Alt Forums

I just discovered this, apparently there's been a linux distro that is based around the Commodore family of computers and 3.1 just got a release last month! I watched a video of someone showcasing it and damn it's a nice looking distro! I don't have nostalgia for the Commodore family of computers since they were released before I was born but I might give this OS a go on one of my computers. It's debian based, which is what I'm used to when it comes to Linux distros. Here's their website, I also like the theme they have on their support forums too.

https://www.commodoreos.net/CommodoreOS.aspx

This is a platform for scheduling game sessions with random people online, where you pick a game, a date and people show interest on joining it.

Its specially useful for older games and modded games, where their communities are usually locked inside discord, the idea is to get the opportunity to play them out of there.

Having said that this works for pretty much any game where you can make a lobby.

The site is pretty much in its infancy, the community is small but hopefully that changes in the future.

Did anyone here ever use SkyOS in the past? Support ended back in 2009 but the first public release was way back in 1997. Looking at the screenshots it looks pretty dang cool, it's too bad SkyOS couldn't stick around. But since Linux ended up being the most popular Unix like OS, I guess it just couldn't keep up with the Linux distros at the time. (And Windows of course was dominating the scene.) SkyOS was originally free too but then in 2003 they started charging for it so that probably didn't help either.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkyOS

A "continuation" of the now forgotten BeOS.

I really love the design it has but unfortunately it's still on beta. A while ago I tried to install this on my laptop but the latest beta release doesn't works as it seems it can't recognize my eMMC partition so I had to use a nightly build and that solved that booting issue but as I was expecting, there's no Wi-Fi drivers =(
Anyways, enjoy the screenshot I managed to take

https://www.haiku-os.org/

Well when I first was creating this thread I thought Digg was still online. However I just checked the domain name and well, it seems to be offline for now and you're only greeted with a static page talking about how they downsized the team, and there was a bot problem so they're going back to the drawing board and that Digg isn't going offline again fully, but will be offline again temporarily. Welp did you get a chance to use Digg again after it came back for a little bit? Did you use it back in the day when it was more popular?

https://digg.com/

What can you create? When, how and when did you learn? How good are you?

My wife's birthday is today on March 8th! She was born on this day in the afternoon and she's currently 36 years old. We watched a film together earlier and she's currently gaming with her internet friends as I type this up.

One that comes to mind is Bob's Article Management System (AMS) for XenForo. Who has heard of that one or other ones for whatever forum software? Did you ever mess around with this sort of stuff?

Who is into coding? What can you code? What languages do you know? Where, when and how did you learn?

I already hated that this "Age Verification" nonsense was hitting platforms like Discord and that was what made me seek out alternatives to Discord in the first place. Now this nonsense is coming to PS5 consoles only in the UK and Ireland but there's a chance this could come to other countries eventually too. So if you live in these countries, you'll need to verify your age if you want to talk to friends on your PS5. We're living in a time where the government wants to control how you live your life and how you communicate with others online. It's stupid and is disguised as "protecting children."

https://www.playstation.com/en-gb/support/account/age-verification-faq/

Since we're getting bad storms here I just thought of this thread lol. Anyways do you currently have a weather radio and do you use it? I also just learned that Canada shut down their weather radio stations, so they basically forced users to use apps on their phones now. Which I'm guessing this might be pushed in other parts of the world now too. I used to have one when I was a kid but I don't have one now. I tend to get updates on my phone.

While browsing r/Guilded (rip) I came across a thread for this chat client. Apparently it's got over 2,000 members using it already. It's privacy focused and also based in EU. You can import your Discord channels and friends list too. I haven't joined this platform yet, but I will get around to doing so soon. I don't know if it's going to replace Root though, I'll probably stick to Root.

https://osmium.chat/

Has anyone here ever use TempleOS before? I know it hasn't been updated since 2017 and it originally came out 20 years ago. Terry Davis, the creator of the operating system created it because he had manic episodes and he interpreted them as a "message from God." I've never messed around with it but I've watched videos on it in the past. It's written in "Holy C" (a mix of C and C++) and x86 asm.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TempleOS#

So this is a mod of Windows 10 LTSC, but since it's meant to act and look like Windows 7 I figured I would place it here. Yes it's not quite an alternative platform since it's Windows, but since it's based on an older version of Windows and functions on a operating system that isn't used by most of the general public I will let it slide. I'm sure people are still using Windows 10, I have Windows 10 on a laptop. I hate Windows 10 but this version is pretty dang cool looking. I won't share the link to download it here, Michael MJD made a video showcasing it the other day and I think he got in trouble for sharing links to these mod packs in the past. Still I think it's worthy of a thread.

This was suggested by @Alien Hominid since they had a few retro platforms they wanted to share with the community. Plus it'll be fun to talk about the old school chat clients we used to use back in the day even if they're defunct now. I hope you enjoy the new section! :)

I just discovered this awesome community earlier today on Reddit. The layout reminds me of Windows 95/98, you even get a virtual pet that you can take care of. @Elkaki and I are both members over there, you should check it out! I'm hoping eventually we can interact more with our virtual pets. Right now you can only feed them.

https://cozy.talk/

Today it was Mother's Day in the states, I hope you were all able to talk to your moms if you have a good relationship with her. I talked to my mom for a bit this evening, I still need to reach out to my sister. I also gave my mother in law her gifts, my wife and I both came up and gave her them earlier this morning. My wife also spent some time with her mom and they watched a movie together.

As title says. It would be good for those like Escargot and similar.

Well, first of all, XMPP isn't a client, platform or similar BUT a protocol (and the same applies with IRC), which means anyone can make their own clients and servers based on their specifications and standards instead of being centralized.

XMPP (previously Jabber) is a IM protocol created in 1999 and based on XML which works on a federated way which means you can send messages with other users from other servers (similar to how email works) and it also has encryption for messages between clients. Yeah you can think it's similar to Matrix too but without being so fucking bloated and confusing.

Using it isn't complicated, just find a "XMPP provider" or if you've a VPS or a self-host server in your home install Prosody and host your own XMPP server, find a XMPP client and create an account from your provider server and there you go.
When you log in for first time, you'll notice a "/" after your JID (Jabber ID), and that means the "tag" of the computer where you're currently logged in or your current session (e.g. [email protected]/DESKTOP). Isn't that important but I wanted to keep that in mind for newcomers.

For clients, unfortunately most of them doesn't look decent at all and many of them are abandoned or with weird UIs, but the one I use a lot is Psi+ (a fork from the now kinda-abandoned Psi), which has that old-school IM client look and is very lightweight, and monocles chat on my Android phone, which has an aspect similar to WhatsApp/Telegram (which I hate) but looks good and has some cool features. If you want something almost similar to Discord and easy to use there's Converse (which also has their own XMPP provider service) and Gajim but I honestly don't like them.

As for me, I've been using XMPP since 2021, but I stopped using it out of boredom and lack of interest. In 2023 I wanted to use it again but this time with my own server, and I ended up getting bored of it once again until late 2025, when I decided to return using it but this time for real and even more after the Discord scandal with their shitty "age" verification crap. And yeah I'm also with my own (private) XMPP server which I improved it to use a MySQL database for the users instead of using an annoying local DB file which makes me confusing when I have to start making server backups.
I know isn't perfect and it doesn't have modern features and it seems more like if someone merged IRC with the structure of an average 2000s IM software but to me it looks good to use it as an lightweight alternative and if you want something classic, minimalist and without being centralized.

As a short introduction, I go by Elkaki pretty much everywhere. I have a somewhat recent fixation with a more personal internet, more fragmented, less corporate as Ive become burned by a lot of the big platforms. Be it blogs, forums, random projects or whatever.

And as a person, my main hobbies are gaming and reading manga, some literature here and then and thats pretty much it, maybe linux could be considered as a hobby with how much time it takes out of me sometimes lol

Saw a mention of the site by Ravenfreak on Cozy.talk (a pretty cool site that has just started) and now im here snooping around XD

I forgot this platform exists. I never bothered joining it so I guess that's why I did. While browsing r/redditalternatives I noticed one of the pinned threads they had was a list of websites that had nested comments. (Which I don't care for compared to threaded but meh.) And of course Disqus was listed! have you ever used their platform before?

https://disqus.com/channels/

I just discovered this a few minutes ago so I haven't had any experience actually using this platform just yet. It was also shared on r/redditalternatives five days ago so I'm guessing the platform isn't too old. Anyways, this platform doesn't allow politics which is actually refreshing to see. Not everyone is going to be okay with this, but it's nice to see a Reddit alternative without politics. OddsRabbit also donates to charity every time you sign up for the platform. Here's the link if you're interested in checking it out!

https://www.oddsrabbit.com/

Have you ever used Flarum before? It's a free forum script written in php that takes a more modern approach. I've used it before and it's okay. I used to really dislike this software because I wasn't a fan of how the index page is compared to traditional threaded forums. I still prefer threaded to modern forum platforms though. There's also a free forum host called Free flarum if you want to try out the software without needing to pay for hosting and installing the software yourself.

Forums of course are alternative platforms and I figured if there's going to be any forum host I talk about first it'll be the very one that hosts our forum! Forum Spark is my favorite free forum host. Some people might look at free forum hosts and think they're behind free self hosted platforms. This isn't the case with Forum Spark! If you're looking for a forum host that won't break the bank that comes with many amazing features and is constantly being updated look no further!

https://forumspark.net/

This is yet another video hosting platform. I never tried this one out before, I know people talk about it so it's not some obscure platform but it's certainly not as popular as Youtube is! Have you uploaded anything to Vimeo? Is it worth giving it a go? It's funny that it's older than Youtube, and yet it's not as popular.