-Pleroma is a microblogging server software that can federate (= exchange messages with) other servers that support ActivityPub. What that means is that you can host a server for yourself or your friends and stay in control of your online identity, but still exchange messages with people on larger servers. Pleroma will federate with all servers that implement ActivityPub, like Friendica, GNU Social, Hubzilla, Mastodon, Misskey, Peertube, and Pixelfed.
+**Soapbox** is a federated social media server with a focus on user experience.
+It is based on [Pleroma](https://pleroma.social/).
-Pleroma is written in Elixir and uses PostgresSQL for data storage. It's efficient enough to be ran on low-power devices like Raspberry Pi (though we wouldn't recommend storing the database on the internal SD card ;) but can scale well when ran on more powerful hardware (albeit only single-node for now).
+## Your social media server
-For clients it supports the [Mastodon client API](https://docs.joinmastodon.org/api/guidelines/) with Pleroma extensions (see the API section on <https://docs-develop.pleroma.social>).
+Soapbox empowers people to take control of their social media experience.
+Hosting your own server means that *you* get to decide the rules.
-- [Client Applications for Pleroma](https://docs-develop.pleroma.social/backend/clients/)
+Soapbox connects to over 4,000 other servers on the Fediverse.
+It is designed to spread your message far and wide, while being resilient to deplatforming.
## Installation
-### OTP releases (Recommended)
-If you are running Linux (glibc or musl) on x86/arm, the recommended way to install Pleroma is by using OTP releases. OTP releases are as close as you can get to binary releases with Erlang/Elixir. The release is self-contained, and provides everything needed to boot it. The installation instructions are available [here](https://docs-develop.pleroma.social/backend/installation/otp_en/).
+Soapbox is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
+it under the terms of the GNU Affero General Public License as published by
+the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
+(at your option) any later version.
-### OS/Distro packages
-Currently Pleroma is not packaged by any OS/Distros, but if you want to package it for one, we can guide you through the process on our [community channels](#community-channels). If you want to change default options in your Pleroma package, please **discuss it with us first**.
+Soapbox is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
+but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
+MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
+GNU Affero General Public License for more details.
-### Docker
-While we don’t provide docker files, other people have written very good ones. Take a look at <https://github.com/angristan/docker-pleroma> or <https://glitch.sh/sn0w/pleroma-docker>.
-
-### Compilation Troubleshooting
-If you ever encounter compilation issues during the updating of Pleroma, you can try these commands and see if they fix things:
-
-- `mix deps.clean --all`
-- `mix local.rebar`
-- `mix local.hex`
-- `rm -r _build`
-
-If you are not developing Pleroma, it is better to use the OTP release, which comes with everything precompiled.
-
-## Documentation
-- Latest Released revision: <https://docs.pleroma.social>
+Linux and Mac users should have a terminal program pre-installed (it's just called **"Terminal"**), but Windows users may need to install [Cygwin](https://www.cygwin.com/) first.
+
+Once the terminal is open, connect to your server with the username and IP address provided by your VPS host.
+It will likely prompt for a password.
+
+```sh
+ssh root@123.456.789
+```
+
+If you see a screen that looks like this, you've succeeded:
+
+```
+Welcome to Ubuntu 20.04.2 LTS (GNU/Linux 5.4.0-65-generic x86_64)
+
+ * Documentation: https://help.ubuntu.com
+ * Management: https://landscape.canonical.com
+ * Support: https://ubuntu.com/advantage
+
+ System information as of Wed Apr 28 18:59:27 UTC 2021
+
+ System load: 1.86 Processes: 201
+ Usage of /: 66.1% of 146.15GB Users logged in: 0
+ Memory usage: 29% IPv4 address for ens18: 10.0.0.100
+ Swap usage: 4% IPv4 address for ens19: 192.168.1.100
+
+ * Pure upstream Kubernetes 1.21, smallest, simplest cluster ops!
+
+ https://microk8s.io/
+
+79 updates can be installed immediately.
+0 of these updates are security updates.
+To see these additional updates run: apt list --upgradable
+
+
+Last login: Tue Apr 27 17:28:56 2021 from 98.198.61.119
+root@gleasonator:~#
+```
+
+## 2. System setup
+
+Before installing Soapbox, we have to prepare the system.
+
+### 2.a. Install updates
+
+Usually a fresh VPS already has outdated software, so run the following commands to update it:
+
+```shell
+sudo apt update
+sudo apt upgrade
+```
+
+When prompted (`[Y/n]`) type `Y` and hit Enter.
+
+### 2.b. Install system dependencies
+
+Soapbox relies on some additional system software in order to function.