Well, it isn't your computer; it's my computer, sitting in a server farm somewhere in Sunnyvale, California. It has nearly 100% uptime (3 minutes of downtime over the last year), a static IP address you can point domains at or use to host your own Counter Strike or Minecraft server, and particularly it has a 1Gb/s (128 megabytes per second) sustained upload and download speed, so you could actually host a high-bandwidth popular media streaming server or website or something. Because it is only accessible remotely, it forces you to use the terminal, which means you will be diving into the 'real stuff' right away.
To the layman, this means you can host your very own website! For free, none of this $20/month business!
Also, there's a small community of users on the server who like to talk to each other using the rudimentary posix 'talk' program, localhost irc, etc.
Also, I love teaching people about linux, telling them about all the cool projects they can set up if they only have a linux box with a static IP, and I will talk your ears off if you want me to, while guiding you through learning things.
Or if you aren't interested in learning and are just looking for a persistent box to use 'screen' to stay logged into IRC all the time, I can give you that too (latest weechat git builds, latest irssi source builds, etc)
It'll also give you a great feel of what it was like to use a computer in the 1980's.
The benefit here isn't the operating system, it's the persistent uptime, the community, the static IP, and the extremely high thoroughput connection.
Sign up form: Click Here
I own a personal server running Debian Squeeze which has a 1Gb/s symmetric connection and 15TB per month bandwidth.
I am offering free shell accounts to lesswrongers, with one contingency:
You'll be placed in a usergroup, 'lw', as opposed to various other usergroups for various other communities I belong to, which will be in other usergroups. Anything that ends up in /var/log is fair game. I intend to make lots of graphs and post them on all the communities I belong to. There won't be any personally identifying data in anything that ends up publicly.
Your shell account will start out with a disk quota of 5g, and if you need more you can ask me. I'm totally cool with you seeding your torrents. I do not intend to terminate accounts at any point for inactivity or otherwise; you can reasonably expect to have access for at least a year, probably longer.
Fill out the form at the top of the page, query me on freenode's irc (JohnWittle), send me an email: johnwittle@gmail.com, or reply to this thread with your own contact information.
If you'd like to ask questions about the server, or what good such a service might be for you, point your IRC client at johnwittle.com and /join #shells (you should also do this if you sign up), or find me on freenode, or comment below.
Also, while the results of my analysis are likely to go in Discussion, I was wondering if this offering of free service itself might go in discussion. I asked in IRC and was told that advertisements are seriously frowned upon and that I would lose all my karma.I was told that this is not too similar to advertising, and that it would fly.Edit: As far as illicit activities go... I am precommitting here to fully cooperating with any law enforcement entities who approach me with regards to the server. By using the server, you are agreeing to abstain from any activities which will get me in trouble even if I cooperate fully with law enforcement.