Unix Shell Accounts? 115
mcovey asks: "Unix shell accounts used to be easy to find, with quality applications installed and free web space. Nowadays the only free ones left are either not accepting new accounts, have limited applications or send you on a wild goose chase to register. Does anyone know any free or low-cost shell accounts that include compilers, IRC, background processes, FTP, a decent editor and an email app (preferably pine, since I have a config file already on my IMAP server)?"
Why do you need a hosted shell account? (Score:5, Insightful)
They wish they could (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure it wasn't done on a whim. Giving out shell accounts allows the potential for serious abuse, and when you start granting strangers permission to do so many random things from the shell, abuse is destined to occur.
panix.com is da bomb. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Why do you need a hosted shell account? Reasons (Score:3, Insightful)
You are an out of work, homeless, software developer, and the library won't let you compile software on one of their computers.
You happen to be interested in writing new software to spam the internet, but don't want direct evidence of it being your system sending it out. (not a legitimate reason, but it wouldn't surprise me if someone wanted to do just this. It's probably the primary reason you might find it hard to find a hosted shell account as well.)
You have a mail server set up at home, doing secure imap, which is the only hole in your firewall, and would like to read your mail at an Internet cafe, or public library, without having to put a copy of that pine config on every computer you touch.
Just some ideas.
-Rusty
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Linode (Score:4, Insightful)