25/06/29 - attempt at sysadminning

so i've been diving more into web dev recently, and as you can probably guess by virtue of this post being on gemini, i like simple and handmade website things.

i finally built my first website from scratch a couple months ago, with 100% handwritten html and css. i don't claim any special virtue from having written it all myself (except in the non-use of ai), but it was a rewarding process, and i'm happy with the result.

derek sivers' article "it's about being, not having", and ploum's article "petit manifeste low-tech" reflect fairly well the thought process behind why i choose to do things myself. i enjoy the process, and it's always a good learning experience.

that being said, once you reach a certain level of knowledge in certain areas, specific low-level repetitive tasks become more and more tedious, and you start wanting to automate them.

i reached this with my linux journey - i currently use gentoo, and i chose this distro because i wanted to build my system from the ground up and really learn how linux as a system works. it was great, and i learned a lot, and i don't see myself ever leaving gentoo. however, i've recently started writing more and more bash scripts to automate certain things that i didn't install dedicated daemons for, because it was getting tedious to "nmcli d wifi c **** password ****" each time i wanted to join a network.

i started at a low level, learned how the system worked, and now i don't need to keep doing that anymore.

all that being said, i'm trying to figure out a nice middle ground with my website creation.

one amazing thing about gemtext over html that you run into when you're writing directly in the format is not needing to constantly open and close <p> and <div> tags.

on the other hand, setting up a full-blown cms feels like overkill, seeing as how my gemlog is maintained by... nano, mostly, and nnn for moving files around.

so i'm trying to find some sort of a middle ground - being able to write as easily and conveniently as i do with gemtext, without overcomplicating things.

this also vaguely ties into my desire of having a dedicated personal server, which is still in conflict with my desire to keep things as simple as possible without adding unnecessary complexity (and financial drain!)

it would be convenient to be able to run my own instances of invidious, searxng, etc, as well as self-host my email and website and such. personal cloud storage and all that.

on the other hand, setting all of that up and maintaining it is a daunting task, and i'm not sure that i'm quite up to it just yet.

although, being concerned about "too much effort to set up" and "too much work to maintain" while also daily driving gentoo is perhaps a bit hypocritical.

contact me at: tsukaj@tilde.club