So, the quest of getting my own instance on #fediverse lasted longer than I expected it to, but I hope I've got some solution at last. Here's a recap.

First thing to declare - I'm using #YunoHost in a box, so I naturally want to stick with what's available there, instead of getting /renting a new machine.

Attempt 1: #Firefish . Install went flawlessly, and features and design look really good, so I got excited a bit too quickly. Apparently there is a bug where you simply cannot import follows. Period. It is hanging there for a month, unaddressed, and no promises to fix it. I'm not manually following 500 people again, sorry. Also, I encountered quite many bugs while fiddling, so the general impression is that Firefish is ambitious but faaar from stable and reliable.

Attempt 2: #GlitchSoc. Install went fluently again, but.. I could not import my data file (which comes in one package from similar GlitchSocial), because nginx got me an error 413 for file size being "too large" (300Mb). Main nginx conf file would allow much more, so I googled shortly to find out where this limit could has been overriden. Very quickly I gave up this investigation into the labyrinth of rubyrails and whatnot. Of course, this could also be just YunoHost issue, but I couldnt find info on that as well.

Attempt 3: #Akkoma. It simply did not install via YunoHost - source files corrupt or sth. Just poor package maintainence I guess. Pity. Just filed a bug and moved on.

Attempt 4: #Pleroma and #Soapbox. All went smooth, looks nice, and here I am. Timeline is full, and my first post is this. I hope it reaches you as intended.

One thing I liked about this whole proces with Yunohost, is that after configured the domain, and settled my fediverse address justinas@soc.dudenas.lt, it did not change throughout all the reinstalls of different systems. This means that if you follow this account, any system I choose will serve you my content. And if I ever want to switch a system again, I can simply backup existing one and try a new one instead. If I don't like it - just a couple clicks backup restore, and I'm back with same followers.

So I feel somewhat safe now: even if Pleroma/Soapbox will start displaying its problems, I still have many not so painful choices.