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).
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.
Game servers? https://linuxgsm.com/. Have an Unreal Tournament 99... tournament with friends.
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.
A fediverse instance obviously.
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.
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
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.
Games on Whales
I had a World of Warcraft-server running for a while, that was quite fun.
Implement GNU Terry Pratchett on your servers:
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)
I think I read recently about some emulator portal you can selfhost, would that be silly enough? Requires you to acquire ROMs though.
A website/blog
Assuming your server is indeed public facing, try endlessh-go. It’s a tarpit that wastes time/resources of bots/scanners/skiddies
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.)
You could host a Tor relay node (or an i2p node). These networks need crowd and bandwidth.
I keep thinking making a magic mirror would be such a project..
Chat bots are real fun to make and are really useful.
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