A decentralized photo sharing platform
Picture This
Pixelfed offers an interesting alternative to centralized, algorithm-driven, commercial photo sharing services.
Sometimes, it's painful to watch people make the same mistake again and again. When Flickr's bright star started to fade, anyone remotely interested in photography moved to Instagram. With Instagram losing its luster faster than a mountain hare loses its winter coat, there is a rush to VERO, Glass, and other photo sharing services that promise to be different but are essentially the same. The features offered by the current batch of Instagram challengers may vary, but the overall premise is unchanged: a service run by a commercial entity that dictates the rules and to whose fortunes and whims you're beholden. So you'll be forgiven for sagely shaking your head and murmuring to yourself, "Will they ever learn?"
Fortunately, shutterbugs and serious photographers who are not willing to go down the same road again can choose an alternative path: Pixelfed [1]. If you haven't heard the name before, you're not alone. While Pixelfed has been around for a while, it has been following the same trajectory as Mastodon. Twitter going down in flames has sent people scrambling for alternatives, with Mastodon providing a perfect harbor for Twitter refugees. While none of the mainstream photo sharing services have suffered a misfortune of a similar magnitude, the seed of doubt has been planted: Perhaps sharing your photos and building a following using a centralized commercial service is not all it's cracked up to be after all. This is where Pixelfed (Figure 1) comes into the picture (no pun intended).
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Linux Kernel 6.17 Drops bcachefs
After a clash over some late fixes and disagreements between bcachefs's lead developer and Linus Torvalds, bachefs is out.
-
ONLYOFFICE v9 Embraces AI
Like nearly all office suites on the market (except LibreOffice), ONLYOFFICE has decided to go the AI route.
-
Two Local Privilege Escalation Flaws Discovered in Linux
Qualys researchers have discovered two local privilege escalation vulnerabilities that allow hackers to gain root privileges on major Linux distributions.
-
New TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro Powered by AMD Ryzen AI 300
The TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro 14 Gen10 offers serious power that is ready for your business, development, or entertainment needs.
-
Danish Ministry of Digital Affairs Transitions to Linux
Another major organization has decided to kick Microsoft Windows and Office to the curb in favor of Linux.
-
Linux Mint 20 Reaches EOL
With Linux Mint 20 at its end of life, the time has arrived to upgrade to Linux Mint 22.
-
TuxCare Announces Support for AlmaLinux 9.2
Thanks to TuxCare, AlmaLinux 9.2 (and soon version 9.6) now enjoys years of ongoing patching and compliance.
-
Go-Based Botnet Attacking IoT Devices
Using an SSH credential brute-force attack, the Go-based PumaBot is exploiting IoT devices everywhere.
-
Plasma 6.5 Promises Better Memory Optimization
With the stable Plasma 6.4 on the horizon, KDE has a few new tricks up its sleeve for Plasma 6.5.
-
KaOS 2025.05 Officially Qt5 Free
If you're a fan of independent Linux distributions, the team behind KaOS is proud to announce the latest iteration that includes kernel 6.14 and KDE's Plasma 6.3.5.