Ask HN: Volunteer (remote) jobs for a sysadmin?

[aarrieta]

Hi everybody.

Sometimes, when tasks at job are quiet and I have a bit of free time, I would like to collaborate on an FOSS project. But I'm not good at programmin; my skills are in linux systems administration.

I guess that a volunteer job in system administration task would be good for me for developing new skills. And also would be great to be able to help other people working on cool and open projects.

So my question is: any ideas/suggestions about how I could collaborate with my sysadmin skills? (the collaboration should be remote, because im located in northern Argentina)

Thanks.

[retroafroman]

A couple ideas:

-You could do packaging for any of the Linux distros. They usually need help with pulling in the latest sources, putting together a few scripts, and then creating the packages to put in the repos. It would be great to support your favorite distro this way.

-Also, because you're located in Argentina, I'll assume you speak Spanish, in which case you can help with localization-translating software into Spanish. I imagine because it's a common language, a lot is already done, but I'm sure there's at least one or two applications that you regularly use which aren't, or maybe the man pages aren't done.

-Alpha and beta testing, and filing bugs is an important thing that needs to get done. If you just set up VMs with the latest alpha images of a distro when they come out, you could probably help the release team find bugs.

-Read and reply to the mailing lists for projects that you use. Many questions that pop up are pretty easy to solve. Also, hang out on the IRC channel for that project and help newbies. If the project has a wiki, help fill out more pages. Tutorials are very useful.

Most FOSS is already focused around remote collaboration, so I don't think you're at any disadvantage there. I think the hardest part is picking which project to support. I would recommend thinking about which programs/distros you use the most, and if they are small, or new, they will likely need help. From there, you can email and ask what to do, or just start trying to help.

Good luck!

[kiallmacinnes]

I'd add that, nobody is going to give you the sysadmin keys day one. But each of the contributions mentioned above can earn trust with the project you pick, which may eventually lead to something directly related to sysadmin :)

[aarrieta]

Thank you for your ideas and comments.

Will begin to apply then right now.

(and yes, good point about that sysadmin keys fact :-) )