I have a spare desktop, any ideas what to do with it?

[Rackstar]

The amount of "but"s here confused me. LOL

Dual core desktop, it doesn't sound like a spare computer at all. Use it. If you don't use it then I'll kill myself for having to put up with my puny little laptop.

Yea, I should've reread it better The desktop is better than my laptop actually. But I'm not that much in one place, so that's the hard part.

Were it me I'd probably turn it into a torrent slave, or a HTPC.

One thing you could do with it is to use it to "distro hop" so to speak. Pick out a whole plethora of Linux distors and see how good or how bad they perform.

In Belgium we have data-limitations, I have a bandwidth of 60 GB/month, that I have to share with 3 other people. But I think I will use it to test Lucid. As I am always following development closely, but never participating (Already too less space on my laptop). I'm not really interested in more distro's. But thanks for the idea

While having a spare machine might be nice, you could donate it to one of the many projects that collect machines and send them to African schools. Giving the gift of education, it would make you feel good about yourself and it would make a real difference.

Gnomeuser, I have read a lot of your responses here at UF. You seem to be a very literate and sensible man.

You suprised me with this answer. I am planning to make my thesis (in my final year of Computer Science) about recycling computers in Belgium (not in the strict sense of stripping them apart). To investigate how big and middle-size companies, government institutions and universities handle "old" computers.

One option I consider to do is investigate how we can help third world countries, and what is being done now and make a theoretical better model. (No time to do it in practice, but maybe I can work further on it).

If you have interesting ideas about this, or have some books in this area that have interesting ideas about this. Please share!

As this is a more social/cultural subject for a thesis and less technical, I need to have a good solid basis to defend this subject at the university.

(A little bit off-topic though )

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I think I'll put Karmic (server edition) on the desktop and Lucid development (desktop-edition). I'll use the server edition to enhance my knowledge in servers and test techniques I learn in my studies. But I was hoping to do something really helpful (for myself).

PS: Sorry if my English is sometimes confusing.

[The Real Dave]

Try using Ubuntu Server, with rsync and ssh. RSync is mainly set up through console anyway, so you should be good enough with it? Its not that difficult, the install is very easy.

You could also try installing NFS on the server and mount the drive on your laptop.

The server could be completely headless, once you've the install done, all it needs is power and network. Turn it on when you want it, and when you're done, SSH in and turn it off

It really is alot simpler than it may look, theres plenty of How-Tos, and the forums are great place for help with CLI, which once you learn a few basics, isn't very difficult

I'm currently running two servers with Ubuntu 9.10 server, both sharing folders to my desktop using NFS.

[PartisanEntity]

I have turned my spare Ubuntu laptop into a:

- file server for Windows and Mac supprting SMB and AFP protocols

- a time capsule that allows the Mac to make backups using TimeMachine directly to the server

- a dlna media server so I can watch movies, view images and listen to music, wirelessly, through my Samsung TV

- and last but not least a music server that can share music with iTunes

The possibilities are endless