Blog

Plant Your Root

To get started join the Orange Root Community and make your first post.

Introducing: Sprouts

A good place to start is with an introduction. New members are called “Sprouts.”

If you’ve already joined Orange you can start a topic and tell a little about yourself.

New Sprouts Go Here

I began this community because I want to show regular people like me how easy it is to get away from conventional media sources.

You can direct growth by voting and offering feedback.

Offer Feedback

Membership Levels

Like the apps, members are named after plants.

Here are the member levels:

• Sprout
• Leaf
• Twig
• Branch
• Trunk

Sprouts

Sprouts are new members with access to all Vine and other Tools.

After you’ve established yourself by contributing valuable content, you can become a Twig.

Twigs

Twigs gain access to independent social services and federated publishing tools.

To be a Twig you must join cherry, the root Mastodon instance, or have another ActivityPub homeserver.

Join Cherry (Mastodon)

• Accounts on Cherry are manually approved.

Branches

Branches have established trust and gain access to web hosting features to create on their terms.

Trunks

Trunks are experienced members with access to email and containerized deployments.

Ready to Plant Your Root? There’s room to grow.

Vote for your favorite App or Suggest a New One.

Vote and Comment

Not where you want to be?

Try the Cactus HelpDesk and tell me how you got lost.

Your feedback (with attribution if you consent) will help improve things for future users.

Check the Root Blog for other apps and services.

Return to Root (Home)

I’m not super well acquainted with docker, coming from the pre 2000 world of the internet: but I’m learning.

Containerized Deployments?

Way Back When

In the old days of the computers, as programs (or apps) grew in complexity, dependencies and subsystems required configuration to create an appropriate environment for the programs to run.

And Now

Nowadays some people ship programs with the environment built in. This makes it much easier in general to get new programs installed and operating quickly.

Tools

One of the tools I’ve been using to learn is RunTipi, which is very simple and easy to install and use. It’s designed for self hosters to run behind a firewall with port forwarding but can also be run with SSL certs on the public net.

Runtipi has over 200 apps in its repository and most install with the click of a button.

Lawd Help Me

Get in touch if you want help setting up your own docker box or if you need an application run.

Lost? Need help? Visit the Community Support area

Basically what a search engine aggregator does is search a bunch of different engines at once (Google, bing, yahoo, etc) and deliver results to you all at once.

Another nice thing is that it helps protect you from tracking.

What’s a Domain Name?

A virtual space to call home.

I have way too many domain names!

Current Name Spaces

• asheville.cloud
• dirty.news
• revelations.diy
• branch.diy
• sanctuary.diy
• doom.homes
• doom.pics
• doom.ink
• intentional.homes
• communal.homes
• 4m.homes
• save.christmas
• tinee.site
• selfhosting.site
• aggsrx.site
• xfer.site
• ip6.space

Want to take one of these domains off my hands?

Get em before they go to auction!

Email fitkoh@root.sbs

Free DNS Anyone?

I’m offering free DNS on some of my leftover domains as a shared resource to community members. Learn more about Member Perks

Dig Deeper

Join Now

DNS stands for Domain Name Service and DNS allows you to type a name into a browser and go where you want without remembering a string of numbers.

Don’t want DNS? How about a new

• Social App
• Publishing Tool
• Other Utilities

Anyone wanna take some of these off my hands?

Vote for your Favorite

Free subdomains for community members

Plant Your Seed

Email fitkoh@root.sbs with any reasonable offer.

Lots of fun and exciting things have been happening lately. Learning and growing all the time.

Recent Improvements

• Implemented a redesign of the homepage to be less cluttered and easier to digest

• Added a helpdesk/ticketing system with the rudiments of a knowledgebase

• Installed a public facing DNS toolkit

• Began testing a video hosting platform

• Set up ArchiveBox to hold my news docs

• Started an offtopic Reddit Clone

• Got an IRC Client online

Meet Hemlock

Hemlock the VPS lives in NY and holds an instance of yunohost.

You can talk about Hemlocks specifications and functions here:

To Do

• Email isn’t working for the new video hosting service.

• I need to write blog posts so people know what all this stuff is and how to use it.

• Update menus on all activitypub sites

• Implement local federation of all my apps

• Start building a knowledgebase and interlinked articles

Hopefully I can manage another update in the next month or so 🙂

Lemmy is an open source alternative for all the subreddit addicts out there, made special for you and me.

Rather than gearing towards a particular niche, my subs are geared towards no topic specifically.

Granny Apple is the name of my peertube instance. Peertube let’s me upload videos and share them on my terms.

This peertube is a shared community resource. Please be considerate with your usage.

• Accounts are manually approved for community members only.

Elder.root.sbs

I found Archive Box after I lost some files on my Dirty News blog and knew I needed an easy way to automate a handy access solution.

Archive box takes snapshots of web pages so you can view them even if they go offline or change. It’s like archive.org but for your own collection.

You can view my archive box at elder.root.sbs.

Tell me what you would store in your ArchiveBox

Green Apple is the name of my SPFToolbox instance.

A suite of diagnostic tools you can use to look up publicly available information on any domain or IP Address.

Want free ipv6 capable directadmin web hosting? Free for community members.

You must create a service request to avail yourself of this opportunity.

You can also purchase from an affiliate link to help me out.

The irony is not lost on me that this page is served over ip4. Your site will be on an ip6 capable host.

Disclaimers

• This is a free service and is provided with no warranty.
• You agree to indemnify me against any injury
• No content may be stored or accessed which is illegal in the US
• You agree to manage your service
• Fair use policy applies: Any action which negatively impacts other users may result in termination without warning or explanation
• No newsletters or marketing emails. Transactional email only.
• Delivery of service and support is provided on a best effort basis.
• This is a lifetime service, free for the lifetime of of the service.
• Limited time offer. May be discontinued at any time.
• This service is for legal adults only
• Services are managed by a single hobbyist. Expect things to break.