Used to run a bbs myself, back in the mid 90s. Was called the software
connection, had message groups, file downloads, online games, and even
(the last year or so), internet email and web access.
I used wildcat for the main bbs, and a program called waffle for the
internet access, but those were both dos programs. Even though I ran
two lines with networking software, thankfully linux doesn't require
that, so doing what you're asking is certainly possible on the pi, or
under any version of linux for that matter.
Synchronet does work on linux, so should be compilable on the pi, but
there are other options as well, so don't get stuck on synchronet before
you've looked around to see what's out there for use.
The whole online games thing is going to be a bit more complicated now
that bbs doors aren't really written anymore, and most of those are
written for dos, so if you want to go that route, you'd need to use
dosemu or something similar to run them.
There are some bbs games that released source code, and a few of those
did get ported to linux, and some worked on linux out of the box, but
mostly, you'll either need to be really good with tying together
separate systems to get what you want, or you'll need to stick to those
few options that do exist for linux usage.
It's easier if you stick to those, but it will limit your choices, but
to start out, that might be the best option.
There are still a few bbses that still hang on online, that you can
telnet to, so perhaps you could check them out and see what they offer,
and determine if that's how you want to handle things or if you want to
go a different route. There's no wrong answers, just do as much as you
feel comfortable doing, and you'll get there a bit at a time if necessary.
There are programs that can turn your linux environment directly into a
bbs type system, and one of those might be what you want to start with
until you get the hang of things, though if you're in it for the long
term, those probably aren't what you want, because of upgradability and
the like, but again, it's all up to you, so go for it, and see what
happens. I'll sign on when you get it up and running, I've not done any
bbsing for quite a while now, and I find I miss it.
On 1/1/2021 1:19 PM, Zachary Shifflett (Redacted sender zshifflett for
DMARC) wrote:
Hi all and happy new year.===========================================================
I'm interested in running a bulletin board system, bbs, like they used to
have a lot of back in the 90s and early 2000s. I am still a relative newbie
with all the pi and linux stuff and am wondering if this would be a feasible
project. I'd like to have a message area, maybe a small file area and a
couple door games just for fun.
Anyone got any experience with that stuff?
Cheers,
Zach
Sent from my iPhone===========================================================
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