this post was submitted on 22 Oct 2023
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The future of selfhosted services is going to be... Android?

Wait, what?

Think about it. At some point everyone has had an old phone lying around. They are designed to be constantly connected, constantly on... and even have a battery and potentially still a SIM card to survive power outages.

We just need to make it easy to create APK packaged servers that can avoid battery-optimization kills and automatically configure an outbound tunnel like ngrok, zerotrust, etc...

The goal: hosting services like #nextcloud, #syncthing, #mastodon!? should be as easy as installing an APK and leaving an old phone connected to a spare charger / outlet.

It would be tempting to have an optimized ROM, but if self-hosting is meant to become more commonplace, installing an APK should be all that's needed. #Android can do SSH, VPN and other tunnels without the need for root, so there should be no problem in using tunnels to publicly expose a phone/server in a secure manner.

In regards to the suitability of home-grade broadband, I believe that it should not be a huge problem at least in Europe where home connections are most often unmetered: "At the end of June 2021, 70.2% of EU homes were passed by either FTTP or cable DOCSIS
3.1 networks, i.e. those technologies currently capable of supporting gigabit speeds."

Source: https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/broadband-coverage-europe-2021

PS. syncthing actually already has an APK and is easy to use. Although I had to sort out some battery optimization stuff, it's a good example of what should become much more commonplace.

cc: @selfhosted
#selfhosted #selfhosting

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[–] AbidanYre 5 points 1 year ago (17 children)

You can get a wyse thin client on eBay for $50, and if you're clustering the pis it's not $50 anymore, so you can get a real computer on woot in the $150 range.

Either of those options will run circles around a pi/pi cluster.

[–] bustrpoindextr -5 points 1 year ago (14 children)

Please learn to read. Again. I thought I wasn't on Reddit anymore.

$50 for a pi. Not for clustering. For one. That's it.

An X86 PC is gonna cost you hundreds. That's how I can cluster rpi, for the same cost. I hope you now know how to do basic math.

[–] AbidanYre 3 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Insulting my reading ability and math skills would work better if you weren't making a fool of yourself.

I gave you an example of a $50 x86 PC and mentioned the more expensive options because you brought up building a pi cluster in your first response to me, at which point you're not talking about spending $50 anymore.

The main point is that either the thin client or the slightly more expensive computer will runs circles around your pi(s) for the same price.

[–] bustrpoindextr -5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I gave you an example of a $50 x86 PC

No you didn't. You gave an example of a >= 200 x86 PC... So, like... That's why I even suggested clustering. To match the cost of your claim.

[–] AbidanYre 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)
[–] bustrpoindextr -4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Oh, so like... A worthless fucking machine... Sure. You use that. Let me know how many minutes that lasts, on your fucking Celeron lmao

And in any case, that's a used vs new ... Like.. bruh, their new ones start at 700... I can buy 14 pis for that...

[–] AbidanYre 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

A worthless fucking machine

Hey, that's what I always end up thinking when I try to use a pi for anything.

But if you actually check the numbers, that has pretty similar specs to the Pi4 but supports virtualization and has more ram. And the wyse runs on a real hard drive instead of an SD card or some janky USB setup.

[–] bustrpoindextr 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

or some janky USB setup

TIL nvme is a janky USB setup

https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2023/nvme-ssd-boot-raspberry-pi-5

But if you actually check the numbers, that has pretty similar specs to the Pi4 but supports virtualization and has more ram. And the wyse runs on a real hard drive instead of an SD card or some janky USB setup.

But also general reply to that. Similar specs to the pi4, sure, but what about the 5 that is 3x as fast? It also has the same amount of RAM that the small 5 does. And by the way the link you posted, it runs off of an emmc drive... As in it's effectively an SD card... Just, embedded. (Hence the "e")

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