How to run a Puppy Linux Discord Server?

[r96chase]

https://discord.gg/sShmnedjTd

Hi! I need help running a Discord server that passed down to me just today. It's about Puppy Linux and it could really use some fixing up and stuff. I would appreciate it if someone with more experience with Puppy Linux came and help. Thanks.

Sincerely,
Chase

P.S.: Yes, I am well aware that the former owner already posted about this somewhere else, but I feel like the former owner was in a hurry or something.

[Flash]

If you know where the former owner posted, would you give us the URL of his post so we can catch up?

[r96chase]

If you know where the former owner posted, would you give us the URL of his post so we can catch up?

viewtopic.php?f=127&t=1667

[r96chase]

If any admin sees this, feel free to link the Discord server to the front page sometime. Only if you want to of course. It's kinda like IRC, but more updated and stuff.

[Flash]

The front page of what? Got a URL?

[r96chase]

I meant puppylinux.com. That front page and stuff.

[williwaw]

It's kinda like IRC, but more updated and stuff

Chase, thats a pretty nominal description of what you got going, and maybe the server section is not the easiest place to find an announcement of sorts. Maybe a post up top like the user section? you are going to have to sell the idea a bit I would think.

[r96chase]

@williwaw I originally posted it in the users section. It's just got moved here for some reason. Must be the word "server" or something. I don't know.

[mikeslr]

Hi r96chase,

I know nothing about either servers or Discord. Often knowing that you know nothing helps avoid wandering aimlessly down the wrong path. At least you know you have to ask fundamental questions.
It seems that the Discord Server you want help with is already up and running, https://discord.gg/Zaa4FrF.

So, exactly what kind of help do you want? Be specific: e.g. I want to do this, that, and something else. I can't do this, that, or something else. What should I take into consideration in running a server? and specifically a Discord Server? Security? Anti-Spam? Attracting membership?

[r96chase]

@mikeslr Well, I need help organizing the channels and moderating the server while I'm absent. Keep in mind, I've been only handed this responsibility recently.

Anyway, I'm trying to make this a primary Discord room for Puppy Linux. We even have a cool new icon to show too.

I honestly don't get why there aren't many people interested in this, but maybe it's a slow period and stuff. Who really knows at this point.

[wiak]

Strange area to have it moved to, certainly. Discord is more of an online social media/group communications platform (think Google Hangouts - whatever) - nothing to do with setting up Linux servers anyway. Just needed an announcement - if anyone wants to join it they will, but I suspect most prefer the type of forum txt chat provided here on forum.puppylinux.com. There is also a Puppy Linux facebook site, which I've heard has some success, and also is (or was?) an IRC chat site for Puppy. Maybe Discord is more powerful platform (compared with say Facebook groups, which also allow audio/video/txt comms) but whether any external Puppy forum site takes off big time is always a matter of conjecture if not doubt. Possibly a different matter if the people logged in to Discord and formed the 'Puppy forum' there were the likes of 01micko or rockedge or some other well-known Puppy individual with years of forum/Puppy distro experience/established/respected reputation - is that the case? Not that I'm saying a person should not open a Puppy forum if they so wish, but established Puppy Linux track history probably helps a lot I'd imagine in getting any new such venture going... Personally, I use too much time/energy already developing stuff or on this forum here without joining (or helping out on) yet another one. Having said that, I will no doubt join once and if it becomes established as the place to be/go!!! But I'll pass for now. I'm maybe behind the times when it comes to such possibilities (even Facebook is a pain to me) - I tend to like the less interactive pace of forums such as this txt-based one, especially since that gives time to think and develop technical ideas and bug-fix solutions and so on. Voice/Video chatting just not really my thing.

[r96chase]

@wiak Yeah, Discord is indeed a communications platform. I still don't get why they moved this topic here. I ended up making another one in the users section [viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1690] even though I probably shouldn't have.

Anyway, I know that things like Discord are not your thing, but I do appreciate you giving this attention. Thank you for your input anyway.

[rockedge]

managing Discord is time consuming. At this time I have joined and I am a moderator, but maintaining the Puppy Linux Forum and the WeeDog forum are my primary missions. I work with the Dev's over at Zoneminder and they use IRC and Slack plus a phpBB forum. Slack is where it's like being at the office.

I'll keep an eye out, but for now I have enough to do keeping the Puppy forum going smoothly and functioning at high levels of reliability.

Plus I have a WeeDog project going and I want to put out a similar to WDL32 a 64 bit WeeDog64-Void.

Puppy Linux Bionic64-8.0 is really working well as the WeeDog development platform. All the tools available and the way Puppy works and is structured just adds to the plus factor. With Bionic64 the work flow is steady.

[r96chase]

God bless you for your hard work.

[mikewalsh]

@rockedge :-

Sorry to be 'nosy', Erik, but I'm curious; are you running the Forum in the way JM did - as a VPS - or are doing this 'locally', from your own machines? (I'm like that old cat, mate; I want to know TOO much..! )

Mike.

[Flash]

It was I who moved this thread to the Server section. It had the word server in the title and I don't know anything about Discord or servers.

Rockedge, you seem to know. Would you please put this where it belongs?

[rockedge]

@mikewalsh
This forum is now on a commercial host server provided by Byethost in the U.K. There I have a VIP account and unlimited storage. I first ran it from my own little machine from the basement. Using Puppy Linux Bionic64 which succeeded the Lucid, UPUP 3.9.9.2, Tahr, Xenial versions. I used a really old machine running Tahr to act as gateway running Apache2 and directing with reverse proxy's to individual machines around the house that did different things, from page requests coming to the house's router from all these different domain names.

But for a forum like ours we need power and not a household router / old desktops combination to direct the network traffic from all over the world. Plus we have the target of creating another Byethost account that a group of Puppy People can access as administrators and have also executive powers. So in a nutshell a Host provider just for Puppy Linux and Company that several people have the keys for so what happened to the Murga forum will not happen here. Making backups is easy and Byethost does it's own backups. I do all the work on the web site's and that software. There are several web sites that run from this server. Some like https://nutmegkart.com lives right next door to this forum.

This way also all of the finances to run the joint are in one place and totally transparent. With a group of "Stewart's" and the community able to keep things going in case of emergency.

Originally the site ran on a Hiawatha, mariaDB, PHP (LHMP Stack) since I really like Hiawatha AND it's stock in Puppy Linux. Now with some clever DNS addressing and domain ALIAS's we send the traffic to the commercial grade server.
Another plus is Byethost does the maintenance of the servers and software and I can run it all from a control panel. Another very important feature is the Email server. At Byethost it's integrated and later on when puppylinux.com is transferred to it's home, there will be the possibility to use email addresses like "rockedge @ puppylinux.com".
Having the mail server taken care of and configured is a huge help. Otherwise I would have to run one from home as well as the web server stack. Gets tricky sometimes especially since my router is like a $150 for the home model. But it does the job well enough. Upside is working on the system / forum is direct, downside is the system can only handle so much traffic simultaneously.

[rockedge]

"Why in the U.K.?" one might ask.
The company has given me great service for 10 years. The British are polite and tough bastards and somehow I trust them more than Americans. I know I'm half American.
The accent also helps and my true home Hamburg Germany is only a hop and a skip away.

I'm a big fan of Sherlock Holmes. Once I was given the opportunity to stand at the helm on the bridge of the Queen Mary 2. I also listen to the Sex Pistols, Pink Floyd and the Beatles.

It's closer to my house than Australia and New Zealand.

[mikewalsh]

@rockedge :-

Ah, no, that's great, Erik. Like I said, I know I'm being nosey, but I was curious as to how the current set-up compares to what John used. And the fact that what happened there can never happen again - well, short of Byethost going bust, I suppose! - is good to hear.

Look out for another wee donation very shortly. In the words of the current Tesco TV adverts, "Every little helps..."

(EDIT:- Done.)

Mike.

[mikewalsh]

"Why in the U.K.?" one might ask.
The company has given me great service for 10 years. The British are polite and tough bastards and somehow I trust them more than Americans. I know I'm half American.

Well, of all the things Brit companies might have been accused of over the years, messing folks around has very rarely, if ever, been one of them. To us, a "deal is a deal", and we tend to stick by one, once made. I DO miss the trust that used to exist in commerce, though; the days of making a purchase, waiting for the invoice, and THEN settling up, seem to have fallen by the wayside. Nobody trusts anybody any more; everybody wants payment up-front, before you get so much as a sniff of what you've ordered.....and you have to hope to hell that you've not gotten yourself involved with a 'dodgy' firm, and pray that what you've paid for actually turns up. At least if you have the sense to use a credit card for sizeable purchases, you do have SOME "come-back"; the banks will honour 'payments made in good faith'.....up to a point.

This is why I try to only deal with reputable organisations, who stand to lose more than I do if things go south.....

C'est la vie, I guess.

Mike.

[wiak]

My eight year old just called me over to his computer to see a video animation he had just made. I noticed he was talking about 'Discord' in it, so I asked him if he had heard of it. Turns out he has his own Discord channel and he and his eight year old school mate regularly chat on it whilst playing online game together. Hmmm... shows how little I know what the wee blighter gets up to, but I can see his screen from where I usually sit and never been anything dodgy on it - just Scratch, Minetest, Minecraft (EDIT: I have no idea where he got that... or how it works on his WDL_Arch64 box...), various animation creation programs - some of which he is learning some javascript with, Blender, inkscape, the list goes on... and apparently Discord... I sometimes wish I was still eight since I have so much I want to do and always feel I have insufficient time even if I lived to be 150. When I was eight I was playing chess quite a bit (having been taught along with my elder sisters when I was six) and also started making crystal radio sets (long copper wire aerial between the trees and ancient old headphones to hear the stations) - no computers/minetest/scratch alas in these days... not even calculators - though I still have an old Faber Castell sliderule from my high school days.