I too have that same Dell Optiplex 3060 micro. I love it for experimenting also. Also use wireguard for remote access. I use incus for my Linux containers, preferring it to proxmox.
People complain about how they hate to use the command line in Linux. But they don't similarly complain about these ultra obscure, ugly commands. When Microsoft necessitates commands, somehow it's different.
DoH is the enemy of all self-hosters. When port 443 is used, you can't discriminate on it - to perhaps monitor it, work towards debugging it, block it, re-route it, etc. DNS shouldn't be a stow-away within some other protocol like HTTP, hiding from network-level scrutiny and control.
DoT is the friend of all self-hosters. Self-hosters need to control their own DNS if they want to use SSL within their LANs, within their self-hosted VPNs, and within their own self-hosted VPN subnets especially (I use Wireguard subnets a lot). Secure DNS with TLS, sure, but this control-ability, at the port level (853), is what a self-hoster needs to keep their life sane.
WebRTC is very, very hard to code for. But if FFmpeg abstracts that complexity away, then WebRTC becomes much easier to add to a software project wishing to benfit from that which WebRTC offers.
Gajim, the XMPP client, has been awaiting this for a long time! Their Audio/Video calling features fell into deprecation, and they've been patiently waiting for FFmpeg to make it much easier for them to add Audio/Video calling features back again.
"If I type the @ symbol in a group to mention a participant Meta AI is in the list." - I just tried it myself in a group chat, but I don't see it. Maybe it's just starting to be added? or was made invisible to being listed by "@"?
actually, push-to-talk voice memos do work Gajim. An underrated feature!
Prosody allows voice and video calls - I have a TURN server all set up with it - but QOS rules (which are beyond my control, and are the fault of the ISPs I use) can sometimes squash calls made.
Gajim 1.9.3 (Flatpak) seems support voice and video calls to Conversations, but then it doesn't work. One Conversations smartphone can make voice and video calls to another Conversations smartphone.
I run Prosody XMPP server on a cheap VPS, and appreciate how it's a stock Debian package, greatly simplifying security updates. It's delightfully lightweight on the server.
I use Conversations as a client in Android, and Gajim in Linux.
The basics like OMEMO, file attachments, push-to-talk voice memos (in Conversations, but not Gajim) work well. All comms are at least client-to-server-encrypted, and the OMEMO-protected comms are end-to-end encrypted.
Discourse is written in ruby, and it's not as performant as I would like. Discourse isn't really suitable for running on, say, a Raspberry Pi 5. It's even somewhat sluggish-feeling at times, running on a 4ish year old PC as a server (which my own org does, in a Docker container in Debian). We have a low user count, so that sluggishness seems unreasonable.
I've been keeping my eye out for something more responsive (in an AJAX-like way) than phpBB, but less bloated than Discourse (as it's written in ruby). Something Open Source, decently low-effort to maintain (I like Debian), could run on a Raspberry Pi 5 for a small community, and doesn't require docker. This might be suitable. Thanks for the endorsement.
It's interesting how no matter how much that we'd all like for technology to be this nice tidy domain of knowledge which doesn't intermingle in any messy way with philosophy or religion - where there is much less exactitude and clear boundaries - alas, this intermingling of morality comes around sooner or later.
Morality/ethics/religion/philosophy can't help but come to bear on any and all technology, once it becomes widespread, systemic and seemingly "too big to fail."
Strongly agree that this is a great answer. Anyone who neglects to see the interpersonal persective/psychology of entire demographics of users (considering their needs and wants), focusing only on the technical, is missing a big dimension of the picture here.
IRC is not mobile-friendly (and I have to regretfully admit we live in a push-notification-requiring sort of world now).
Myself, I needed something IRC-like, which was open-source, and mobile friendly, so I tried Mattermost team server for a few years. What turned me off over time was that it required manual upgrades. I would have preferred something which was a nice, tidy Debian package.
Now I've turned to the prosody XMPP server instead, which is a standard Debian package (and now upgrades itself, if and only if, there are security problems, with Debian's "unattended-upgrades"). It runs on a $5US/month VPS. Setting up all the SSL stuff, and firewalling rules - as it uses multiple ports - did take a few days to figure out!