<story><title>Ask HN: What are some fun projects to try out on a spare Linux file server?</title><text>I installed Kubuntu on an old PC and am currently using it as a remote dev environment &amp;amp; FTP server. Any other cool use-cases for a spare Linux box?</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>whalesalad</author><text>Check these out:&lt;p&gt;- reddit.com&amp;#x2F;r&amp;#x2F;homelab&lt;p&gt;- reddit.com&amp;#x2F;r&amp;#x2F;homeserver&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d say the content on &amp;#x2F;r&amp;#x2F;homelab is about 33&amp;#x2F;33&amp;#x2F;33 distributed between&lt;p&gt;1. Masturbatory massive rigs at your home that consume thousands of watts of power but look cool and its fun to say you have a 10-node vSAN cluster next to your dehumidifier.&lt;p&gt;2. People who like to pirate content like its their job - setting up Plex and all the newsgroup&amp;#x2F;torrent apps to auto-pirate shows and movies. For a 13 year old, that can be cool. For an adult who clearly has the cash to spend on non-essential items and in a world where time is money: I do not get it.&lt;p&gt;3. People with an old PC running Kubuntu for a remote dev &amp;#x2F; FTP environment who want to do more cool shit with their gear!&lt;p&gt;So as long as you enter the homelab reddit knowing this, you  will have a better experience there.&lt;p&gt;I definitely second Pihole. I might suggest experimenting with virtualization: so you can turn that single computer into 5 or 6. Tools like Proxmox or even just installing KVM and managing it with (&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;virt-manager.org&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;virt-manager.org&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;). You could Also look into running your own installation of Gitlab (although due to the footprint of the install, I might suggest keeping that isolated to a virtual machine)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>oauea</author><text>&amp;gt; 2. People who like to pirate content like its their job - setting up Plex and all the newsgroup&amp;#x2F;torrent apps to auto-pirate shows and movies. For a 13 year old, that can be cool. For an adult who clearly has the cash to spend on non-essential items and in a world where time is money: I do not get it.&lt;p&gt;It took me about an afternoon or two to set up, was fun to do, and now my favorite TV shows just appear in Plex for me to watch whenever I want to. Half of the time they&amp;#x27;re not available on Netflix either, so I&amp;#x27;d have to figure out what streaming provider they&amp;#x27;re on, deal with their special websites, not get notifications when a new episode airs, etc. It&amp;#x27;s just a better experience.</text></comment>
<story><title>Ask HN: What are some fun projects to try out on a spare Linux file server?</title><text>I installed Kubuntu on an old PC and am currently using it as a remote dev environment &amp;amp; FTP server. Any other cool use-cases for a spare Linux box?</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>whalesalad</author><text>Check these out:&lt;p&gt;- reddit.com&amp;#x2F;r&amp;#x2F;homelab&lt;p&gt;- reddit.com&amp;#x2F;r&amp;#x2F;homeserver&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d say the content on &amp;#x2F;r&amp;#x2F;homelab is about 33&amp;#x2F;33&amp;#x2F;33 distributed between&lt;p&gt;1. Masturbatory massive rigs at your home that consume thousands of watts of power but look cool and its fun to say you have a 10-node vSAN cluster next to your dehumidifier.&lt;p&gt;2. People who like to pirate content like its their job - setting up Plex and all the newsgroup&amp;#x2F;torrent apps to auto-pirate shows and movies. For a 13 year old, that can be cool. For an adult who clearly has the cash to spend on non-essential items and in a world where time is money: I do not get it.&lt;p&gt;3. People with an old PC running Kubuntu for a remote dev &amp;#x2F; FTP environment who want to do more cool shit with their gear!&lt;p&gt;So as long as you enter the homelab reddit knowing this, you  will have a better experience there.&lt;p&gt;I definitely second Pihole. I might suggest experimenting with virtualization: so you can turn that single computer into 5 or 6. Tools like Proxmox or even just installing KVM and managing it with (&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;virt-manager.org&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;virt-manager.org&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;). You could Also look into running your own installation of Gitlab (although due to the footprint of the install, I might suggest keeping that isolated to a virtual machine)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>pbk1</author><text>Also worth checking out is reddit.com&amp;#x2F;r&amp;#x2F;selfhosted, which tends to be much less &amp;#x27;masturbatory&amp;#x27; than &amp;#x2F;r&amp;#x2F;homelab</text></comment>