I’m gradually removing myself from big tech and this month I’m focusing on leaving GitHub, as well as software hosted there. I’m looking for a self-hosted music server that meets these criteria:
- Simple UI - Easy to navigate
- Docker support - For hassle-free deployment
- Runs on Pi3B
- Compatible clients on mobile and desktop
- Robust and well maintained - No buggy releases
Current Option:
The only option I’ve found but not tried is Funkwhale (GitLab).
Site: https://www.funkwhale.audio/
Review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dBcKNoJAso.
GitHub-hosted exclusions:
All the other’s I’ve looked at are hosted on GitHub ( Ampache, LMS Lightweight Music Server, Supysonic, Gonic, Airsonic-Advanced, Koel, Jellyfin, Navidrome). So I won’t be using those.
Question:
Does anyone know of other options besides Funkwhale, or have you tried Funkwhale? Thanks!
Aside:
Some reasons I’m leaving GitHub:
I don’t see a reason to avoid using software hosted on GH. I moved off GH when MS bought it, and all that entailed was no longer hosting my own software on GH, and using alternative FOSS git forges. That still has a similar effect, and when a critical mass of devs move off GH, the rest will follow suit. The main draw of GH is that everything’s on there; when that’s no longer true, it will no longer be the main git forge. Especially once Forgejo adds ActivityPub integration; I imagine that’ll speed the process along a lot.
A lone user boycotting all software hosted on GH is realistically not going to make any devs move their projects off GH. You may say that it doesn’t have to be a lone user, but I think you’ll be hard pressed to get a whole movement of people refusing to use any software hosted on GH.
I also think the boundaries of your boycott are just too ambiguous. What if you download the software from somewhere other than GH, and it just has a GH repo? Is that ok with you? Is it that you just don’t want to touch MS’s servers? What about software where the GH repo is just a read-only mirror, and the main collaboration/development happens elsewhere, like a GitLab or Forgejo instance? I would rather struggle to see an argument for refusing to use software in either of those cases.
Even using their free stuff is supporting Microsoft. As long as they provide sophisticated facilities for genocide, I’m out.
As a wiser person than me once said “be the change you want to see in the world”.
I’m also opposed to “using [Microsoft’s] free stuff”; I’m arguing that using software that happens to use GH isn’t using MS’s stuff at all.
h, I see what you mean now. The thing is, the massive numbers of users we collectively provide to Microsoft (even non-paying) is a huge benefit to them. They wouldn’t offer free stuff otherwise. It gives them all kinds of leverage in negotiations. I’ve elaborated a bit more on it in another reply in case you’re interested.
No, I’m not arguing that we should be users of Microsoft. You’re still not understanding what I’m saying. I don’t use Microsoft’s services, including their free ones. Software that happens to be hosted on GitHub is not Microsoft’s software.
You can do whatever you want as an individual. But as a political actor, you should be participating in organised boycotts, such as BDS’s boycott of Microsoft. BDS’s boycott is already fairly wide-sweeping, going as far as to ask people to e.g. stop playing Minecraft and Skyrim, even if they already own the game. Avoiding using Microsoft’s products like this is effective because, even if you’ve already bought the game, you lend Microsoft more cultural capital by proliferating their products.
BDS has not, on the other hand, called for a boycott of all software that happens to have a GitHub repo. If you think they should do that, take it up with BDS. If BDS called for such a boycott, it would get much more momentum behind it.
As it currently stands, you are boycotting all software that has a GitHub repo on your own. This is not going to have any effect. You are going to be hard-pressed to get people to join your boycott. What kernel do you use? The Linux kernel has a GitHub mirror. The majority of FOSS projects where collaboration occurs off of GitHub still have a read-only GitHub mirror. Is your boycott suggesting that everybody should be using OpenBSD? That’s going to be a very hard sell.
BDS has achieved huge victories because it offers targeted boycotts that the average consumer is perfectly capable of doing, and it has a mass movement behind it. There are also grassroots boycotts that have been organised outside of BDS, such as the Starbucks and McDonald’s boycotts, but again, these caught on because they had the backing of people active in the movement and were willing to organise said boycotts. You’re a random Lemmy user who, if you are serious about organising a boycott, you’re in the entirely wrong place to do so. You won’t achieve anything doing what you’re currently doing.
You’re welcome to make whatever consumer decisions you want, but don’t confuse that for political organising.
Okay. I think we agree on more than we disagree.I also appreciate your input on effective strategy on serious issues like this - I 100% agree. I think you’ve misinterpreted me a little, so let me clarify:
- I support BDS actively. Organised movements are vital.
- As I’ve said in the comments: perfect is the enemy of the good. I will drop as many projects as I can. Media players, web browsers, mail clients, social platforms - can all be changed for more ethical alternatives. It doesn’t have to be black or white.
- I will never wait for any individual or group to give me the go ahead to do what I think is the right thing. BDS isn’t perfect.
- I am not selling anything, or trying to temper my actions to be more palatable to the more hesitant . It also turns out that I’m far from alone in this, but I was equally happy to go first. I don’t think that it’s a waste of effort at all.
So, yes, strategy is important. But personal efforts count too. Among other things, I am challenging the widely held apathy (and empathy deficit) held by tech enthusiasts that such a move is pointless or too difficult. And along the way I am finding likeminded people I didn’t know were out there.
I think you’re still avoiding the point:
I will never wait for any individual or group to give me the go ahead to do what I think is the right thing. BDS isn’t perfect.
The point isn’t that you have to follow the BNC specifically. The point is that announcing you’re not using any software hosted on GH, on a small social media platform, is far from organising a boycott. If you are serious about organising a boycott, that is what you do in the movement, with the masses. As it currently stands, you are simply making a personal consumer decision.
Personally, I don’t think it’ll be possible for this to become a mass boycott (which it needs to in order to have effect), just because you’re going to struggle to explain to everyone what GitHub even is let alone how to boycott any software that’s hosted on it. That’s why the demand to boycott GitHub ie not host your own software on there is far easier; that only applies to people who make software, who do know what GitHub is and understand how to not use it. If you don’t know what GitHub is then you’re already boycotting it. Meanwhile, your version of the boycott requires teaching people what git is, what a git repo is, and what a git forge is, and then giving them a very long list of software that they need to boycott in order to join you. For the reasons that BDS explains in terms of their tactic of targeted boycotts, that’s not going to work, because in practice very few people will boycott the full list of software and everyone will boycott a few GitHub repos and those repos will be different for each person.
At the end of the day, boycotting is a political strategy to force change through. It’s not about showing how moral you are. If you can’t get a critical mass of people with you, your consumer decision is as impactful as your decision of what shirt to wear today.
I will drop as many projects as I can. Media players, web browsers, mail clients, social platforms - can all be changed for more ethical alternatives. It doesn’t have to be black or white.
That’s still avoiding the real problem of defining strict boundaries for your boycott. It is still entirely unclear to me how I could join you even if I wanted to. What are you proposing we boycott? I adhere to BDS, who have given pretty unambiguous guidelines on how to boycott. Even their Microsoft boycott accounts for “do as much as you can”; they acknowledge that some people will be forced to use MS products, and encourage people to move away from them unless they have no choice. That’s understandable enough and the average person knows exactly how to join that boycott if they want to.
Like I said, if you’re serious about this, you need to go somewhere other than Lemmy. And if you’re not serious about this, then stop pretending you’re making a political decision, and accept that you are just making a personal consumer preference.
I don’t think you’ll be able to find a project that doesn’t contain some code (like dependencies) hosted on GitHub.
I understand not wanting to use GitHub yourself, but not wanting to use a self-hosted software that is distributed through GitHub is kind of extreme.
I’ll do what I can. Perfect is the enemy of the good, and passivity is to side with the aggressor.
Fair enough. I do think your goals are noble, so I hope you can find what you’re looking for.
Thanks, I appreciate that!
There is absolutely no way you can avoid GH hosted project completely. It’s like trying to buy a phone without Chinese parts.
I respect bigger ambitions, but they can lead to defeatism and paralysis. The point is to do what is possible, rather than let perfect be the enemy of the good. I see it as a minor effort. At least, easier than being forced to beg for food, hoping I won’t be executed when I turn my back.
I believe, Icecast ticks at least some of your criteria. It’s been around since forever, so it’s probably the most stable option and even a Pi1 is likely overkill for it. No idea how it holds up in terms of UI, app and Docker, though.
They do have a mirror on GitHub, but the main repo is on a self-hosted GitLab.
GitLab mirrored on GitHub is totally fine with me, thanks so much for the thoughtful comment! I’ll add Icecast to the list of things to look into. I’ve encountered it with internet radio.
If you want to go pre-connect, the library usually loans out music. Mostly CD’s though, so you’d need a player.
Libraries are so underrated - always a good suggestion. I have about 300 albums that I like so I’d probably stick with my Snowsky Echo Mini for those. But I should check out the local libraries. (I have an old laptop with a CD player).
I’m going to migrate my own code to Codeberg.org soon. Its open source, and hosted outside the U.S., so checks all the non-corporo boxes i want. Maybe check that out?
I would very much appreciate a ping when that happens!
Oh, sorry, I meant check out Codeberg.org. I didnt mean to imply I have a plugin for music or a music streaming app you should check out. I do game dev, totally unrelated stuff, that I dont think you would be interested in :P
Hehe, I get you. Thanks. I like code berg a lot. I did find two projects there, but one looks abandoned while the other has just migrated to GitHub.
I use Navidrome and highly recommend it. Nice Canadian developer.
I also use GitLab.
One option is for you to mirror Navidrome on GitLab. I will happily use your mirror instead of GitHub.
Another option is to reach out to the Navidrome dev and propose moving to GitLab. If you open an issue to that effect, I would add a comment with my support.
Great idea(s)! Navidrome is my favourite and I will really miss it (I’m listening with it now). My understanding is that the project will not be moving platform. A GitHub ticket sounds like a good idea, but I’m unsure about personally pressing the issue with them again, in case it feels like I’m trying to pressure them. Maybe I’m overthinking it?
As for mirroring, I did come across a project or two that are on both Codeberg and GitHub. Given what I’m aiming for impact (as much as one person can have) I’m not sure what to do in that case. I feel that if the project is tied to GitHub devops, then any mirroring is more of a token offering with little impact. But if the project CDI was on Codeberg / GitLab etc and mirrored on GitHub I’d probably be more okay with it. At least, that’s my thinking at the time of writing.
PS: I use GitLab too now. I host some websites with GitLab Pages. I found the documentation a bit lacking in some areas, which took up more time. But I’m happier with the move.
Edit: I’m not up-to-date on US politics, but it looks like GitLab is aligned with the current authoritarian administration https://archive.is/okSlz
I found this: https://codeberg.org/mysearchhistory123/lms
LMS - Lightweight Music Server
LMS is a self-hosted music streaming software: access your music collection from anywhere using a web interface!
I also found this: https://codeberg.org/thororen/Feishin
Feishin
Rewrite of Sonixd.
Features:
- MPV player backend
- Web player backend
- Modern UI
- Scrobble playback to your server
- Smart playlist editor (Navidrome)
- Synchronized and unsynchronized lyrics support
Some elements of these are on github and I can’t attest to either. Neither has recent updates, but should function. Web interfaces and API support should mean that you have some mobile options. Like others, I object to your reasoning, but this is a community to help one another, so your reasoning for your goals doesn’t really matter to me.
I don’t think that you are likely to find any software that meets all of your requirements, but I hope this helps.
Those are great finds. I use Feishin as a subsonic client and absolutely love it. Unfortunately the Codeberg repo appears to be out of date, while their GitHub one is current. So I think they’ve migrated to GitHub. https://github.com/jeffvli/feishin
LMS appears to be inactive for over a year on Codeberg too, while their GitHub is active https://github.com/epoupon/lms
It’s a pity seeing projects move that way, especially when they clearly put in the effort and had good intentions from the beginning. I might contact those developers, though, and see if they might reconsider. Thanks for the helpful response!
Codeberg or anything hosted in the EU is an unfortunate no-go.
GDPR DoS Bomb made it so - ‘right to forget’ means that a bad actor can kill a major project by invoking their right to forget, which would mean all code they’ve ever submitted would have be audited out.
You’d have to rewrite the Git history to pseudonomize the author, which yes, is pretty bad, but I don’t see why you’d need to remove the code, unless they genuinely checked in their home address or such.
I have been on this search myself a few months now and JUST stumbled upon something that fits the bill.
Like, i literally just found it and haven’t played with it or investigated too much, but it fits your requirements.
raphson music server is hosted on codeberg now! they left github last year.
it has a great looking interface, integrates with HA, uses subsonic API.
I am greatly interested in learning more about this.!!
Ah, thank you for this! I see in their latest issues that they might even create a demo server. I appreciate you !
no sweat. i am on this very hunt myself and understand the apprehension about relying on stuff that is solely hosted on the hub. granted i am no expert, but it just seems to speak to my FOSS soul to try and stick with FOSS through the whole stack if possible.
in the meantime i am enjoying gonic as the server and mopidy with subidy as the player.
it’s not perfect yet but I’m very close.
still on the search though!
I appreciate the recommendations! I’m working on a list of alternatives. I might upload it to Codeberg or somewhere similar once it gets to a decent size.