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@mastodonmigration
One of these things is not like the others. Signal is a centralized silo. Try the Snikket/Jabber network instead (XMPP protocol).

@TMakarios @mastodonmigration Sure, install something that you will have to spend probably a half hour at a minimum figuring out (and if you are not technically proficient it will likely be much more that that) instead of a privacy focused app that only takes maybe five minutes to install tops. Who cares if Signal is "a centralized silo"? 99% of people couldn't care less, they just want something EASY to install and use, even if you are not an ultra geek. And nothing about XMPP is EASY if you are not an ultra geek, or have one in your life that will do the setup for you. (Well, there is one semi-easy path but they require a phone number, just like Signal, so no privacy advantage there).

@maple @mastodonmigration
I imagine most people who want the easy path, and don't care about centralized silos, will probably stick with WhatsApp.

These days, thanks to @snikket_im , there's a pretty simple app for both Android and iOS, with end-to-end encryption on by default. And they've put a lot of work into making it easy to host your own Snikket server, and give easy invitations to your friends to download the app and get an account on your server. There's a paid hosting option, as well as a docker container. Not everyone will be able to self-host a Snikket server, but I don't think you need to be an ultra geek any more.

@sbb @maple @mastodonmigration @snikket_im
The Snikket server container actually runs Prosody, with carefully selected modules and configuration options. In fact, my own XMPP server (which I started before Snikket existed, I think) is now running on a Libre Computer single-board computer, on Debian (which does have Prosody in its main repository). I've adopted some of the Prosody modules that were designed for Snikket; the "invites" suite is particularly useful for getting non-techie friends to join you in the Jabber network: https://prosody.im/doc/modules/mod_invites
And you can look at the Snikket server source code and decide for yourself how Snikket-like you want to make your Prosody server: https://github.com/snikket-im/snikket-server/

@TMakarios @maple @mastodonmigration @snikket_im thanks for that clarification, but there's a certain dotted line I won't cross, into what I consider will be too much hassle *to maintain over time*. Thus the asking for better packaging, making for easy, reliable upgrades/security updates.

@sbb @maple @mastodonmigration @snikket_im
Is there a reason you want to run it on a bare-metal Raspberry Pi, rather than in a container on a Raspberry Pi? (I prefer not to use containers, but clearly my preferences are different from yours in some ways, so I'm curious about why you're keen on bare-metal, but not keen on manually configuring Prosody.)

@TMakarios @maple @mastodonmigration @snikket_im I consider Docker to be sort of like a shoddily-designed Operating System unto itself. It has its own ecosystem of where the containers come from, its own little world of management tools (I especially dislike #YAML in #Docker compose), its own security considerations, its own ins and outs, and its own sensitivities and gotchas. One server Operating System is all I want to have to learn: that of #Debian.

*I no longer like any sort of situation which I call "an Operating System within an Operating System"*. For example, I also don't like VMs: no VMware, no Virtualbox, no QEMU, no Redhat VMM, no Cockpit, etc. No guest additions that break across upgrades, etc. Been there, done that.

Raspberry Pis are so easily affordable, and easy to flash a new OS with Raspberry Pi Imager. Imager "pre-configuring" a newly-imaged install with a user account, an SSH server, etc? Brilliant. And there are so many great, inexpensive boot/storage options (MicroSD card, fast USB stick, SSDs, NVMes, etc). Flashing an Image *directly from the BIOS*? Highly underrated. These install media are all easy to back up and restore in bulk with zstd. raspi-config is so awesome for all the convenient things it makes available. All these innovations, taken together: that's the much-easier way I like doing it now. This ecosystem *for its ease of maintainability* beats all the above, hands down.

All my thinking follows from the self-respect and emotional well-being I afford myself through insisting on (allow me to repeat once again) *ease of long-term maintenance*. This includes backups, restores, roll-backs, etc.

@sbb @maple @mastodonmigration @snikket_im
OK, that makes sense. I'm not a Snikket maintainer myself, so I'm not about to volunteer to package it up in one of the ways you prefer, but you never know what they might do if enough people express an interest in having Snikket packaged like that.

@maple @mastodonmigration @snikket_im
I wasn't recommending looking at the source code to 99% of people. @sbb is not 99% of people.