Today I have officially retired my self-hosted matrix server and along with it the custom app service bridge I wrote for pnut.io (pnut-matrix). This comes as a somewhat bittersweet moment as I have been running my own matrix server since the end of 2016 and worked on the bridge since early 2017. I’ve been a fan and user of matrix over those years, the idea of a decentralized chat network built on common protocol that could interface with other networks appeals to me. But as I have come to realize this power and flexibility comes at a cost of complexity and resources. I find myself in need of freeing up my time and money for other ventures. So I must bid farewell to my server that has been my personal playground for the last 4 years. I moved to a managed service which costs me less and still allow me to participate in the matrix network. I have also replaced my pnut-matrix bridge with a much lighter weight plugin I wrote for matterbridge. It is a work in progress and I will share more details as it makes progress.

=> pnut-matrix - A matrix appservice bridge for pnut.io
=> pnut-bridge - A matterbridge plugin for pnut.io

I spent part of my weekend setting up another device with Ubuntu Touch to serve as my main pocket computing device. I’ve been playing with Linux on various mobile devices over the years but never really talked much about it other than the random social post. So this time I though it would be fun to actually start documenting it for those who are interested in what I’m using but also for my future self to look back upon.

I have entered the world of Project Gemini. Gemini, for the uninitiated, is a new internet protocol which fits somewhere between gopher and the web. I’m finding its simplicity to be rather appealing so I figured I would dive right in and start publishing my own capsule (gemini://thrrgilag.net/). You can find a list of clients at https://gemini.circumlunar.space/software/. So take a peek and let me know what you think.

I’ve uploaded another minor update to Pantalaimon for Ubuntu Touch. This release includes additional homeserver settings for http proxy and ssl verification. It also now has a global setting to update the log level to assist with troubleshooting.

I’ve spun up a new project to focus on getting an end-to-end encryption proxy for matrix up and running on Ubuntu Touch. This effort takes Pantalaimon, created by the matrix.org developers, and adds a service script along with a UI to manage the configuration and background process.