Breathe new life to your old PC
I bet you have some old PC(s) lying around somewhere at home. With the help of Open Source softwares you can still use those old PCs for real work. When I say old I mean it, it can even be your Pentium 486 and above PCs which you think is not up-to-date and which you might think of getting rid of. So don’t do it yet! Try using open source OSes, softwares on them before you say they are of no use. Here’s a list of a few examples you can use it for:
- Extra desktop - I am sure an extra workstation at home won’t be a bad idea after all. You can let your family members, guests use the PC with no worries of viruses, spyware, adware, etc.
- Network Server - Set up a home networking server with Firewall, DHCP, DNS even your local E-Mail Server.
- File Storage - Setting up a SAMBA will not only let you access them easily via M$ Windows and do backup, you can also create yourself a local DOMAIN with some user restrictions for each account.
- Application Server - Are you into application developing? Like Java, PHP or the currently famous Ruby on Rails? You can setup your old junk PC as Application Server and have more or the same platform of your Hosting provider.
- Database Server - Enterprise class databases like DB2, Oracle, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Informix and lots of other databases can be easily installed on them.
- Media Streaming - Do you have hundred gigs of MP3 or video? You can setup streaming server, so that other users can just tune to your streaming server and enjoy the music and movies.
So, again, if you have some old PCs that you think is outdated and old, think again. Maybe you can find some job for it?
There are lots of Linux/BSD distributions you can use for the above mentioned purposes. I will be posting my experiences setting up those examples on old PCs that I can find in my office and home. So, this post will be like intro for that.
gFTP replacement?
I don’t like gFTP at all. Period. I am looking for a replacement.
I love FileZilla but unfortunately the version for Linux is still under beta…
What I’m looking for in FTP client:
- Profiling of ftp addresses
- Mouse gestures, selections
- Customizable prompts - overwrite etc…
- quick connect
- CHMOD by numbers and by words
- Logging
Most of the above mentioned features are absent in gFTP.
3D Windows Vista
3D Desktop in Linux
Dynamic DNS
ADSL users who don’t have fixed IP from their ISPs can use Dynamic DNS services provided for free by several websites. Personally, I use DynDNS . DynDNS has lotsa features, you can find out more about them in their website, but I only use their free Dynamic DNS feature.
So, what is this?
Simple. Since your ISP does not provide you with fixed IP, you will be getting different IP each time you login. DynDNS will help you to tie your dynamic IP to some hostname - for e.g. yourname.dyndns.org.
Most of the ADSL modems has Dynamic DNS support, you enter your username and password on your modem and the modem will login and update your IP to your hostname.
How can you benefit from it?
Well, imagine if you are at work and you want to connect to your home machine. So, all you have to remember is the hostname from DynDNS. You can setup a torrent client at home and download torrents from your office, install web server and host your blog there, setup an FTP server and share the files with your friends and etc etc…
You must also know how to do port-forwarding on your modem in order to use all of the above mentioned examples.
About
Welcome to Arstan's personal blog. This blog includes tips on Linux, Apache, MySQL, Shell Scripts. Hardware/software and internet technologies reviews and updates.
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