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Cool things I could do with my own server/Linux box? -- feasability of such a thing?
contraband
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
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?
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Past that, there's a lot you can do, but start simple and then work your way up.
That's one of the things mine's set up to do, as well as being a host for VMWare machines when I fancy arsing around with something interesting. I have a webserver VM that I use as a test bed, which is sometimes connected directly to the internet. I like doing it ths way because if it's compromised I only have to dump the VM, and restore from a backup (one of the joys of VMs is that backups become a simple process of duplicating a single large file, which isn't very space efficient, but works for me with small-ish test servers). Plus I can copy the current test server to my laptop and run it from there if I'm away from home.
At some point it's also going to be a MythTV backend. It already has a large public Samba share with all my media on it.
If you use the Server distribution, the requirements are 64MB RAM and 500MB HD space, but it doesn't pre-install much in the way of software other than some tools, and doesn't have a graphical desktop.
If you do want a GUI, the usual recommendation for low-spec machines is XUbuntu, which uses a more lightweight desktop (xface) and has minimum requirements of 166MHz processor, 46MB of RAM, 1.4GB HD space and a graphics card. The recommended requirements are 300 MHz processor, 192 MB of RAM, 8 GB HD space, and a graphics card capable of 800x600 resolution.
Also, if you're wanting a gui, but with little to no resource use, just use damn small linux. (betcha thought that was a link, google it
It runs on like 400 mhz and makes it seem like you're on a P4. It's great for older machines, and it would fly on your system.
You could use it to run Linux programs such as irssi (An IRC client) and then you could SSH into it and run those programs on your Windows PC.
You could use it to run a multiplayer server for whatever game you feel like hosting that day.
You could use it as a webserver and not have to pay hosting costs.
Because you won't be using it for such intensive tasks as gaming etc, the power consumption will be less, and you could use it to download torrents and then if you turn off your main PC you are still downloading the torrents.