Lemmy is a free and open-source link aggregator and discussion platform. In this tutorial, we will go through the steps to install Lemmy on macOS.
/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install.sh)"
Lemmy is written in Rust programming language, so we need to install Rust on our mac before we can install Lemmy. To do that, open the terminal and enter the following command:
$ brew install rust
Lemmy requires a database, and we will use Postgres. To install Postgres on macOS, run the following command in the terminal:
$ brew install postgresql
After installation, start the Postgres service using the following command:
$ brew services start postgresql
Now let's clone the Lemmy repository using the following command:
$ git clone https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy.git
Change to the cloned directory using the following command:
$ cd lemmy
Lemmy is written in Rust programming language, and to run it, we need to compile it. To compile and build Lemmy, run the following command:
$ cargo build --release
After successful compilation, initialize the Lemmy configuration file using the following command:
$ cp .env.sample .env
Next, open the .env file in your preferred text editor, and add the following configuration:
DATABASE_URL=postgres://lemmy:lemmy@localhost/lemmy
FRONT_END_DIR=../lemmy-ui
FRONT_END_API_URL=http://localhost:8536
Save and close the file.
To create a Lemmy database, run the following command:
$ createdb -U postgres -O lemmy -E Unicode -T template0 -h localhost lemmy
Lemmy also comes with a frontend written in Rust. To compile and run the frontend, we first need to install npm. To install npm on macOS, run the following command:
$ brew install npm
Next, navigate to the ui directory and install dependencies using the following command:
$ cd ui
$ npm install
Finally, build the frontend using the following command:
$ npm run build
After successful installation and configuration, run the following command to start Lemmy:
$ RUST_BACKTRACE=1 cargo run --release
Now open a web browser and go to http://localhost:8536 to visit Lemmy.
In this tutorial, we went through the steps to install and configure Lemmy on macOS. Have fun exploring Lemmy and its features!
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!
