I thought about using my Raspberry Pi 3 B+ as a NextCloud server, but research told me it would be too slow to be useful. Any cool useful projects I can do, without any extra purchases? I’m extremely low on money currently.

  • tmpodA
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    3 years ago

    Interested in this too. I have mine lying around being useless, and idk what to do with it. For now, I don’t wanna host anything accessible out of my network (don’t want to deal with opening ports and securing stuff well), so it has to be some home assistant thing (dunno what, I don’t really have smort appliances) or maybe a media center (?). Possibly a little seedbox, but it would be rather slow ig.

    Any suggestion is more than welcome ;)

    • m-p{3}@lemmy.ml
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      3 years ago

      I host a Kiwix instance. I figure that if the Internet goes down, at least I’ll have an offline copy of English Wikipedia I can read.

  • freely@lemmy.ml
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    3 years ago

    Tons of lighter services you can run. Even a media server is doable if you’re direct streaming instead of transcoding. Just depends what you want really.

    DNS (PiHole) is the super obvious choice, but you could do a personal VPN, email server, idk. The list is pretty endless.

    • seahorse@lemmy.ml
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      3 years ago

      Just a note: if you install PiVPN and then PiHole on the same pi, PiHole will detect it and use it as your DNS server, so you can block ads from wherever you go if you connect to the VPN.

  • JustEnoughDucks@lemmy.ml
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    3 years ago

    You could do some much lighter selfhosted options:

    • Music server for self-hosted streaming if that is your thing

    • Work on security of the pi for TOTP backups or BitWarden hosting (there are some Linux hardening guides that are fun to implement and teach about security)

    • Syncthing for backups of phone non-media files (e.g. Tasker, daylio, OTP database, text backup, signal backup)

    • Mail server for having you own domain email

    • problebly many more ideas I am foegetting

    • MarcellusDrum@lemmy.mlOP
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      3 years ago

      I like the mail server thing, but I’ve read on Hacker News that its a headache that is unworth it. Spam emails will flood the server, and my own emails will be sent to the spam folders of other people. Any experience with that?

      • poVoq@lemmy.ml
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        3 years ago

        Many ISP will block email sending from their network anyways, so yes not worth the effort.

        • randon@lemmy.161.social
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          3 years ago

          I set up a mail server for a project. And just had to write with t-online. And I think I got on their blocklist because I did a mistake in configuring the dns records accordingly. All the rest worked fine following a good guide.

          When I have a personal homepage I will do a mail server, too.

  • Jama@lemmy.ml
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    3 years ago

    I use it as nextcloud server (and other things like pihole, jellyfin and wallabag) and it works flawlessly for a single user

  • poVoq@lemmy.ml
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    3 years ago

    A XMPP server should have little problems running.

    Or maybe try HomeAssistant?

  • marcuse1w@lemmy.ml
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    3 years ago

    I always feel to connect some cables and make a light go blink blink very satisfying. There are cheap sets with all sorts of cables and lights/sensors.

    Then choose your language of choice and make it blink/summm/ measure the temperature/air pollution or so

    Once you have it choose another language and repeat 😀

    (BTW, I use a Raspberry Pi 3 as a Nextcloud server, works fine, this might depend on your expectations)

  • ⁠ ︎@lemmy.ml
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    3 years ago

    As a FREE* VPN:

    Get a good weatherproof enclosure for your PI, a solar panel, and a power bank. Configure it to automatically connect to any open WiFi networks (via bash script and cron) and then use said connection remotely as your own free VPN. Be sure to put the PI in a good remote area where it won’t be messed with, I’d suggest somewhere up high if possible, also if you’re using it for not so legal purposes I’d suggest doing it somewhere far away from your main base of operations.

    * FREE after initial hardware investments.

    • federico3@lemmy.ml
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      3 years ago

      Besides being theft of other people’s paid service and illegal, this puts innocent people at risk. Can we please keep this kind of ideas out of lenny?

      • ⁠ ︎@lemmy.ml
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        3 years ago

        Besides being theft of other people’s paid service and illegal, this puts innocent people at risk.

        Eh, that depends on your usage, you can easily get permission from a friend or family member to leave it at their place. I wouldn’t consider it theft since they just left the Wi-Fi network wide open for anyone to use, this would be a different story if someone used tools such as aircrack to gain access to the network, but that’s just my opinion, and this is only illegal if you use it for illegal purposes.

        Can we please keep this kind of ideas out of lenny?

        Somebody asked a question and I answered, there’s nothing illegal about it unless you make it illegal, I’ve even done a similar setup myself (with permission from the property/network owner, of course), so sorry but I’m not going to censor myself just because someone else is uncomfortable discussing these things on Lemmy.

      • ⁠ ︎@lemmy.ml
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        3 years ago

        Couldn’t you do this with mobile data?

        On a RPI? Technically you could, but this requires an additional purchase to connect to the cellular network and you’ll also have to pay a monthly fee for the service, at that point you might as well just get a VPN as it’s not worth the cost, that is unless you know a ridiculously cheap cellular provider.