this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2023
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Asklemmy
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You don't need any special hardware. I have my instance running on 1 CPU and 2GB of RAM just fine (granted, its just me there so there isn't really any massive load).
So yes, you can use your PC if you want. The only thing I'd say is that if you plan to have your instance federated (i.e. make posts from it, message people etc), you'd want to have it running all the time. Otherwise, if your PC is down and Lemmy isn't running, your images and posts might not show up properly for people on other instances.
Which is why most people prefer to rent a server or VPS (virtual private server, which is usually cheaper). Since you can have the server running 24/7.
Other than that, you need a domain name. Again there are websites that can give you free domain names. But in my case I prefer to just buy a domain.
If you check out https://join-lemmy.org/, there's "Run a Server" option which goes over the steps.
yeah, you should have a server for this. you will probably nnoy people when your instance goes offline, comes up again repeatedly. Also you'd need to fight with port forwarding dns etc on your local internet connection.