Ask HN: What to do with a spare linux box?

3 points·manny··5 comments

So I have a spare Gentoo box.

I want to turn it into some sort of practical utility machine, but I am having trouble with some ideas.

So far I have set it up to stream my MP3 collection, which is quite nice.

Any other ideas? What have you guys done with spare linux boxes?

There're many things you can do with a spare linux box. I do keep a few 'project ideas' links just in case I got some spare time on hand.

Home file server with ZFS - http://breden.org.uk/2008/03/02/a-home-fileserver-using-zfs/

Proxy Server - http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/macvittie/archive/2008/10/0...

Map-Reduce fun with Hadoop - http://www.michael-noll.com/wiki/Running_Hadoop_On_Ubuntu_Li...

Donate bandwidth with a Tor Server - http://ubuntu-tutorials.com/2007/08/31/how-to-run-a-tor-serv...

More good ideas - http://www.dailycupoftech.com/2007/09/17/put-that-old-comput...

A Dial-In server - http://www.howtoforge.com/linux_dialin_server

You could give it away to someone who really needs it.

A lot of low-income families and kids don't have computers, and there are organizations (Free Geek is one) that accept and distribute donated machines.

Donate.

Get a VoIP account, set up Asterisk, throw in Adhearsion, do fun stuff. I rickroll random incoming calls. People recently stopped calling me.

I was also thinking of maybe doing that Folding@Home stuff.

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