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Sick Leave, Getting Bored, and Recycling Old Tech

Two weeks of fit-note boredom turns into a plan to recycle an old laptop into a home server.

1 min read Juan Montano


Due to mental health issues, I was given a 2 week fit note by my GP. While most people would see it as “rest”, I see 2 weeks of boredom. Don’t get me wrong, being with my son has and will improve my mental state a lot as my family is my safety net; but I don’t feel like wasting 2 weeks being unproductive.

I then read an article about copy party, an open source software you can deploy even on your phone and thought that would be a good project to do while being off sick. I had a spare phone with a 1TB microSD card, enough to host most of my files and photos.

Ubuntu Server

As I was making notes on how best to implement the project, being a person with OCPD, I didn’t just settle for it to just work, it had to be implemented well. So the scope crept, I listed more than what a phone could handle. So, logically, I opted to recycle an unused laptop instead.

I formatted the drive, installed ubuntu server, and casaOS.

Here begins my 2 week sick leave.