The Linode Marketplace is designed to make it easier for developers and companies to share One-Click Apps with the Linode community. One-Click Apps are portable and modular solutioning tools written as Ansible playbooks. The Linode Marketplace allows users to quickly deploy services and perform essential configurations on a Linode Compute Instance's first boot.

Mastodon is an open-source and decentralized micro-blogging platform. Like Twitter, it lets users follow other users and post text, photos, and video content. Mastodon also allows you to create a non-profit social network based on open web standards and principles. Unlike Twitter, Mastodon is decentralized, meaning that its content is not maintained by a central authority.

What sets the Mastodon platform apart is its federated approach to social networking. Each Mastodon instance operates independently — anyone can create an instance and build their community. But users from different instances can still follow each other, share content, and communicate.

Mastodon participates in the Fediverse, a collection of social networks and other websites that communicate using the ActivityPub protocol. That allows different Mastodon instances to communicate, and also allows other platforms in the Fediverse to communicate with Mastodon.

Mastodon servers range in size from small private instances to massive public instances and typically center on specific interests or shared principles. The biggest Mastodon server is Mastodon.social, a general-interest server created by the developers of the Mastodon platform. It has over 540,000 users and boasts a thorough Code of Conduct.

The Linode Marketplace allows you to easily deploy software on a Compute Instance using the Cloud Manager.

1. Ensure that your domain is using the Linode name servers as the authoritative name servers at the registrar level.

2. Log in to the Cloud Manager and select the Marketplace link from the left navigation menu. This displays the Linode Create page with the Marketplace tab pre-selected.

3. Under the Select App section, select the app you would like to deploy.

4. Complete the form by following the steps and advice within the Creating a Compute Instance guide. Depending on the Marketplace App you selected, there may be additional configuration options available. See the Configuration Options section below for compatible distributions, recommended plans, and any additional configuration options available for this Marketplace App.

5. Click the Create Linode button. Once the Compute Instance has provisioned and has fully powered on, wait for the software installation to complete. If the instance is powered off or restarted before this time, the software installation will likely fail.

6. Follow the instructions within the Getting Started After Deployment section to access and start using your application.

Estimated deployment time: Mastodon should be fully installed within 10-15 minutes after the Compute Instance has finished provisioning.