I have plans to start a second open source project that will need a server so over the past few days I re-purposed an old Windows laptop into a server running Ubuntu Linux.
The installation was a little tricky because after I downloaded the Ubuntu installation file, I discovered that the DVD burner on this old laptop was no longer working. Instead, I needed to create a bootable USB. Rufus is a great utility that made this very fast and easy. I deleted an old recovery partition, added a 1 GB swap partition for virtual memory and loaded Ubuntu into the remaining free space. I preserved the Windows partition and can now dual boot between the Ubuntu and Windows operating systems.
I created a new user account and landed on the third rung of the Password Ladder. I configured SSH to access the server remotely and I am good to go.
I plan to make a few more configuration changes so the server stays awake persistently. I plan to turn off the Ubuntu GUI and configure the SSH server to start on login. For now I’ve got enough traction to get started on my open source project.