How You Can Use 'Shell Computing'

Anton McClure • July 12, 2025

Shell computing is nothing new. It has been done at least dozens of times (more realistically hundreds of thousands if not millions of times) by various people. For most people, a "shell" server is a public or private access computer running any operating system on which the users can have access to a shell -- a text based user interface letting that user have lots of control over his/her computing activities. These computers are hosted in varying ways with equally varying technologies. One person's shell server could be a fancy dedicated or virtual machine in a datacenter, while someone else's could be on a Raspberry Pi tucked away on the inside of a closet or a basement.

The reasons for these servers vary between machines. Some exist as a general computing space, others to serve goals such as arts or teaching. In our case, with Nonpaged.NET, it is to do all three of those things within reasonable extents being a shared machine.

Nonpaged.NET allows learning and using UNIX & GNU/Linux without necessarily having to have that system installed on your computer. We aim to be welcoming of anyone willing to participate regardless of technical experience. We all have to learn somewhere, so why can't this be that somewhere? If you would like to be a part of this community, feel free to check out www.nonpaged.net and join us! On behalf of myself and the rest of our admins team, we will be happy to have you as a part of the Nonpaged community!