So I have a spare Gentoo box.<p>I want to turn it into some sort of practical utility machine, but I am having trouble with some ideas.<p>So far I have set it up to stream my MP3 collection, which is quite nice.<p>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.<p>Home file server with ZFS - <a href="http://breden.org.uk/2008/03/02/a-home-fileserver-using-zfs/" rel="nofollow">http://breden.org.uk/2008/03/02/a-home-fileserver-using-zfs/</a><p>Proxy Server - <a href="http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/macvittie/archive/2008/10/08/8-things-you-can-do-with-a-proxy.aspx" rel="nofollow">http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/macvittie/archive/2008/10/0...</a><p>Map-Reduce fun with Hadoop - <a href="http://www.michael-noll.com/wiki/Running_Hadoop_On_Ubuntu_Linux_(Single-Node_Cluster)" rel="nofollow">http://www.michael-noll.com/wiki/Running_Hadoop_On_Ubuntu_Li...</a><p>Donate bandwidth with a Tor Server - <a href="http://ubuntu-tutorials.com/2007/08/31/how-to-run-a-tor-server-donate-bandwidth-to-the-tor-network/" rel="nofollow">http://ubuntu-tutorials.com/2007/08/31/how-to-run-a-tor-serv...</a><p>More good ideas - <a href="http://www.dailycupoftech.com/2007/09/17/put-that-old-computer-to-good-use/" rel="nofollow">http://www.dailycupoftech.com/2007/09/17/put-that-old-comput...</a><p>A Dial-In server - <a href="http://www.howtoforge.com/linux_dialin_server" rel="nofollow">http://www.howtoforge.com/linux_dialin_server</a>
You could give it away to someone who really needs it.<p>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.