Ideas for an old laptop?

[arachn1d]

I have a laptop that I am not using anymore. It is a DELL Inspiron 9200.

I already have Ubuntu up and running on it, what I'm trying to figure out is what the heck to actually do with it.

I don't think I need it to do anything graphical, so most of the time I think I'll just have the lid down and use it through SSH on my macbook pro.

I'm a web-developer full-time if that adds to anything.

It only has a 60gig hard drive so there's only so much file server storing on the thing which is a given.

If anyone has any other cool things to mention or something rather useful, I'd really appreciate it. Thanks!

[Gen2ly]

It has many use possiblities. 60gig is still plenty for an mp3 server like mpd, or it can be used as firewall - perfect for that really...eh, a mail server, or just a server ato backup the documents. I personally like the first, it's always run well for me.

[Daveski]

I like the idea of a media server - great if you have an XBox or PS3. Also what about running it as a test web server? Obviously it can also be a mail server if you want added flexibility with your emails. Stick in another network card and it would make a great firewall / VPN endpoint.

[Gen2ly]

I've been looking at lighttpd which is a lightweight web server. It's pretty easy to setup and only took about 10MB of RAM.

[Dragonbite]

I've thought that a laptop would work pretty well as a home server with the benefit that you don't have to get a backup battery for it either!

And since you don't want to leave the laptop on AC power all of the time (ruins the battery capabilities I've heard), then plug it into one of those Christmas tree light timers so it goes off for an hour each day (and the laptop runs off the battery during that time).

Or a guy I know modifies old laptops into digital frames (with more capabilities).

Another idea I've thought of for an old laptop (Dell Inspiron CP, PI w/MMX @233MHz and 128MB Ram) is as a web surfing machine; boot to a minimal linux distro where X is used only for loading up Firefox (or SeaMonkey) and that 's all... no desktop, no panel, no nothing! Best if when you close Firefox/SeaMonkey it shuts the computer down. Don't know how to do that yet, but since I've got DSL coming to home that may become a bigger option.

I tried it as a thin client but cannot get the PCMCIA ethernet card to PXE boot. :(

[Whiffle]

I use an old 450 MHz k6-2 laptop as a webserver/music server/place to stash stuff/print server. It runs debian etch, pulls about 15 watts of power, runs quite well. I havn't had time to make a decent website for it yet, but i used it to host a file a while back for something and it worked quite nicely.

[DarthBagel]

I actually have a dell laptop thats case is falling and utterly unusable (battery dead\ screen falling off) but the hardware is good. A new server to play around with may turn into my weekend project :)

[Bungo Pony]

Kitchen computer!

Put some recipes on it, if it has wireless, connect it to the net and listen to web radio while in the kitchen, use gdesklets to put the weather on the desktop

[funrider]

install edubuntu and give it to some kids