So, like. I have a perfectly serviceable computer. But! I'm presented with the opportunity to bring from home an old computer that's only collecting dust for right now. It's a 1GHz, 15GB, 256MB RAM system. What kind of cool things could I do with it if I installed Linux on it? This is something I've always wanted to do but I've never really had the chance. Let's say I used it as a server--what kind of applications could I see from that? Or fun projects?
You are able toooooo:
Program your very own internetsite without paying anything! Fuck yeah!
You are able toooooo:
Spend hours and hours of your life trying to get Xorg to properly recognize your second external monitor as being of the 1440x900 variety.
>>3
the fuuuuuck? I never said nothin' bout no secondary monitor hooked up to it.
wuuuuuuuuut
You are able toooooo:
Get stuck in dependency hell! Alright!!
>>3
ITT we install Xorg on a server, because you can never waste enough ressources.
>>6
If he tries really hard, he might even manage to! All he needs is a time machine to take him back to 1999!
>>1
Depends on how much experience you have with anything remoteley unixish. If it's few to none, the thing you'll be doing most if probably figuring out how to actually do stuff.
A reasonably easy thing to do is hosting a web site for trying out different web programming frameworks or languages, if you're into that sort of thing. Using it as a simple NAS box via FTP or Samba is also rather doable.
As always in these cases, google is your best friend.
a torrent leeching box
file server
music server
Public XMPP server..
>If he tries really hard, he might even manage to! All he needs is a time machine to take him back to 1999!
or linux from scratch lol
(it's not terrible, but don't bank on getting a major app installed in less than a day for a while)
>>8
personally, i'd buy another hd and do that. it's easy as hell to do, in my experience.
I've set up my linux server/router some four years ago now. Started as a simple DSL router/firewall, added a squid proxy, then DHCP and DNS (useful, since we have 8 clients in the house) as well as an NTP server.
Lately I've set up an OpenLDAP directory and Samba as a PDC with OpenLDAP as its backend to have central authentication for all Unix- and Windows-Clients in the house. The next thing will be centralized profiles that are stored on the server, but I'll need to get a gigabit switch first.
So in my case it's a mere infrastructure server to make life easier for everyone and especially for myself. Means a lot less work than administering all the clients manually. Of course you can do all kinds of other stuff. If you are into web development, set it up as a LAMP server. Or store your media files on it to be able to listen/watch from any computer in the house. Etc. The possibilities are endless. It only depends on what you want and what you are interested in.
You could set up game servers but like >>11 I have used a linux box as a dsl router/firewall (setting up iptables isn't so bad), a web server and just a server I accessed to through ssh for programming and for accessing music. Now I use it as a primary OS for my laptop. Only problem I have with that is getting Alsa to recognize (or whatever) my intel 82801G(ICH7) sound card.