Servers

Available Shell Servers

We have a variety of Linux Servers with a variety of Linux Distributions and Desktop Environments. Linux servers in use here are of three basic lines, those derived from RedHat, such as Fedora, Centos, and Scientific Linux, and those derived from Debian such as Debian, Ubuntu, and Mint. Ubuntu is the most current and feature rich. Then there is Manjaro, derived from Arch Linux. Arch is more often broken because it is a real “do it yourself” Linux, an excellent learning platform, a good development platform, not a good production platform.

All of these servers are available if you have a shell account here. You can use them to learn various versions, decide which to install, and as one place you can develop applications for all versions. We install a wide variety of development tools on all of our publicly available servers.

Our servers listen to port 443 in addition to the standard ssh port of 22 to provide a means to connect from behind a firewall that blocks non-web access. You can also utilize Guacamole on our website (login public, password public).

Centos7.Eskimo.Com
This is shell server based upon the Centos7 Linux distribution (based upon Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7). To connect to this one graphically, you’ll need to use x2go and select the Mate Desktop. The native Gnome3 Desktop does not work with x2go but Mate, which is a fork of Gnome2. There are no games on this machine but if you are interested in developing or learning the most recent version of Centos or RedHat Enterprise Linux upon which it is based, this server will provide these capabilities. We have all of the available development utilities, headers, libraries, and tools that are available for Centos7. This includes tools for C, C++, Java, Go, Erlang, Perl, Ruby, PHP, F77, and shells.
Centos-Stream.Eskimo.com
This server is running Centos-Stream, a Redhat based Linux distribution. It is very similar to Centos8 which has reached end of life except that this is a rolling distribution much like Rawhide but slightly less raw. A variety of desktops and shells are available.
Debian.Eskimo.Com
This server is running on Debian Bullseye. It has a rich assortment of software installed, including hundreds of Games, a huge variety of Office Productivity software, many Educational and Scientific applications, a variety of Integrated Development Environments, and many programming languages. All of the documentation available online these applications is also loaded.
Fedora.Eskimo.Com
This server runs Fedora Rawhide. It can be accessed graphically using x2go and the Mate desktop. It has the most applications of any of the Redhat derived servers. I install just about everything I can get to work on this machine so it has a huge variety of applications installed.
Manjaro.Yellow-Snow.Net
Manjaro is a good choice for a Linux user who wants to just install and go. There is a pleasant user interface and a good choice of software in the Manjaro repositories. It is a less technical Linux than Ubuntu, you can do most things through graphical interfaces and the default xfce interface is extremely light in terms of memory footprint. Like most modern distros, a variety of Windows systems are available and we have Gnome, Mate, KDE, Xfce, LXDE, and LXQT installed.
Mint.Eskimo.Com
This is another recent addition to our shell servers. It is running Mint, although we have the Mate Desktop installed for graphical access. This is necessary because Unity and other compositing Desktops are incompatible with x2go and really work very roughly with VNC. If you like games, this is a good server to use and there are many installed. Mint is a derivative of Ubuntu which in turn is derived from Debian and this server thus follows the structure and layout of Debian and Ubuntu.
MxLinux.Eskimo.Com
MxLinux is an excellent choice for a computer with limited resources. Before the overhead of a Desktop is considered, MxLinux uses 200MB less RAM out of the box than does Ubuntu. If you’re not a fan of Poettering and Systemd, you’ll like this OS as it still uses a System-V init with Systemd shims to allow packages requiring systemd to function. You can also run systemd and in fact I am doing so because it boots faster. The default Desktop is LXDE which is also small and efficient. But if you like eye candy you can install any Desktop you like and as with other servers I will install all that I can get to work on this OS.
Scientific7.Eskimo.Com
Scientific7 is very much like Centos7. This machine can be accessed graphically using x2go. I recommend the Mate Desktop, Gnome will not work with x2go on this machine because it is Gnome3 which is a compositing Desktop that is incompatible with x2go.
Ubuntu.Eskimo.Com
This is the latest stable Ubuntu release. It can be accessed graphically using x2go and the Mate Desktop. The native Unity desktop is a compositing desktop which is incompatible with x2go. This machine is equipped with many applications including a huge number of games, a rich assortment of development tools and computer programming languages, a huge assortment of Office productivity software, many scientific, electronic, and educational tools.
Zorin.Eskimo.Com
Zorin is a Ubuntu derived operating system. It combines the eye candy of some other Ubuntu flavors such as Mint, with the security awareness and up to date nature of Ubuntu providing a really superb server environment. This machine is our best equipped server. It has the full Ubuntu Studio Suite, a very large assortment of development tools, language packs for all supported languages, many games, both Libre and Caligra Office Suites, and much more. X2go is supported on this machine.

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