Photo Stream is a photo syncing and sharing application that you can host yourself. It is available on GitHub and in this tutorial, we'll be going through the process of installing it on Pop!_OS using Terminal.
Before we begin, make sure you have the most recent version of Pop!_OS and that you've installed git if it's not already installed.
Begin by opening your Terminal application. Navigate to the directory where you want to install Photo Stream or create a new directory for it.
Next, use the command below to clone the repository.
git clone https://github.com/waschinski/photo-stream.git
Once it is downloaded, we need to navigate into the cloned directory.
cd photo-stream
Photo Stream is built using Node.js and therefore requires some dependencies, including Node.js itself. Install these dependencies using the following command:
sudo apt-get install curl -y
curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_14.x | sudo -E bash -
sudo apt-get install -y nodejs
sudo apt-get install -y build-essential
This will install Node.js and a few other packages that Photo Stream needs.
We need to use PM2 (Process Manager 2) to make sure that Photo Stream runs continuously, even after we log out of the system or shut down the computer.
Install PM2 using the following command:
sudo npm install -g pm2
Before we can start the server, we need to create a new configuration file.
cp config.example.json config.json
Edit the newly copied config.json file to suit your preferences. Be sure to change the port to something that works for your system setup.
nano config.json
Now that we have everything set up correctly, we can start the server using PM2.
pm2 start app.js --name="photo-stream"
pm2 save
sudo pm2 startup
Photo Stream should now be running and can be accessed by going to http://localhost:<yourportnumber>. You can view the server logs in real-time and monitor the server's uptime using PM2.
That's it, your Photo Stream installation is complete. You can now start uploading your photos and share them with your friends and family.
Have fun using Photo Stream on Pop!_OS!
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!
