Self-hosted Matrix.

It still needs polish, but it’s on a good path. Meanwhile others are centralized by a single authority with an easy target painted on them for government coercion along with multiple other attack surfaces, and even information easily traced to PII. Also, not everything is encrypted. A lot of metadata is left out of E2EE. And those servers/providers have that data.

By contrast, a drop in the ocean is far more likely to not be targetted from the outset, making pretty much any matrix server (potentially with the exception of the matrix.org one, but it’s ok to treat it as a demo anyway) a really good choice in that sense.

Ah I see. Did you change the lobby URL in the config file? There’s a config file with a lobby URL, you need to change it to point to the correct lobby where servers will show. Or is that what you with the changing the default server?

Edit: Just checking, are you running at least version 2.65? Also, I mentioned changing the config file, I’ve just been reminded the file is downloaded separately and then just replaced, no need to change it. I’ll DM the unofficial “official” guide from the forums.

I’m also on Linux. Ensure you have docker and docker-compose installed. IIRC you also need the windows server files# . I’ll get back to you with my server compose file.

Not strictly the same, but one of the most amazing feats to me in this topic was done by the Sacred community over at DarkMatters.

Apoligies for the wall of text, but I consider it worth a read.

Sacred 2 in particular never had its server code open sourced, leaked, or anything of the like as the studio went bankrupt before anything could happen, this was around 2010.

Over the course of a decade a few volunteer devs would pick up a project where using tools like wireshark etc they’d essentially sniff traffic sent by a client attempting connection to a server that didn’t exist, and using this, devs would literally try to GUESS what a server would respond, and what a client expected, essentially trying to build out the backend infrastructure from SCRATCH.

Fast forward to 2020 or so and progress was still being made, not only that but things were beginning to actually take shape. In 2021 (IIRC) one dev in particular had the general frame of a working server and continued to work on it. Fast-forward and since 2022-23, you’re able to run both a LOBBY for multiple servers and an actual GAME SERVER yourself, self-hosted and code is open.

I’ve ran a couple servers using docker since, where I played with friends, and being able to replay that childhood game, with friends, one I thought I’d never be able to share the experience for, is a dream come true.

Another neat thing is that it was reverse-engineered in windows, but the docker containers literally run WINE to translate windows calls to Linux and it just works.

Knowing I’m able to in 2,5,10,30 years pick this up, and not only that, but replay with friends means this work of art has a great chance at preservation.

If you’re into power metal, there’s a band called Blind Guardian, they not only did they the main theme for the game, but the band’s members have an entire quest-line in-game that culminates with an in-game concert. Again, a work of art worth preserving, and now, it can be shared.

I also have a Surface GO 2 and been running Linux for the past 2 years. In the beginning the only “trouble” was that you you needed the surface-linux kernel for drivers, but that’s no longer the case as all drivers have been upstreamed to the mainline kernel.

For distros, anything goes as long as it has a recent kernel. I just go full Arch (EndeavourOS is also a good choice).

What you probably want to pay attention to is the desktop environment - i’ve found Gnome works best for touch and tablet devices KDE requires some tweaking.

For 2, check the flathub store, you might be impressed with what you find for note-taking and PDF editing. Definitely some good options out there for Linux.

3 is a preference. Generally use internal storage for OS and external for data. Linux doesn’t take that much space, so if with 120GB you’re having storage issues, just ditch windows, problem solved, lighter system.

4 Yes it works.

Arch was the distro that got me to stop distro-hopping. It’s stable, it has a rolling release, and it’s mine (as in, customizable, manageable).

I guess, if there’s anything I wish I’d known off the bat is that the Arch documentation is probably the best available. So much so, a LOT of it applies to Linux in general and not strictly to Arch.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Main_page

If something breaks, READ the error messages, understand each component, and check the wiki, there’s a very high chance the troubleshooting section has the exact issue laid out.