I've just assembled a machine from old parts we’ve had sitting around in work – it's a P3 600, 384MB Ram and a 20GB HDD. Now that its built and running XP I’m wondering what to do with it.
I was thinking of putting Linux on it but don’t really know why or what I could do with it up and running.
We have a Windows 2003 domain with 100+ XP clients, so any innovative suggestions on what the PC could be put to use for would be welcomed - whether its as an independant machine or integrated into the network somehow. Its completely redundant at the moment, so anything is possible!

Thanks

well... what do you need?

i have no idea of your requirements or what industry you're in but off the top of my head...

Webserver for company intranet?
Responsible for delivering local mail?
Media centre for when the boss is out?
Store your accounts/sensitive info on?
firewall?
print server?
backup solution? (auto burn cd's/backup to hard drive?)


The possibilites are endless with linux

Cool, Thanks for the reply. we dont need anything as such and have our backups pretty much sorted at present, same for intranet/mail solutions.
Just seems a waste to have a working machine there when I could up it to SOME use and learn something new at the same time.

Out of interest, I run a Windows media center PC at home, so would be interested in some linux alternatives but not sure thats a project for a works PC

Maybe you could setup a spam filter for your organization, if you don't have one already. Possibly and IDS like snort for improved security. You could install something like nessus and start vulnerability scanning your network. Maybe a web proxy?

No, we dont already have one - that's a good idea and something I could look into.

Sounds fascinating (and geniunely useful). Whats an IDS though?

How would one go about setting up such a system?

Any guides on how i would start setting up a machine for vulnerability scanning?

Thanks

Well, Nessus (nessus.org) has usually been the most common on Unix systems. You can download it from them. As I recall they have a 2.x and 3.x version. They are both free, but 2.x is open source. There are several guides on the web to help you through installing it. Just search for nessus and your distro to find an appropriate guide.

There are some live distros like Knoppix STD that have it pre-installed. Of course you have to run those off the CD.

Here is an explanation of an IDS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrusion-detection_system
Snort is the most common one for Unix systems.

Thanks for that. Lots of great info provided there. I'll have a stab and (soon no doubt) post back wtih any issues!