jcook818

QC's politics have definitely helped foster some tech innovation in the taxi and ride-sharing space, like with Téo Taxi:

http://teomtl.com/

Skylark is a service we're working on to provide a private personal cloud without the hassle of running your own hardware or using a multitude of services to get the same result. With Skylark, "your digital nest" is an isolated VM that hosts your calendars, contacts, email accounts, websites and much more, all at an affordable price and under respectful conditions for your privacy. Use our admin panel, with new features coming all the time, or your favourite third-party clients.

Happy to answer any questions you may have regarding the service or the software stack!

Try the demo here: https://demo.skylark.cloud Preorder now and get 25% off of four months: https://panel.skylark.cloud/preorder

It runs on RPi while it is in Alpha, but part of the cost of the funding campaign is to extend support to more powerful single-board computers as well as full-size x86/64 machines.

In a nutshell, yes -- it's an easy way to install/configure server applications to self-host on your own hardware, without having to use the command line or obtuse webmins.

Just wanted to say that I am a huge fan of your magazine and your podcast. Always entertaining, fresh and engaging, and I hope your newest venture keeps that same edge. I wish you guys the best of luck.

There are steps taken to address security and stability concerns. See my other commends on this item. Also you may need to look beyond just the front page - can't put everything we want to do and plan to do on the front page at once. :)

I totally understand the impression. But the goal with arkOS is to help people securely self-host with as much stability as possible. Since self-hosting is a complex and occasionally troublesome thing, some people may need help in getting properly connected. So the only reason we consider hosting those services is to help with these ends. If someone needs the services in order to self-host, I think it is better that they use them, rather than not being able to self-host at all. Any services will be 100% optional and up to the end user.

Thanks -- we are checking it out and definitely considering working it into our implementation

Several ways - arkOS already has a tool (https://github.com/jacook/logrunner) for buffering logs in RAM before they are written to disk, thus reducing probably the top cause for SD card wear on webserver Pis. Its RAM footprint is lightweight, and it makes a huge difference over time. Secondly, with a successful crowdfund campaign the project will be able to install both to SD card AND to a USB-connected drive. Meaning that boot gets written to SD and data is stored on an external device, something more hardy than a cheap SD card. :) Finally, backup services (plural because there will be a couple different options for people to choose from) will be made a part of the core framework, making regular backups easy and data loss less of a nightmare.

There will be a tool that will help with dynamic DNS and port proxying for certain services (this may be against your ToS though). Or you will be able to use arkOS on a VPS too, if hosting at home is not a match for you.

arkOS will provide three of those four things. (Obviously not the data centers part). The privacy implications counter the need for data centers for interested users, but of course everyone will need to evaluate their own individual pros and cons.

Hi eliteraspberrie - You will find all the documentation you need on https://arkos.io. There is explanation about the various frameworks and plugins that work with Genesis, what they do, how to use them, how to develop with them, and so on.

There is a Security framework in Genesis that can be used to prevent access from external (non-local network) clients. Genesis does not have a default setting for this at this point, but I will see what I can do to implement it as this makes good sense.

Thank you! :)

Hi rsync -- Email capability is in the works, you can find that mentioned on the site under the "On the Agenda" "The true centre of your self-hosted Internet" sections.

Thanks!

Thanks for your input bsimpson. I definitely agree that self-hosting does present a whole new set of issues when it comes to reliability, security and accessibility. That is why the project has put a focus on developing tools like VPS architecture compatibility, dynamic DNS and port proxying relays, encrypted and automatic backup services, and more. Hosting your data on the Raspberry Pi is just the tip of the iceberg for the project - we want to make it as safe as possible while still keeping the control and privacy that is increasingly important these days.

That is the prime use case for arkOS :) With everyone's support easy and secure self-hosted file sync will be possible for arkOS.

Hi! A ton of progress has been made beside those things. And the frameworks behind them (database management, SSL certificate management, webapp download/installs, etc) are nothing to shake a stick at. Check this out for a full list https://github.com/cznweb/genesis/releases

The project has already started developing its community at https://bbs.arkos.io and has an active mailing list, Twitter following and others in diverse social media. I'm working hard to get people active and involved, and contribution/bugfixes are very easy to do.

Thanks!

The project plans to expand to other architectures (including VPSes) with a successful funding campaign, meaning that you don't have to host at home to get the same easy experience. So maybe that would be an option for you.

Thanks for your support!! :D

Definitely need help with testing and development. Documentation as well but it takes time to understand the complexities of the working parts. Hit me up on Twitter if you want a full list of things, always looking for help at every skill level :)

We are developing a dynamic DNS service as well as port proxying that allows you to serve traffic on non standard ports as if they were normal. https://github.com/cznweb/deluge (Disclaimer: We can't encourage you to violate the ToS of your ISP, so if port blocking is against the rules then that is for individuals to handle themselves.)

In the future (read: when the dashboard and the aforementioned tools are stable) there may be ways for individual arkOS nodes to communicate with each other without an intermediary, mesh-style. But that is a long way off.

Not yet, but I plan on adding support for the BBB in the future.

A few reasons, including ease of maintaining package repos with pacman, rolling-release nature, easy networking tools, and more. I will also concede a bit of personal preference :) But like that post said, there isn't much of a reason in my mind to consider the specifics of individual distros, as arkOS is very "bare bones" and should require ideally no command line use in the first place. I haven't had any difficulty in getting Arch/ALARM to play nice with other architectures in the past but if you have specific experiences I'd love to hear about them. Thank you!

awesome! You can run Genesis (the dashboard, which does most of the work) in any Arch-based VM as well, that's probably your best bet if you want to be able to look around quickly. https://github.com/cznweb/genesis

Yes, we are currently working on a dynamic DNS/proxying service and provisioning of special subdomains for those who don't have static IPs or their own domain name. Very early stages but eventually it will be directly integrated into Genesis for as close to "one-click operation" as possible. https://github.com/cznweb/deluge

Of course neither I nor the project are able to endorse anyone contravening their ToS with arkOS. So that is something that everyone will have to keep in mind. Once the dynamic DNS/proxy service is online for arkOS servers, this will be made clear.

Also emails from personal servers don't have issues in my experience -- the only thing is that you need to do it right. The major webmail providers each have their own specific rules before they accept mail from unknown servers. Provided that you do those right, there isn't much of an issue. arkOS intends to implement these as default.

Very likely :) The exact shape and architecture of how this will work is still undecided but it is definitely something I'm thinking about.

Without getting into it too much (i could write a novel :p ), the caching system will have a role to play in this. There are many different ways to solve this problem, and rest assured that creating a competent and stable mail system (and all that entails) is top priority.

It's not available quite yet, but Genesis will eventually be ported to other platforms/architectures. I just wanted to start with a focus of 'one' for simplicity's sake. Genesis (the dashboard) itself is Python so you don't need to worry much about architecture. It's just distro compatibility that needs work. So stay tuned :)

Thanks for the link, I'll check it out! As far as it being a new distro is concerned, my goal was to make it as simple and powerful as possible. Simplicity means being able to have a clean download and install process, prepackaged for those who might be intimidated by having to install Linux on their own. Also being able to control package versioning and selection is critical for ensuring the dashboard remains as stable as possible. Powerful because it allows for many cool utilities to be installed, configured and ready to go with minimal intervention. For example, one of the existing utilities allows the RPI to cache log writes in RAM, reducing SD card wear which is critical when using the Pi. So there are many ways to dress up a system like arkOS. I acknowledge that making it its own distro is a more thorough solution than it would be otherwise, but at the end of the day I feel it is the one that allows for the best end user experience.

Sure! I'll look into it and have something ready soon. Thanks for the suggestion.

This is exactly the plan :)