what should I do with linux over the break?

[pitupepito2000]

Hi,

I am a college student and I the break finally has come. I am with the question of what to do with Linux over the break. I am a user and lover of Debian. I also have installed an LFS system. What should I do with my free time?
Should I try gentoo or should I try to do something with Debian?

Thanks for the responses in advance,
pitupepito

 

[cleverhandle]

I'd definitely say to stick with a distro with which you're familiar and try to actually accomplish something rather than just dorking around with every distro you can get your hands on. Pick a project that's not too ambitious and is well-defined, research it, and do it well. But what project? I dunno... what are you interested in? I like network administration stuff, so I find projects along those lines - at the moment, I'm trying to set up secure dynamic DNS and IPSec. But that may not be your area of interest at all. Maybe a streaming MP3 server, or a PHP bulletin board, or a cross-platform file server. Only you can say.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

I totally agree. X programming is fun

 

[Soybomb]

try freebsd isntead of gentoo and then if you could build me a mail solution that would be great. I'd like it to be based on postfix, spamassassin, and amavisd, with user information and preferences stored in mysql. Spam needs to be tagged and then users can log in to view/release mistagged spam. A nice administration front end in php would be cool while you're at it. Let me know when thats done and I'll come up with something else

At least thats my project for break heh

 

[pitupepito2000]

Hi Thanks for the suggestions guys. I am interested broadly in computers I like administration and this pc is in a network and I am going to look into ways to provide a secure network and also to enhance security. I have one old computer with 512 MB in it's hard drive. What should I do with it?

thanks,
pitupepito

 

[cleverhandle]

Originally posted by: pitupepito2000
I am interested broadly in computers I like administration and this pc is in a network and I am going to look into ways to provide a secure network and also to enhance security.

A bridging firewall might be interesting, then. That would fit into pretty much any network setup and let you see exactly what kind of traffic is going in and out of your network. I tend to like OpenBSD's PF for that sort of thing, though, which gets you back into learning a new system. Are you already running any public services that you want to secure? There's lots you can do as far as security, but it's hard to say what would be productive for you without knowing what you're already doing. At the least, a first step to any real work in network security is thoroughly understanding TCP/IP (routing, subnets, ports, protocols, etc.). Working with routers and firewalls is good way to do that if you need to.

I have one old computer with 512 MB in it's hard drive. What should I do with it?

Bleh. Sounds old. Very old. I might suggest scouring computer shops for a $50 Pentium/PentiumPro with some more livable specs. It's not that you can't do anything with an old system like that. But when you're learning and experimenting, you tend to make mistakes. Repeatedly. Which means doing things over a number of times. And at some point, a really old system just bogs you down and takes you away from what you're trying to learn.

 

[Nothinman]

Get an Alpha or sparc64 machine and do some testing and fixing on the debian-install project =)