this post was submitted on 14 May 2026
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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.

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[–] dan@upvote.au 68 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

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

https://retroassembly.com/ is a similar project.

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

[–] northernlights@lemmy.today 2 points 2 months ago (2 children)

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

[–] dan@upvote.au 16 points 2 months ago

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

[–] Auster@thebrainbin.org 8 points 2 months ago

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.

[–] RattlerSix@lemmy.world 37 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

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.

https://www.mmm.ucar.edu/models/wrf

[–] B0rax@feddit.org 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] RattlerSix@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

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.

[–] dan@upvote.au 36 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (3 children)

Game servers? https://linuxgsm.com/. Have an Unreal Tournament 99... tournament with friends.

[–] Shimitar@downonthestreet.eu 5 points 2 months ago (4 children)

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 7 points 2 months ago

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

[–] IratePirate@feddit.org 2 points 1 month ago

My pihole disagrees.

[–] ITGuyLevi@programming.dev 2 points 2 months ago

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

[–] Reannlegge@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 month ago

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?

[–] northernlights@lemmy.today 3 points 2 months ago

Oh that's cool, thanks.

[–] dhitchenor@scribe.disroot.org 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

thats an awesome suggestion @dan@upvote.au +1

they have cs, as well.

@OP post your server IP, I'll come play

[–] sbeak@sopuli.xyz 19 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] Sunny@slrpnk.net 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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 3 points 1 month ago

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

[–] poVoq@slrpnk.net 19 points 2 months ago (1 children)

A fediverse instance obviously.

[–] SpatchyIsOnline@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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 2 points 1 month ago

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.

[–] zonklezoop@lemmy.zip 18 points 2 months ago (2 children)

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 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I miss the days of dialing your local BBS

[–] zonklezoop@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 month ago

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

[–] guynamedzero@piefed.zeromedia.vip 2 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Forgive my negligence, but what is a BBS?

[–] zonklezoop@lemmy.zip 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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

[–] SreudianFlip@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 month ago

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

[–] meltedcheese@c.im 1 points 1 month ago

@guynamedzero Bulletin Board System (BBS)

[–] irmadlad@lemmy.world 10 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

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

[–] Strit@lemmy.linuxuserspace.show 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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 2 points 1 month ago
[–] warmaster@lemmy.world 9 points 2 months ago
[–] cyberwolfie@lemmy.ml 8 points 2 months ago

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

[–] KatherinaReichelt@feddit.org 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] mko@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 1 month ago (2 children)

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 4 points 1 month ago

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.

[–] meltedcheese@c.im 2 points 1 month ago

@mko I have one. Lots of fun. Made with a Raspberry Pi 0. Lots of plans online. It sits on my windowsill. Tiny! It feeds those two commercial flight tracking sites as well as others. Here is a link to the software for web interface to your ADSB receiver.

https://github.com/wiedehopf/tar1090

[–] gedfromgont@piefed.ca 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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 5 points 2 months ago

I just posted a comment about this :D

https://romm.app/

[–] hperrin@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 months ago

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.)

[–] A_norny_mousse@piefed.zip 4 points 2 months ago

A website/blog

[–] pedroapero@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

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

[–] cantankerous_cashew@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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 2 points 1 month ago

Oh that looks fun. Gonna try that, thanks.

[–] iknewitwhenisawit@fedinsfw.app 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] irmadlad@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

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

[–] drmoose@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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

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