Installing YT2009 - An EASY Tutorial

What is YT2009?

YT2009 is a front end service that allows you to view YouTube videos, new and old, from the lens of the site's 2009 interface. It is self hosting, meaning it is up to you to set it up each time you would like to use it -- it sounds daunting, but is actually an incredibly easy (and rewarding) process! 

Why am I making this tutorial?

The ones on YouTube are really bad lol

What are the pros and cons of YT2009?

Pros:

- Very fun and nostalgic

- Self proclaimed, "fairly accurate"

Cons:

- You cannot make an account, and your comments/likes do not show up on the backend. You can sign up for an account, but it is fake. 

- It can be complicated, which is why this tutorial is important.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(I AM ON WINDOWS, SO THE PROCESS MAY DIFFER. ASK IF YOU NEED HELP!)

Here is a showcase if you would like to see YT2009 in action prior to installation:

https://www.bitview.net/watch?v=nN3ko6rv4R3

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Let's begin the tutorial!

Step 1: Preparation

You will have a few installations to make before you can hop into YT2009.

P.S. TAKE PROPER PRECAUTIONS BEFORE DOWNLOADING ANYTHING! I CANNOT GUARANTEE YOUR SAFETY

Github

Firstly, you will click the green code button, then click "download ZIP". 

https://github.com/ftde0/yt2009

Upon downloading this ZIP, make sure that you UNZIP it. You can do this by going into file explorer, right-clicking, and clicking "extract all". 

Now, there are a few more downloads required.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

YT2009 ImageMagick

Assuming you have Windows, make sure to download this version. 

When you click through your download, MAKE SURE you select legacy version (convert tools). This will prevent many of the issues that you could run into later on.

Here are some other required downloads. You do not need to make any special selections upon downloading these.

Node.JS

https://nodejs.org/en

FFMPEG

https://ffmpeg.org/

Git Bash

https://git-scm.com/downloads

Make sure to go through and install these programs upon download completion before continuing.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Step 2: Execution

This will be the difficult part.

Open Git Bash and type

"git clone https://github.com/ftde0/yt2009"

(Your results after doing this will look different from mine, as I have already done this)

Once this is completed, go into your yt-2009 folder on file explorer. It will look like this:

Right click on the empty space and click "Open in Terminal".

Type "npm install"

Type node yt2009setup.js

What port should yt2009 run on? 80

what environment should be used? dev

what IP should be used...? Just click enter

enable auto-maintain? y

specify the max size the instance should use in GB. leave empty for default (10): enter

specify the max size per cache file in MB. leave empty for default (15): enter

Now, go back into yt2009-main folder. Right click this file, then click "edit in notepad".

Where the script says, let check_tools = ... Change convert to convert -version if it is not already like that, then save. If it is like that, just save and exit out.

You're now going to go back into the terminal.

Type node post_config_setup.js

Your side will look different, because I already completed this.

After your downloads complete in the terminal, you will type "cd back", then "node backend.js"

WAR IS ALMOST OVER!

Go to your browser and type in 127.0.0.1.

You did it!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note that, when you exit out, you'll have to go back into your terminal and do "cd back" and "node backend.js" to get back on. 

You can finally watch YouTube videos like its 2009 again. <3 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

FREQUENT ERRORS

"convert/ffmpeg not found make sure its in your path"

This error happens when installation of one or more of the required software was not installed correctly. Ensure, when you download Image Magick, that legacy (convert tools) is selected. You may need to back out and try again.

For a temporary solution, you can go into the js notepad file and just remove the error from let check_tools (e.g. If ffmpeg is not found, you can just erase "ffmpeg -h" from the script)

I do not recommend this as a permanent solution as there are for sure consequences, I just haven't ran into them yet LOL. You may need to complete the process from the beginning and ensure all needed software is installed.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Have any questions? Feel free to ask and I'll try my best to answer.

Thanks for reading <3