Self-hostable projects that are just for fun?
from northernlights@lemmy.today to selfhosted@lemmy.world on 13 May 21:40
https://lemmy.today/post/52912210

Alright so my lab is pretty much functionally complete; it does everything I was hoping it would and much more.

OK so now what :D Do you know of any projects that are self-hostable and serve no functional purpose whatsoever and exist just for fun? Could be silly projects, could be games. I’d like to add a “silly things” section to my publicly facing list of web services.

For instance, I was thinking of hosting a web version of nethack. Also I enjoyed hosting a node of hypermind for a little while just because it was so silly.

#selfhosted

threaded - newest

dan@upvote.au on 13 May 22:03 next collapse

Game servers? linuxgsm.com. Have an Unreal Tournament 99… tournament with friends.

northernlights@lemmy.today on 13 May 22:51 next collapse

Oh that’s cool, thanks.

Shimitar@downonthestreet.eu on 14 May 02:38 collapse

What a fuckton of ads and shit on that website…

Feels awesome and a cool project to self host but visiting that URL makes me puke

nathan@lemmy.permisuan.com on 14 May 05:42 next collapse

Pi-hole and Firefox with UBO, I saw no ads

ITGuyLevi@programming.dev on 14 May 06:17 next collapse

Much more fun to use linuxgsm and docker, also a bit easier in my personal opinion… github.com/GameServerManagers/docker-linuxgsm

Reannlegge@lemmy.ca on 14 May 11:49 next collapse

I went to see this F-ton of ads and I did not see poop! Maybe it is time you look at investing in pihole?

IratePirate@feddit.org on 15 May 00:36 collapse

My pihole disagrees.

gedfromgont@piefed.ca on 13 May 22:07 next collapse

I think I read recently about some emulator portal you can selfhost, would that be silly enough? Requires you to acquire ROMs though.

dan@upvote.au on 13 May 22:11 collapse

I just posted a comment about this :D

romm.app

dan@upvote.au on 13 May 22:08 next collapse

romm.app - Self hosted game ROM manager that lets you play retro games directly in the browser (using RetroArch cores compiled to WebAssembly).

retroassembly.com is a similar project.

There’s also gamevau.lt which is like a self-hosted version of Steam, for DRM-free games (like from GOG).

northernlights@lemmy.today on 13 May 22:50 collapse

I like this but since it’s on my own domain i’m going to refrain from illegal stuff.

dan@upvote.au on 13 May 23:33 next collapse

Password protect it and just let friends use it? Or have it just for yourself :D

Auster@thebrainbin.org on 14 May 03:00 collapse

Would it be a publicly available page, or accessible only for you?

If it's a public page, you could possibly host shareware games or with other licenses with a similar effect.

And there's plenty of games you can legally buy as ROMs (e.g. homebrews on Itchio), games that include ROMs in their files (e.g. River City Girls 0 on Steam, most Neo Geo releases on PC platforms and pretty much any MS-DOS game rerelease), and if you're from a region with laws not as draconian as the DMCA, there are games with ROMs embedded in their files and that can be extracted. So if it's a private page, you could go for those too.

iknewitwhenisawit@fedinsfw.app on 13 May 22:54 next collapse

I keep thinking making a magic mirror would be such a project..

irmadlad@lemmy.world on 14 May 07:49 collapse

I have one. Very neat little project. I see now that there is an AI interface for MagicMirror now. Looks intriguing.

A_norny_mousse@piefed.zip on 13 May 23:13 next collapse

A website/blog

hperrin@lemmy.ca on 13 May 23:21 next collapse

There are lots of game servers you can run. I highly recommend Sonic Robo Blast 2 Kart. (Yes, that’s a terrible name, but it’s a very fun game.)

warmaster@lemmy.world on 14 May 00:15 next collapse

Games on Whales

games-on-whales.github.io

poVoq@slrpnk.net on 14 May 01:32 next collapse

A fediverse instance obviously.

SpatchyIsOnline@lemmy.world on 16 May 15:25 collapse

I’ve actually been wondering how feasible it might be to set up a Lemmy or piefed server just for me. Is it frowned upon in the fediverse to essentially have a “vanity” url for an instance no one else can join? How difficult would it be to manage blocklists/federation without a team like the large instances have? Would there be an issue with instances refusing to federate with a single user instance?

poVoq@slrpnk.net on 16 May 16:15 collapse

It’s not a big deal, but a single user instance has some issues with discoverability as it will only show communities you personally have subscribed to.

cyberwolfie@lemmy.ml on 14 May 03:28 next collapse

I had a World of Warcraft-server running for a while, that was quite fun.

sbeak@sopuli.xyz on 14 May 03:41 next collapse

I’m running a Minecraft server for me and my sibling, and it’s been fun. I managed to get GeyserMC and Floodgate working so that Bedrock edition clients (i.e. their tablet) can connect to the world.

Little silky that there’s no Linux version of Bedrock edition to be honest, but it’s in Microsoft’s interest to keep Windows as the only option that can run both editions.

Retro_unlimited@lemmy.world on 14 May 08:17 collapse

No Linux Minecraft bedrock got me and my wife to switch to Hytale instead. Get F’ed MicroSlop.

Sunny@slrpnk.net on 14 May 16:16 collapse

Might want to check out Village Story too, believe its a bit more mature in age, as in the game has been out for longer.

Retro_unlimited@lemmy.world on 14 May 17:05 collapse

I know that one, once we get bored of Hytale we will check it out. So many new experiences now competing with Minecraft audience.

zonklezoop@lemmy.zip on 14 May 04:57 next collapse

You could run a BBS! Synchronet and Enigma both have Docker images available.

It’s really the epitome of a pointless endeavor, but it also gives you an entirely new kind of system to learn, tinker with, and customize.

westingham@sh.itjust.works on 14 May 08:54 next collapse

I miss the days of dialing your local BBS

zonklezoop@lemmy.zip on 15 May 13:05 collapse

It was the best of times, it was the w… nope. Just the best.

guynamedzero@piefed.zeromedia.vip on 15 May 08:30 collapse

Forgive my negligence, but what is a BBS?

zonklezoop@lemmy.zip on 15 May 09:24 collapse

Back in the olden times, before the WWW came along and the internet exploded, you’d fire up your modem and dial into other computers. Bulletin Board Systems.

They would typically host some local forums, files to download, private messaging, and some online games. Larger ones might have a chat room. As time went on, networked forums got popular. Mostly text interfaces, but ANSI graphics and menus were common.

It was really the best.

Setting one up to be accessible via telnet is a fun little project. Install a couple of doors (games) like Legend of the Red Dragon, Pimp Wars, Usurper and just have fun.

guynamedzero@piefed.zeromedia.vip on 15 May 10:28 collapse

Ohhhhh that sounds very interesting! I might just have to set one up for my server!

SreudianFlip@sh.itjust.works on 15 May 23:15 collapse

A similar but not quite as retro endeavour would be hosting a Hotline server.

RattlerSix@lemmy.world on 14 May 05:21 next collapse

I haven’t done it in a few years but I used to run my own weather model. If fed the correct data and given time to crunch the numbers, several times a day you can create your own weather forecast that is probably (hopefully) similar to the freely available forecasts from the weather service, TV, radio and apps.

www.mmm.ucar.edu/models/wrf

B0rax@feddit.org on 14 May 08:39 collapse

Which input data is required? Is it hard to setup?

RattlerSix@lemmy.world on 14 May 09:36 collapse

It’s been a few years but I don’t remember it being too hard to set up. I did it on slackware, compiling everything from source, so anybody should be able to do it on a distro with dependency resolution.

They provided a zip file that is updated every so often (hourly?) and contains data for your specific region. I just used that. It does have an option that people can use their own data, but I think it’s because most NWS offices run this model in addition to the national models they get from upstream. No normal person has enough input data to be useful.

irmadlad@lemmy.world on 14 May 06:36 next collapse

Depending on the specs of your server/VPS you could run a modded Minecraft server. Back in the day I really got into Minecraft and ran a server modded out to the max with shaders, and all manner of accoutrements. It was for fun, but Minecraft is one of those games you can really learn from.

spoiler

<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/7efd9d8c-7be5-4c21-9f91-de84f6533d68.png"> <img alt="" src="https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/886f0496-d494-4fc4-8cef-56782efae9fd.png"> <img alt="" src="https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/65c2868e-7e9c-4a0e-b03b-90354cffcc12.png">

Strit@lemmy.linuxuserspace.show on 15 May 00:58 next collapse

I setup the IT-Tools mostly for fun. I’ve only used it a couple of times, but it’s a swiss army knife of small practical tools.

northernlights@lemmy.today on 15 May 12:46 collapse

Oh I like

KatherinaReichelt@feddit.org on 15 May 02:53 next collapse

Implement GNU Terry Pratchett on your servers:

www.gnuterrypratchett.com

northernlights@lemmy.today on 15 May 12:44 collapse

Awesome

drmoose@lemmy.world on 15 May 07:26 next collapse

Chat bots are real fun to make and are really useful.

GreenKnight23@lemmy.world on 16 May 07:14 collapse

can I name her Sony?

mko@discuss.tchncs.de on 15 May 23:05 next collapse

How about hosting an ADS-B receiver, tracking nearby air traffic. It doesn’t serve any practical purpose other than participating in the crowd sourced network that feeds sites like FlightAware and FlightRadar24 (and you get a free subscription by participating)

timwa@lemmy.snowgoons.ro on 16 May 00:32 collapse

Yep, I set mine up last weekend.

Used a nice Racknex rackmount kit to put a Raspberry Pi with SDR in the rack, and a little LCD display on the front that cycles through the details of aircraft currently in range - so it also serves the important purpose of Blinkenlights.

I’m fortunate to live close to two international airports (one small, one big) and under a reasonably busy flight corridor as well, so plenty of planes to spot - light aircraft, helicopters and military all the way up to A380s.

cantankerous_cashew@lemmy.world on 16 May 22:09 next collapse

Assuming your server is indeed public facing, try endlessh-go. It’s a tarpit that wastes time/resources of bots/scanners/skiddies

northernlights@lemmy.today on 17 May 02:42 collapse

Oh that looks fun. Gonna try that, thanks.

pedroapero@lemmy.ml on 17 May 13:04 collapse

You could host a Tor relay node (or an i2p node). These networks need crowd and bandwidth.