https://www.fladi.at/ 2026-03-16T19:19:33.021584+00:00 ABlog https://www.fladi.at/posts/a-new-blogging-engine.html 2026-01-05T00:00:00+01:00 Michael Fladischer <section id="a-new-blogging-engine"> <p>For quite a while (especially since I became a dad) my blog was inactive. The old one was based on <a class="reference external" href="https://ikiwiki.info/">ikiwiki</a> and it lacked a clean deployment workflow.</p> <p>For several months I was looking for a suitable replacement which would satisfy my requirements:</p> <blockquote> <div><ul class="simple"> <li><p>Compiles Markdown or ReStructuredText to static HTML</p></li> <li><p>The whole source-code of the site can be stored in git, no database required</p></li> <li><p>Supports a simple build, preferably a single CLI command to build the whole site</p></li> <li><p>Extendable with plugins (if built-in features are lacking things like a gallery)</p></li> <li><p>Written in Python because most of my work (payed and unpaid) is done in this language</p></li> <li><p>Packages for Debian so I can easily deploy it on my infrastructure</p></li> </ul> </div></blockquote> <p>Several candidates would fit those requirements:</p> <blockquote> <div><ul class="simple"> <li><p><a class="reference external" href="https://getpelican.com/">Pelican</a></p></li> <li><p><a class="reference external" href="https://www.mkdocs.org/">MkDocs</a></p></li> <li><p><a class="reference external" href="https://getnikola.com/">Nikola</a></p></li> <li><p><a class="reference external" href="https://www.getlektor.com/">Lektor</a></p></li> <li><p><a class="reference external" href="https://www.sphinx-doc.org/">Sphinx</a></p></li> </ul> </div></blockquote> <p>In the end I decided to opt for <a class="reference external" href="https://www.sphinx-doc.org/">Sphinx</a> as it provided a good blogging solution in the form of <a class="reference external" href="https://ablog.readthedocs.io/">ABlog</a>. Getting started on Debian is as easy as installing it:</p> <div class="highlight-zsh notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span>sudo<span class="w"> </span>apt<span class="w"> </span>install<span class="w"> </span>python3-sphinx-ablog </pre></div> </div> <p>Afterwards start a new project, creating a basic Sphinx structure:</p> <div class="highlight-zsh notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span>ablog<span class="w"> </span>start </pre></div> </div> <p>The deployment is done by pushing to a Git repository with a custom post-update hook which builds the whole project using sphinx. It then places the files in the webserver document root directory. I will describe this hook script here in a future post.</p> <aside class="system-message"> <p class="system-message-title">System Message: INFO/1 (<span class="docutils literal">/tmp/tmp.H4XEREdt7Q/posts/a-new-blogging-engine.rst</span>, line 50)</p> <p>Duplicate name “pelican” for external target “https://getpelican.com/”.</p> </aside> </section>

For quite a while (especially since I became a dad) my blog was inactive. The old one was based on ikiwiki and it lacked a clean deployment workflow.

2026-01-05T00:00:00+01:00