I knew of some of these issues with the protocol, but this article definitely gives an impression that Matrix was built as a “cool protocol” first, with messaging applied on top as an afterthought.

It’s possible to run the services without Kubernetes, but official ESS Community uses Kubernetes.

ESS Community works ‘out-of-the-box’ on a single machine or existing Kubernetes cluster using the provided Helm charts.

TLDR: bare Synapse was fine on 1CPU 1GB RAM VPS, but uses lots of disk space (from large rooms). Current/future ESS requires Kubernetes and several services to be functional.

More info in my blog post

Thank you for the queries. The rhetorical question is why isn’t the server handling this.

I have ran Synapse natively on 1 CPU 1GB RAM VPS for years. But it fills up a lot of disk space, eapecially with larger rooms, so get at least 100GB? (I had 20GB on my VPS, and with 4 regular users, was using up 15GB)

If you are looking at (new) official ESS Community, they recommend 2 CPU, 2GB RAM minimum for Kubernetes.

I use Sync in Firefox to sync favorites and site passwords, but outside of that, I usually start clean. Sometimes I need to manually copy notes, 2FA keys or such, but mostly I set things up as I need them.

After using iOS for around 3 years and going back to Android, Android has more simple, pragmatic and free apps.

I like droidify as a store for FOSS apps (comes with several repos enabled by default, including F-Droid and Izzy).

For the basics: Breezy Weather for weather, CoMaps for navigation, Markor or Fossify Notes for notes, Aegis for 2FA, Gadgetbridge for smartwatch.

As for launchers, people like Niagara, but it’s subscription for the pro version. Lawnchair is a classic-style customizable launcher. Other mainsteam apps are pretty much the same as iOS.

Matrix clients aren’t great

IMO the main advantage that Matrix-Element has for normal users is the branding: Element is Element on the web, Android and iOS. (Snikket is trying to do the same for XMPP though)

Matrix is too difficult for “normal” people

Agreed. Simple user+password login to a hosted (non-matrixdotorg) server takes 5-6 pages to click through.

Matrix public rooms have a CP problem

I was spammed with racist copypasta on XMPP once too. But being in large Matrix chats guarantees being invited/messaged.

…Matrix also pisses metadata to any server it federates with, including matrix [.] org

Replication+sync is a strange decision for chats. It sort of makes sense for slower fediverse posts, but creates a lot of strange scenarios and privacy issues with chats. Also, matrixdotorg is used for key backups and vectordotim is used for integrations IIRC.

I hosted Matrix for several years. It mostly works fine, apps look consistent, bridges are nice, but is a pain in the ass in some aspects. Onboarding sucks. Data needs constant cleanup (or gigabytes of storage, even for a dozen users). Sometimes notifications are delayed hours. Sometimes images don’t load.

New Element Server Suite is more corporate-oriented, requires Kubernetes (!) to run, includes defacto mandatory services. Element X has no feature parity with Element Classic, especially calls.

I ran Snikket many years ago for a few months. But now they have smooth invites/onboarding, admin panel, and always had reliable notifications. Even bridges through Slidge. I plan to switch back to Snikket soon.

More details

Are you trying to run everything as sudo / admin? I do not recall having to type in the password that much, even a decade ago when Linux experience was less polished.

The thing is also that there was no server available for Ubuntu

Debian 12 (and looks like Ubuntu, too) has molly-brown. I also chose it for being a Debian package instead of additional install.

Heck, my first smartphone ran Android 4.0. Compared to current Android 16 more than a decade later, the only practical change I could think of is granular permissions.

I have to perform a context switch between “v” and “w” sounds, so words and phrases that contain both (e.g: “very well”) sometimes end up with only “w” sounds. (My native language does not have a regular “W” sound)

But even after 20 years speaking it, English pronunciation is complete nonsense. Most of the time, you just need to memorize the words. Because trying to figure out how to say something, you also need to know if the word is borrowed from any other languages that use Latin alphabet, and then pronouce it pretending to speak that language. Simplest example: Mocha (moh-ka) and matcha (maht-cha). But there are countless borrowed words that don’t change spelling in English.

Real ABS turns white/grey too, from both stress and acetone (in liquid form, vapor does not seem to discolor it).

Hey, just stumbled upon this too, Android4Lumia, and 520 is one of the supported devices: https://android4lumia.github.io/downloads.html

Some years ago, mentioning Linux for daily non-gaming use:

Guy: “Installing Linux is complicated though”

Me: “It wasn’t bad 10 years ago, and now it’s as hard as clicking Next a few times, even faster than Windows”

Guy: “Well duh, you have ten years of experience installing it!”

Difficult to argue with this non-logic.

Looks like it is partially supported: https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Nokia_Lumia_520_(nokia-fame)

I have a Lumia 635 and got tmpfs to start, but then I am lost at “locate your ramdisk” https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Nokia_Lumia_630_(nokia-moneypenny)

IMO you would need a large capacitor between power (after diode) and ground, to provide enough current when device’s power consumption spikes (otherwise, it will shut down)

Here is my version without touching BMS or original battery: https://yaky.dev/2022-09-06-smartphone-without-battery/

Some projects that kind of do that come to mind:

Beeper, which is a hosted Matrix server (probably Synapse) with bridges to other messengers, and a client (probably derived from Element?). But it’s all called Beeper to be more “normal”.

Snikket is a “rebranded” prosody XMPP server, Conversations client for Android and Siskin IM client for iOS. Also, all are Snikket, no scary abbreviations and different app names.

Average user does not care, as long as it works.

https://xkcd.com/2501/