I've got an empty house this morning, time to putz around on the BBS. Read a QWK packet, upgraded my binaries to the newest version, removed a dead network from my configs, zip up log files, and set up a new Windows 11 guest VM to host the BBS. I'm currently running in Windows 10 32-bit, but I don't have any dependencies on DOS that I can't run in DOSBOX. No one plays my local games anymore, that was a big part of my DOS footprint.

I found Tiny11, interested in trying it out. I ran the BBS on TinyXP for years, liked the smaller footprint - and I don't need all of the features of Windows 11 on what's essentially a BBS server.

I should bite the bullet and move the BBS to Linux - then I could host it on a smaller VM, on a VPS, or most anywhere. I just don't want to go through the hassle of changing paths everywhere. I have a couple of days coming up with an empty house, that might be a good time to switch.
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Hey poindexter!

On 08.03.25 at 18:15:36, you wrote:

I've got an empty house this morning, time to putz around on the BBS.
Read a QWK packet, upgraded my binaries to the newest version, removed a dead network from my configs, zip up log files, and set up a new Windows 11 guest VM to host the BBS. I'm currently running in Windows 10 32-bit, but I don't have any dependencies on DOS that I can't run in DOSBOX. No one plays my local games anymore, that was a big part of my DOS
footprint.

I've also gotten rid of most local door games, besides some javascript ones that work without dosemu. Ever since game servers came about, and with the lack of tons of users calling around playing everyone's local door games, it just made more sense to link to the servers where there's always players in each game.

I found Tiny11, interested in trying it out. I ran the BBS on TinyXP for years, liked the smaller footprint - and I don't need all of the features of Windows 11 on what's essentially a BBS server.

You don't need Windows at all for a BBS server. ;)

I should bite the bullet and move the BBS to Linux - then I could host it on a smaller VM, on a VPS, or most anywhere. I just don't want to go through the hassle of changing paths everywhere. I have a couple of days coming up with an empty house, that might be a good time to switch.

Now you're on the right track! I doubt paths would be that much of a hassle. You could just manually edit all of the .ini files now and do a search and replace. More than likely, it would be any (which could be a lot) batch files you've made over the years that would need to be converted.

Either way, definitely something you could slowly work on when bored and while your BBS is still running elsewhere.

Regards,
Nick

Sarcasm: because beating people up is illegal.
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Re: Lazy Saturday
By: Nick Boel to poindexter FORTRAN on Sat Mar 08 2025 05:49 pm

Now you're on the right track! I doubt paths would be that much of a hassle. You could just manually edit all of the .ini files now and do a search and replace. More than likely, it would be any (which could be a lot) batch file you've made over the years that would need to be converted.

Yeah, I've gotten Synchronet running under Ubuntu, just never copied my config over. Now that I've been playing with tmux, I could imagine a pretty nice setup.
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* Origin: realitycheckbbs.org -- yesterday's tech today (46:1/115)

Hey poindexter!

On Sun, 09 Mar 2025 08:38:06 -0700, you wrote:

Now you're on the right track! I doubt paths would be that much of a
hassle. You could just manually edit all of the .ini files now and do
a search and replace. More than likely, it would be any (which could
be a lot) batch file you've made over the years that would need to be
converted.

Yeah, I've gotten Synchronet running under Ubuntu, just never copied my config over. Now that I've been playing with tmux, I could imagine a
pretty nice setup.

What would you be aiming for, exactly?

I would imagine a Ubuntu desktop would do much more for you than tmux would. Or, are you trying to go without a desktop environment altogether, and do everything in the console? In that case, yes, tmux would be a nice addition to multitask on one screen.

I just toyed around with Hyprland for a bit this morning over coffee. Check it out, it's a nice tiling window manager that uses Wayland, and very easy on resources. You wouldn't need tmux, and could still open up gui applications if you wanted to do so. Very configurable and customizable, and there's even some community provided non-default setups (I went with 'end-4' configuration, but others are nice, too) you can start with so you don't have to do it all yourself while simply trying to figure it all out.

I just realized I'm so far behind on some of the new stuff out there (I've been using linux console for many years now). With others elsewhere discussing IceWM and whatever else I've never given a chance, I started looking around a bit lately.

Regards,
Nick

... Sarcasm: because beating people up is illegal.
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Re: Lazy Saturday
By: Accession to poindexter FORTRAN on Sun Mar 09 2025 12:33 pm

I would imagine a Ubuntu desktop would do much more for you than tmux would. Or, are you trying to go without a desktop environment altogether, and do everything in the console? In that case, yes, tmux would be a nice addition to multitask on one screen.

Yeah, my goto for servers is running a light WM like OpenBox or even twm, so I can have a couple of terminal windows open on one screen. Especially if I run it in a VM at home, I can take over my ultra-wide screen monitor for the BBS.

If I move it to a VPS, which I'd like to do, I'd want to run tmux sessions - one command prompt available, one screen tailing syslog and another running the monitor tool for Synchronet.
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