• huth
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  • Registered: 2010-11-02
  • Posts: 13

Topic: Is Tuxfamily slowly dying?

Sorry for the provocative question, but is Tuxfamily slowly fading away?

The repository servers have been down for more than a week for several times in 2024 (and only some few times this has been mentioned on the news page at all), currently the download.tuxfamily.org server seems to be offline again and there is no official mention about it anywhere (at least I haven't seen it), there are unanswered issues with accessing the servers due to backlevel crypto libraries on them (see https://forum.tuxfamily.org/topic/774/ ) ... all in all, it feels like Tuxfamily is pretty much neglected nowadays, which is a real pity :-(

So may I ask: What's up? Has the motivation gone? Or is it just a temporary low that will hopefully be solved soon? Are there any ways to help (e.g. donations?)?

  • xavier
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  • Registered: 2006-10-26
  • Posts: 115

Re: Is Tuxfamily slowly dying?

huth wrote:

Sorry for the provocative question

Actually, thanks for asking.

huth wrote:

is Tuxfamily slowly fading away?

Yes, it is. You are absolutely correct.

huth wrote:

So may I ask: What's up? Has the motivation gone?

It is fair to say most of the motivation is gone. Absolutely everything got old: people, machines, datacentres, architecture, services. Everything.
Well, people are not that old. But they moved to other projects.
And even if there were 10 brilliant engineers with too much time on their hands to take care of TuxFamily, the cold harsh truth is that the relevance of TuxFamily (an old-school mutualised hosting platform with no way to "scale" beyond a few dozen physical machines) in the era of cloud-based computing is negligible.
For years, there has been ad hoc effort to keep TuxFamily running. For instance, recently, there has been some significant effort to move machines out of a failing datacentre. But as you mentioned yourself, that is not enough.

huth wrote:

Or is it just a temporary low that will hopefully be solved soon?

Though there might be some more ad hoc fixes here and there, the trend is clear: TuxFamily is currently walking down and into its tomb.

Are there any ways to help (e.g. donations?)?

Actually, yes, there are ways to help. It may sound a little sad to our most ancient hostees, but the truth is that the best things to do are:
1. move your project out of TuxFamily: look for alternative hosters, ponder whether you really need this service or that option, decide if you still want to go 100% free or if you can afford to pay a little, etc.
2. write about it, either here or outside TuxFamily, so other remaining hostees get a list of suggestions.

Theoretically, there should have been a gentle e-mail to inform hostees that the TuxFamily platform is no longer what it used to be and that it is time to move. Ideally with a bunch of recommendations (alternatives, what to expect in terms of services these days, etc.). This was discussed but, for various reasons, not implemented.

  • Registered: 2009-09-05
  • Posts: 1

Re: Is Tuxfamily slowly dying?

First things first. Thank you very much for your good services all those years. You trully bring something invaluable to the internet.

Any chances that the repository server get back online in a not too distant futur for a final backup ?

Best regards and best wish for the up coming new years :)

  • huth
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  • Registered: 2010-11-02
  • Posts: 13

Re: Is Tuxfamily slowly dying?

That's bad news, but thank you for being honest, so we can prepare a move of our project without being pressed for time later.

And especially: Thank you very, very much for all those good years at Tuxfamily! I really appreciated the spirit of an open and free hosting platform for OSS projects here!

  • Registered: 2025-01-05
  • Posts: 1

Re: Is Tuxfamily slowly dying?

You know, although I never used TuxFamily as a place to host any projects, I, and some of the developers I subscribe to, sure did; Ever since the days when CP/M was hot, nobody ever heard of ADSL, Red Hat 9 was the Linux distribution everyone who was anyone was running, I used your systems without realizing it, to make mine something to behold. Even now, what made my systems really nice to use was the Glx-Dock (Cairo-Dock) people made their software available through you, and, I don't know who set-up their installation/update system, but they really created something that was a joy to use.

But, a short time ago, I brought-up a new system, began installing Cairo-Dock, and to my amazement, I couldn't install any plugins. It appears that they removed everything from TuxFamily and put it on GitHub. Well, let me tell you, all I get from Git is a headache. No more drag & drop plugins to the dock. Just a bunch of source code that doesn't compile and distro packages that have been cut-off at the knees. Now, as if I don't have enough to do, I'll have to learn how to build that program myself. But, I know that's not your problem.

I used to host things for other people, too. Web pages and bulletin-boards, a Usesnet server with a UUCP POTS backup channel, and some Amateur Radio software, as well. It was fun and I enjoyed helping folks out. I never charged anything, nor did I ever receive any donations. Everything was free. My hardware, new to me, but was actually old and eventually those old MFM drives and their Winchester controllers started giving-up. Upgrading was fun, but it was still old stuff. Never had anything newer than at least 10-years old. Now, I've retired, and on a fixed-income, and all I have left is four old Dell servers with SCSI RAID arrays that might last as long as me, but we'll see, I guess.

Anyhow, I finally created an account here, and I'll stick around as long as I'm around. Who knows. A lot of old things are seeing a resurgence as people recognize that the newest things often bring more problems with them than they solve.

Thank-you so very much for all work, over all the years.

  • Registered: 2017-06-15
  • Posts: 1

Re: Is Tuxfamily slowly dying?

Sad but understandable to see that the end of tuxfamily might be coming soon. I've always had a very good experience here!

I already duplicated my git repos in codeberg, but I'm still thinking about what to do about the webpages for my game projects: I liked what tuxfamily provided more than what other places offer.

Thanks for the information and many thanks for all your work so far!!

  • Registered: 2014-07-17
  • Posts: 3

Re: Is Tuxfamily slowly dying?

Thank you so much for all you guys have done. Tuxfamily have hosted my projects for no less than ten years. Places suited for not only libre software but also other kinds of libre projects aren't easy to find. I'll fall back on my home server for now :)

I wish you all the best for all your new projects!

  • Registered: 2011-10-10
  • Posts: 6

Re: Is Tuxfamily slowly dying?

Hi Xavier and all the team,

thanks a lot for your work and for your honest answers.

All services seem to be UP at the moment, except download.tuxfamily.org, is there any possibility to restore it easily ?

Nicolas

  • xavier
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  • Registered: 2006-10-26
  • Posts: 115

Re: Is Tuxfamily slowly dying?

npomarede wrote:

All services seem to be UP at the moment, except download.tuxfamily.org, is there any possibility to restore it easily ?

Unfortunately not. This service used to be made of 4 bare metal machines (1 master, 1 local slave, 2 remote slaves) across 2 datacentres. As machines died here and there, it has been possible to rearrange these roles among the remaining machines. Recently, the last machine (located in Marseille, i.e. 600+ kilometers from TuxFamily staff) died, hence the complete unavailability of download.tuxfamily.org. Plus, we do not know for sure which part (power supply or motherboard) needs to be changed. Therefore, we cannot even tell when that service will be restored.

  • tkr9
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  • Registered: 2025-01-06
  • Posts: 1

Re: Is Tuxfamily slowly dying?

xavier wrote:
huth wrote:

Sorry for the provocative question

Actually, thanks for asking.

huth wrote:

is Tuxfamily slowly fading away?

Yes, it is. You are absolutely correct.

huth wrote:

So may I ask: What's up? Has the motivation gone?

It is fair to say most of the motivation is gone. Absolutely everything got old: people, machines, datacentres, architecture, services. Everything.
Well, people are not that old. But they moved to other projects.
And even if there were 10 brilliant engineers with too much time on their hands to take care of TuxFamily, the cold harsh truth is that the relevance of TuxFamily (an old-school mutualised hosting platform with no way to "scale" beyond a few dozen physical machines) in the era of cloud-based computing is negligible.
For years, there has been ad hoc effort to keep TuxFamily running. For instance, recently, there has been some significant effort to move machines out of a failing datacentre. But as you mentioned yourself, that is not enough.

huth wrote:

Or is it just a temporary low that will hopefully be solved soon?

Though there might be some more ad hoc fixes here and there, the trend is clear: TuxFamily is currently walking down and into its tomb.

Are there any ways to help (e.g. donations?)?

Actually, yes, there are ways to help. It may sound a little sad to our most ancient hostees, but the truth is that the best things to do are:
1. move your project out of TuxFamily: look for alternative hosters, ponder whether you really need this service or that option, decide if you still want to go 100% free or if you can afford to pay a little, etc.
2. write about it, either here or outside TuxFamily, so other remaining hostees get a list of suggestions.

Theoretically, there should have been a gentle e-mail to inform hostees that the TuxFamily platform is no longer what it used to be and that it is time to move. Ideally with a bunch of recommendations (alternatives, what to expect in terms of services these days, etc.). This was discussed but, for various reasons, not implemented.



Well, Im a bit surprised, even sad, to read out that

I discovered tuxfamily in... 2021.

I understand (a bit) about what this project was, eg free hosting for websites related to opensource software, etc.. the "linux" world. I found this initiative interesting.

And it reminds me two things :

-a. if I didnt knew about it, it would finish like the 9/11 (i know..) theory :
"it would have to disappear to make me know it's existence"
that happened to several nerds reading NextInpact when they relayed the Free-IX Interconnection Point in the beginning of the 2010. Exactly like me when the 9/11 happened, I didnt knew it exists. Almost the same happened to me if I wouldnt had done a research about hosting initiatives.

-b. Having several very small needs about futures website projects (blog, forum..) I thought in November to get hosted at tuxfamily.. but project was still not totally clear, and contacting tuxfamily, by email or IRC, why not but you will have to wait for the answer ;)

problem is :
if tuxfamily dies tomorrow, almost nothing rests :
-only few people noticed or knows that Free/Iliad ISP free-hosting-service is now reserved only to freebox subscribers, and might close in ten years (they did so for orange/sfr/byg) because their CEO replied me "it costs a huge fortune"
-other solution was : maybe alwaysdata, whom provides 100MB for little websites ; everything looks right in their offer BUT (this BUT is extravageous), you might connect to your FTP webinterface (even not the CMS administration where you write blogs etc), you have to connect to it every three months, if not after three month they disable your website and tell you "in three month we will have to delete your data" even if GPRD says user is master of it's data, not provider. Means if you forget your website during 6 consecutive months, you will have to get your own backup.
-i tried many host providers, even in europe, some of them requiring javascript just to load a blog, but if you have others idea..

If anyones knows a 100% free website hoster, in France, eg for people whom can't afford for low price, dont hesitate to tell (i know lof ot people who go to blogspot/tumblr because they can't have expenses for it), who doesnt requires a regular login (free/iliad permit this)


just wondering, why not transfer tuxfamily to a sort of chatons associations?
https://chatons.org

  • Registered: 2017-04-02
  • Posts: 4

Re: Is Tuxfamily slowly dying?

Thanks for the years of support and hosting. Sad to see this go.

12 Reply by plug (edited by plug 2025-01-11 13:47:28)

  • plug
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  • From: Marseille
  • Registered: 2008-10-03
  • Posts: 7

Re: Is Tuxfamily slowly dying?

Hi,
I've been using TuxFamily to manage a Linux User Group (https://plugfr.org) since 2008.
A few months ago I moved the website away because of too many outages and figured I should do the same tfor other services (email, mailinglists…).
I am sad to see TuxFamily die, but I'm so grateful for all work and dedication of the team.

I'd like to move all the things that we have still here, but the panel seem to be working poorly. I have a lot of 504 when trying to access specific parts.

Any idea how we can get the data without overwhelming the server with web requests ?

Thanks

plug's Website

  • plug
  • Member
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  • From: Marseille
  • Registered: 2008-10-03
  • Posts: 7

Re: Is Tuxfamily slowly dying?

@xavier I read that your server in Marseille is dead.
I work at Evolix (a hosting company in Marseille) with a few people you might know from the IELO time back then (including Gregory Colpart).
Maybe we could help with this issue. We have a lot of old server spare parts (particularly Dell servers).
It might pose a question regarding the hosted data and who gets to see it, but maybe there is something to do.
You can contact me (Jérémy Lecour) by email. Account is "jlecour" and the domain is "evolix.fr" (sorry for obfuscating this, for bots).

plug's Website

14 Reply by tnut

  • tnut
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  • Registered: 2009-07-11
  • Posts: 2

Re: Is Tuxfamily slowly dying?

In the name of the NuTyX team, I would like to say a bing thanks to all the team. Thanks to you specially Sylvain for making it possible.
Hope we can go on a bit longer with tuxfamily.org.

My deep regards and respects for all your generosity.

Thierry Nuttens