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Cool, Fun, and Mostly Useless Things to do with Linux, V2

It's been almost exactly two and a half years since I wrote my first post,"Cool, Fun, and Mostly Useless Things to do with Linux". Since then, so much has changed in the open source world, that I think it might be time to write a new post detailing a few more ideas I have had for weekend projects.

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Do you often find yourself on the weekend bored out of your mind, hoping the Linux/open source community provided something of real value to you? Do you wish to be closer to Richard Stallman or Linus Torvalds (but not at the same time - they don't like each other) in the hope that some of their knowledge will rub off on you?

Well look no further. This post will have you using several of their products, putzing around with their source code and causing general confusion in both your personal and your professional life!

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Okay, now that the opening is out of the way, let's get to the ideas.

Linux General

Not all of these projects require a "Linux server" or a "Linux desktop". Most of these are quite doable with either category.

• Learn all about systemd, its scheduler, networking manager, init "scripts", logger, socket manager, etc. so you know why you shouldn't be using it.

• Learn to version control your scripts with git.

  • This is a tremendously helpful tool that will run on any desktop os really. I use git for versioning not only my source code (bash, perl, c, etc), but my website content, my resume, and my crux ports.

• Build a git server with web ui for the previously mentioned git knowledge using cgit with cgi and the webserver of your choice (I use lighttpd).

• Learn how to write git hooks, specifically post-receive server-side hooks, for push style automation triggers.

  • As mentioned in the previous item, I use git for my website content, resume, and crux ports, amongst other things. With my blog, a post-receive executes a script that parses asciidoc and writes an html file to my web root directory. My resume git repo is pretty bland, but my crux ports post-receive triggers a synchronize of my port files and a re-update of the index. The possibilities are endless.

• Build a bi-directional sync and backup server using Syncthing. Bonus points for using it to back up your smartphone!

• Learn Qemu (with libvirt) to virtualize systems for testing, development, and serving.

  • I use this one on a daily basis for virtualize my Windows system at work. I also use it often to test out new code being developed, or to replicate an environment for troubleshooting. A very good tool to have.

  • This is useful on desktop and on servers. I use it mostly for desktop purposes, but on a server, you could virtualize an application server for secure isolation, virtualize multiple servers on powerful hardware to make the best use of it, etc.

Linux as a Server

This category we can safely say requires a server with a static ip address (or at least dynamic dns), and will be running most of the time, hence the server category.

• Build an XMPP/jabber server for chatting with your GMail friends anyone else using xmpp. My recommendations include ejabberd (this is the one I use) and Jabberd2.

  • Google is discontinuing support for external xmpp clients as well as federation with external services (eg: your non-Google xmpp server) on June 26, 2017.

Linux as a Desktop

• Store, encrypt with GPG, and version your password database with git using pass, "the standard unix password manager".

• Script your password management using pass and xdotool.

• Download all of your email locally using isync/mbsync and set up command line mail using mutt.

  • NOTE: This is a duplicate from the last version of this page, but this one uses mbsync and the old one suggested offlineimap.

• Encrypt a partition, a full system, or just a USB stick using dmcrypt with cryptsetup

• Learn to install and run a source-based Linux distribution, like Crux Linux

  • Several years ago I converted to a source based distro. It was so enlightening, that I went down the rabbit hole further and converted to something just a few steps up (Crux) from Linux from Scratch. If you need to really learn Linux, I think there aren't many better ways than running a source-based distriution.

Linux Development

• Script a basic IRC bot

  • This can be particularly useful for sending server status updates such as " going down for restart", "my ip just changed from $old to $new", etc.

• Write a standard logging framework for bash scripts with standardized, timestamped output and log levels.

• Learn how to write a preprocessed website using your scripting language of choice combined with cgi (you could be using bash instead of Java to program that website!) :)

• Learn how to write a waitpid function in bash, or perl, or python, or ruby, or c, or c++, or even binary! The possibilities are endless!