That’s okay, in fact, it’s a fun challenge in itself. If you opt for the always free tier, your resources will be limited (580 Mb RAM). Usually, providers offer readymade VMs with operating systems pre-installed, so you won’t have to do this manually. In this quick guide I’m assuming you are running Linux. They have an “always free” tier for which very specific restrictions apply both for the hardware and the location of the Virtual Machine (it has to be located in a specific part of the US).Ī virtual machine is basically a computer program that emulates a computer system on which you can run a particular operating system as if it were a regular computer as you have it at home. Our server is hosted on Google Cloud Platform. Boot up a Linux Virtual Machine in the cloud ¶ Here’s a quick write up of the steps to get you started. Okay fair enough: your skill level is also a limit, but you can make fun wonky webpages with basic html and css. My main interest was to gain some experience with setting up a web server and being a system admin of a UNIX-like system.įor my non-technical friends, it was a fun project because it provided a safe environment to get to learn the command line and learn how to write web pages.Īs for the content of those web pages: your own fantasy is the limit. There’s something in this project for people of different interests and skill sets.

Well, here’s the perfect project: setting up your own “tilde club” along the lines of I felt the vague need to do a project, but more specifically I wanted it to be a project that would be collaborative and social, to make up for the social interaction lost due to Covid-19. My guess is that many people noticed a similar effect during this Corona crisis, thinking something along the lines of “well at least I now have time to do project X that I’ve been meaning to do for a while”, only to find that it’s not that easy to stay motivated after being locked in the house for several days without external structure.

When I’m busy I am usually very motivated to do side projects, but paradoxically I find it harder to stay motivated and productive when I find myself with more time on my hands.

How to make tilde in linux