something on pubnixens. I'm a member of Pubnixens to have neighbours. It worked out better in the past.
Give <news.tilde.club> a chance?
What neat stuff have you seen in this space lately?
Here?
Good news from the "Dimension Pubnix" is rare or just does not reach me.
Maybe we get an idea how to wake up some neighbours?
Fingers crossed! ,,X_
y.
Hello two! I joined somewhat recently, and can't help but feel that I have joined at a bad time. My tendency to lurk probably is not helping, but it feels like even the tildeverse irc is quiet nowadays. Tilderadio seems to be the most active around here.
If this scene gets a new jolt of life, I hope to see it.
-- Crow
rdh@tilde.institute wrote:
Who's still here in the big year 2026? ..
I log in occasionally but have been busy with other things.
Others have also noticed the a lull in general activity on the various public unixes. I think the COVID lockdowns may have been a high point which is kind of understandable, though I'm a little surprised that having a non-commercial place to escape the ever-expanding shitshow that is social media and the Internet is general isn't a bigger attractant. Maybe text-based environment is a bigger hurdle than I thought.
-m
On Mon, Apr 06, 2026 at 07:35:22AM +0000, rdh@tilde.institute wrote:
Hey all,
Dacav checkn' in
It looks like it was a good call to set a forward(5) file!
Me? Jeeze, I've had a heck of a few years. Got fired, got a great new job, lost that job due to... Uhh, real life stuff we don't need to get into, had some shit jobs and now I'm in probably the best job I've ever had. What about you?
It looks like you had quite a 2026 so far!
Is the UNIX social network stil there? What neat stuff have you seen in this space lately?
Let's see...
It is a while I don't hang out on tilde.institute, or to any other tilde for what it matters. I logged in a few times lately, in search for inspiration from manpages. But it is for sure a long time I don't join the tildeverse IRC.
I've been hanging out on Libera.chat mostly, spent time with a few personal projects[1], loading my head with way too much stuff at $dayjob, and carrying on with a couple of children.
And trying to survive the tirendness, the horrible reality, and the current hypes. As probably anyone else.
Still in love with UNIX. Still in love with C programming. A little disenchanted.
It would be nice to see more traffic indeed.
- dacav
[1] Currently goofing around with supercazzola [https://dacav.org/projects/supercazzola] and trolling facebook by serving them gigabytes (literally!) of random text... fuck 'em.
yeti@tilde.institute wrote:
There are some other media too, but I seem to lack the New-Fediverse genes. I prefer the original Federation (SMTP, NNTP, IRC). Imo pubnixes often run far too many competing services and that spreads the few active users over far too many lonely places.
I hear ya there. SMTP and NNTP are my favorite ways to communicate, but I fear their strengths (low volume, high barrier to entry) are also causing everything to get quieter and quieter.
I enjoy all of the various services, but it does make it hard to know what you should check. Maybe it would be cool if each server put a preferred communication method in the motd. Keep the other services, but have an opinion on the matter, you know?
Of course, the answer would probably be what it is now: IRC, which is fine and fun, but I like asynch- ronous messaging.
comradecrow@tilde.institute wrote:
...My tendency to lurk probably is not helping
Hey, lurking is just about all I do! But if you ever see me in w(1), send me a message with write(1)!
meta4@tilde.institute wrote:
I'm a little surprised that having a non-commercial place to escape the ever-expanding shitshow that is social media and the Internet is general isn't a bigger attractant.
That's exactly why I first joined, and why I'm coming back to it today.
dacav@tilde.institute wrote:
It looks like you had quite a 2026 so far!
Oof... This didn't all happen to me this year. I've kept busy, but not *THAT* busy!!
---
Anyway, I guess this is the general problem. What I like about tildeverse is that it's federated, but somewhat sheltered from the rest of the Big-I Internet. But that's a weakness. Regardless, good to see we're still here!
Love and peace,
~rdh
On Monday, April 06 2026, at 09:35, rdh@tilde.institute wrote:
Who's still here in the big year 2026? I couldn't help but notice that we're a few versions behind on OpenBSD releases, and that the https cert has expired recently.
The OpenBSD update schedule is a bit "intense", with a system upgrade -- which is actually a full install -- every 6 months (last time I checked).
There's been a very long period when I logged in and the CPU load was always sky-high, due to some script running on the www server. Glad to see that's no longer happening recently, but it might have chilled participation somewhat.
Seasons change... At the moment I'm not as much into Pubnix, but I know interest will come back, because my hobbies always run in cycles. In the tildeverse, we are not that many to begin with. If enough people are going through a lull at the same time, turnout will suffer.
Anyway, this place is a resource which I find invaluable even when I'm using it less. So I really hope it stays!
rdh@tilde.institute wrote:
Who's still here in the big year 2026?
I am new here. In the web site I read:
"This is a space for people to explore the OpenBSD operating system, in addition to exploring the more social aspects of a multi-user UNIX system"
I use it as in the first sentence, to explore OpenBSD even if I am an OpenBSD user since about 20 years. This is because I use at the moment FreeBSD as Desktop, to do ssh is easier than to boot up a second computer.
The second aspect, the social aspects of a multi-user UNIX system, is sure facinating, /home contains 967 directories, the experiment is worth even if the users get few MB quotas, but I miss the meeting points, perhaps a centraliced forum could help bring first the users together.
Email lists as forum are inefficient. BTW, I am writing this with tilde.institute's nail, it is the mailx feeling of the last century. I used mailx in mailing list discussions with high trafic, but today CLI mail are disappearing, even experienced UNIX users use bloated GUI mail clients for normal mail.
USENET as forum is better. I used nn to read news, but was not able to use the one installed. Perhaps I forgot how to use it, perhaps it changed. What I use to read email and USENET till now is alpine, but unfortunately it is not installed. I think alpine is the last UNIX CLI mail client usable under today's demands. Mutt may be good, but it does not really support imap.
USENET got replaced with WEB forums software and seems to be dying. Perhaps because it is not flexible in creating and ordering discussion forums, because of spam, because it needs a special news reader. This problems could perhaps be solved with a nntp to http gateway and some custom nntp headers, but needs some programming. In any case, USENET is actual, because of increasing censorship and its distribution of the messages among many servers.
I couldn't help but notice that we're a few versions behind on OpenBSD releases, and that the https cert has expired recently.
Although upgrading OpenBSD became a little easier, it is a delicate work that must be done twice a year, stress.
Love and peace,
International law, Geneve and Hague conventions, UN charta, etc are abrogated.
Hruodr.
On Wed, 2026-04-15 at 10:38 +0000, hruodr@tilde.institute wrote:
rdh@tilde.institute wrote:
(((...))), the social aspects of a multi-user UNIX system, is sure facinating, /home contains 967 directories, the experiment is worth even if the users get few MB quotas, but I miss the meeting points,
There are too many services where Tildeverse can meet. That may be the problem. I see that with other Pubnixens too.
Email lists as forum are inefficient. BTW, I am writing this with tilde.institute's nail, it is the mailx feeling of the last century.
I can reply from home. Using a *nix at home, you probably can too.
I used mailx in mailing list discussions with high trafic, but today CLI mail are disappearing, even experienced UNIX users use bloated GUI mail clients for normal mail.
I still occasionally mail or post news via telnet or netcat, but own cheat sheets sure are a big help. I try without them first and sometimes succeed even then.
USENET as forum is better.
I'm surprised that there is such a big difference between NNTP, mailinglists and shared and public IMAP folders. They could compete for the same niche, but de facto we only see two of them being widely used. Well, newsgroups and mailinglists still exist in big numbers, maybe only a small number of users is actively involved. MUAs playing bad newsreaders may be one of the problems involved there.
I used nn to read news, but was not ableto use the one installed.
One? I've no idea how many newsreaders are installde @tilde.institute, you mentioned one, I sometimes test configurations of a different one (Gnus) on ~institute, so that makes already two. I'm very optimistic that there are even lots more of them.
In most cases I read and post from home.
USENET got replaced with WEB forums software and seems to be dying.
Web forums are all different. Everyone seems to happily reinvent wheels with different counts of edges or in shapes of eights or moebius loops. They just suck!
Perhaps because it is not flexible in creating and ordering discussion forums, because of spam, because it needs a special news reader. This problems could perhaps be solved with a nntp to http gateway and some custom nntp headers, but needs some programming.
Less is more. Pubnixens seem to happily run into the too many services trap and that makes near to every of those meeting places a lonely space.
The original atoms of communication were texts with header lines being sent between nodes, so basically mail and news. With faster permanently connected nodes chat got traction too.
We should restart a network uning only these from scratch.
yeti yeti@tilde.institute wrote:
There are too many services where Tildeverse can meet. That may be the problem. I see that with other Pubnixens too.
There should be a clear official entry point ...
I can reply from home. Using a *nix at home, you probably can too.
I use nail and not mailx, because mails are delivered in Maildir format.
I did "telnet tilde.institute 25", perhaps I can send from home with smtp instead of the local sendmail.
But is my Maildir offered with imap for reading from home? Note: normaly Mails offered by imap should not be touched by normal mail clients at the server as I am doing now.
I was used to ssh (rsh) for using remote mailx. No tragedy.
I'm surprised that there is such a big difference between NNTP, mailinglists and shared and public IMAP folders.
Mailing lists *send* to everybody subscribed even if they do not want to read. With nntp / imap people interested *retrieve* what they want to read. There is a big difference.
I never tried public imap folders, but I know it is possible with cyrus imap.
One? I've no idea how many newsreaders are installde @tilde.institute, you mentioned one, I sometimes test configurations of a different one (Gnus) on ~institute, so that makes already two. I'm very optimistic that there are even lots more of them.
Now I remember, I used nn only for short time, later rn, and slrn is installed. Also tin and emacs with gnus are installed.
Perhaps because it [USENET] is not flexible in creating and ordering discussion forums, because of spam, because it needs a special news reader. This problems could perhaps be solved with a nntp to http gateway and some custom nntp headers, but needs some programming.
I know newsgrouper. Tcl Program. Perhaps that could be the beginning for programming the right gateway.
With tcp you get lossles transmission in a medium where losslessnes is not guarantied. With encryption you get privacy in a public medium. The idea is now to get a clean forum from a dirty medium (USENET group full of spam and irrelevant discussions). The cleaning work done at the level of the nntp to html gateway. Of course, this cleaning is not necessary in private newsgroups.
Less is more. Pubnixens seem to happily run into the too many services trap and that makes near to every of those meeting places a lonely space.
One easy to use forum in the foreground, leaving the other possibilities in the backgroung, could be the solution. Web-forums are perhaps the easiest to use, one must in principle only know how to deal with the web browser.
The original atoms of communication were texts with header lines being sent between nodes, so basically mail and news. With faster permanently connected nodes chat got traction too.
We should restart a network uning only these from scratch.
with standard technic ...
hruodr.
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yeti