write intro texts for the various projects

content/blog/_index.md

@@ -2,4 +2,5 @@
 title: "Blog"
 ---
 
-uwu
+Sometimes I want to talk about things that aren't related to any of my
+projects. These posts end up here!

content/dev/_index.md

@@ -2,4 +2,11 @@
 title: "Projects"
 ---
 
-Hello!
+Throughout the years, I've created (and dropped) a lot of projects. Some were
+built out of necessity, others simply because I thought it was cool. This
+section of my site is where I can talk about these projects that I'm so
+passionate about!
+
+The posts for the various projects mostly consist of devlogs and version
+release announcements. Each project has its own RSS feed, so you can subscribe
+to the ones you'd like to follow.

content/dev/alex/_index.md

@@ -8,4 +8,24 @@ params:
           url: 'https://git.rustybever.be/Chewing_Bever/alex'
 ---
 
+Alex was created to solve an issue I'd been having: inconcistent Minecraft
+server backups.
 
+My original backup system involved compressing the server world and config
+directories in a tarball. While this usually worked, the command regularly
+failed due to conflicts while reading a file the server was writing to. Because
+the Minecraft server is unaware of the fact it's being backed up, it
+continuously writes data to disk, preventing the tar command from doing its
+job.
+
+My solution for this consisted of designing a process that wraps the Minecraft
+server process and interacts with its standard input. The Minecraft server
+accepts certain commands (`save-all` and `save-on`/`save-off`) that allow an
+admin to control when and if the server writes data to disk. Using this, the
+wrapper process tells the server to flush all data, stop writing to disk, and
+only resume writing after a successful backup has been created.
+
+This idea was then expanded to implement incremental backups, which greatly
+reduced the time and disk size needed for the backups. For reference, our
+~2.5GB world folder can be backed up incrementally in less than 5 seconds, with
+backups running every thirty minutes, without ever turning off the server.

content/dev/lander/_index.md

@@ -7,3 +7,9 @@ params:
         - name: Source
           url: 'https://git.rustybever.be/Chewing_Bever/lander'
 ---
+
+Lander is my personal URL shortener, pastebin and file-sharing service. I've
+always wanted to make one of these myself, and as an added challenge, I built
+everything (except for the HTTP parser) from the ground up. It's built on a
+home-grown epoll-based event loop on top of which I built an HTTP framework
+that I'm also planning to use for some other projects.

content/dev/rieter/_index.md

@@ -8,24 +8,24 @@ params:
           url: 'https://git.rustybever.be/Chewing_Bever/rieter'
 ---
 
-My first goal for this project is to create a convenient all-round repository
+This project is a reimaginging of my Vieter project. While its goal is to
-server implementation that could be used for everything from self-hosting a
+eventually fully replace Vieter, I'm following a different mindset on how to
-local repository to managing an entire distribution's package repository. It
+get there.
-should be easy to deploy, lightweight, and work with any distribution. It
-should support any number of repositories and packages, and work with any
-package architecture.
 
-The repositories can be populated by manually uploading packages to the server
+First and foremost, I want to make a well-designed Pacman repository server
-(e.g. from a CI build), or by mirroring already existing repositories. The
+that anyone can set up on any device, be it a Raspberry Pi or a beefy server.
-mirroring feature in particular makes it trivial to set up a new mirror for a
+Rieter should be usable for anything from a small personal repository all the
-distribution, as the server would take care of keeping the mirror up-to-date.
+way to a full mirror of a distribution's package server.
-Another usecase for this would be creating a local mirror of your
-distribution's repositories, which can greatly reduce your update times
-depending on your internet connection.
 
-Most users however don't need a full copy of a distro's package repository, so
+Something that also fits nicely in this concept is mirroring. Rieter will
-Rieter also provides a "smart mirror" mode. In this mode, a Rieter instance
+support automatically mirroring upstream repositories. This could be used to
-only syncs packages that have been requested before, e.g. from a previous
+support your distribution by setting up a new public mirror, or to speed up
-system update. This way, your updates will still be a lot faster as the
+your updates by keeping a mirror of the repositories in your local network.
-required packages are cached, but packages you don't use don't get stored,
+
-saving you a lot of storage space.
+Only once I've created a robust repository server that can be used on its own
+will I start looking towards the package build system. This system will of
+course be redesigned from the ground up to (hopefully) eliminate all the
+technical debt that's been accumulating in the Vieter codebase over the years.
+
+With these two concepts combined, I hope to create a great ecosystem on which
+one can build anything from personal repositories to entire distributions.

content/dev/site/_index.md

@@ -0,0 +1,19 @@
+---
+title: "Site"
+summary: "The infrastructure for this site"
+type: "project"
+params:
+    links:
+        - name: Backend
+          url: 'https://git.rustybever.be/Chewing_Bever/site-backend'
+        - name: Hugo
+          url: 'https://git.rustybever.be/Chewing_Bever/site'
+---
+
+This site is created using [Hugo](https://gohugo.io/), an easy-to-use static
+site generator that I've used for years. The static assets are built in my CI,
+where they are then published to my custom backend server.
+
+The backend server's main role is to allow me to publish built static sites to
+various routes on my domain. I use this both to publish this site, as well as
+deploying documentation for my various projects.

content/dev/vieter/_index.md

@@ -12,4 +12,18 @@ params:
           url: '/api-docs/vieter'
 ---
 
-lmao what
+Vieter is my personal solution to a problem I’ve been facing for months:
+extremely long AUR package build times. I run EndeavourOS on all my systems,
+meaning I'm updating my systems fairly frequently. I really like being a
+beta-tester for projects & run development builds for multiple packages.
+Because of this, I have to regularly re-build these packages in order to stay
+up to date with development. However, these builds can take a really long time,
+even on my more powerful laptop. This project is a solution to that problem:
+instead of building the packages locally, I can build them automatically in the
+cloud & just download them whenever I update my system! Thanks to this
+solution, I’m able to shave 10-15 minutes off my update times, just from not
+having to compile everything every time there’s an update.
+
+Besides this, it’s also just really useful to have a repository server that you
+control & can upload your own packages to. For example, I package my st
+terminal using a CI pipeline & upload it to my repository!

content/links/index.md

@@ -1,33 +0,0 @@
----
-title: "Links"
----
-
-### Vieter
-
-An implementation of an Arch repository server combined with a build system,
-written in V.
-
-* [Source](https://git.rustybever.be/vieter-v/vieter)
-* [Docs](/docs/vieter)
-* [API Docs](/api-docs/vieter)
-
-### Alex
-
-Minecraft server process wrapper that automates creating (incremental) backups,
-written in Rust.
-
-* [Source](https://git.rustybever.be/Chewing_Bever/alex)
-
-### Site
-
-This site is fully open-source, and the backend is a custom Rust web server
-that I've designed to update the hosted files using POST requests from my CI.
-
-* [Backend Source](https://git.rustybever.be/Chewing_Bever/site-backend)
-* [Blog Source](https://git.rustybever.be/Chewing_Bever/site)
-
-## Lander
-
-My home-grown URL shortener & pastebin, written from the ground up in C.
-
-* [Source](https://git.rustybever.be/Chewing_Bever/lander)

layouts/partials/projects.html

@@ -1,6 +0,0 @@
-<h3>{{ i18n "projects.title" }}</h3>
-<ul id="projects">
-{{- range where .Site.Pages "Section" "projects" }}
-    {{ .Render "li" }}
-{{- end }}
-</ul>

layouts/projects/index.html

@@ -1,4 +0,0 @@
-{{ define "main" }}
-{{ .Content }}
-{{- partial "projects.html" . -}}
-{{ end }}

layouts/projects/li.html

@@ -1,6 +0,0 @@
-<li>
-    <a href="{{ .PermaLink }}">
-        {{ .Title }}
-        <small>{{ .Summary }}</small>
-    </a>
-</li>

themes/rb/layouts/index.html

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 {{ define "main" }}
 {{ .Content }}
-<h3>Latest blog posts</h3>
+<h3>Latest posts</h3>
 <ul id="posts">
 {{ range first 15 .Site.RegularPages }}
     {{ .Render "li" }}