Installing Lemmy on OpenBSD

Lemmy is a federated alternative to Reddit that is built using Rust. It is designed to be fast, customizable, and easy to use. This tutorial will guide you through the steps to install Lemmy on OpenBSD.

Prerequisites

Before you start, you'll need to make sure that you have a few things set up:

Step 1: Installing Dependencies

To run Lemmy, you'll need to install a few dependencies:

$ doas pkg_add postgresql rust node

This will install PostgreSQL (the database used by Lemmy), Rust (the language that Lemmy is written in), and Node.js (for building the frontend).

Step 2: Cloning the Repository

Next, you'll need to clone the Lemmy repository:

$ git clone https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy.git
$ cd lemmy

Step 3: Building and Running Lemmy

To build and run Lemmy, you'll need to run the following commands:

$ cargo install diesel_cli --no-default-features --features postgres
$ diesel setup
$ diesel migration run
$ cd ui
$ npm install
$ npm run build
$ cd ..
$ cargo run

Note that the first two commands install the Diesel CLI, which is a tool used to work with databases in Rust. The diesel setup command will create the database and the diesel migration run command will run the database migrations.

The npm install command will install the required dependencies for the frontend, and the npm run build command will build the frontend assets.

Finally, the cargo run command will build and run the server. Once the server is running, you should be able to access Lemmy by going to http://localhost:8536 in your web browser.

Conclusion

Congrats! You've successfully installed and run Lemmy on OpenBSD. Now you can explore this great federated alternative to Reddit.

If you want to self-host in an easy, hands free way, need an external IP address, or simply want your data in your own hands, give IPv6.rs a try!

Alternatively, for the best virtual desktop, try Shells!