About this server 
=================

This server is called "medialab" and was born back in 1999. It used to
be the file, application, mail and web server for a public access unix
system created in Catania (Sicily) by Freaknet Medialab, a hackerspace
and cultural association founded in 1994 as an alternative BBS network. 

medialab was originally located in an occupied squat (the CSOA "Auro"),
and provided email boxes and access to Unix terminals to whoever asked
for an account. It used to have more than 500 active users.
Traditionally, medialab has also had a shared and open "luther" account,
which allows anybody to connect from anywhere and use the system without
having a registered account.

Freaknet Medialab has moved through several other places in the last 20
years. Nowadays it is located in Palazzolo Acreide, and is the home of
the "Museo dell'Informatica Funzionante" computer museum, a collection
of hardware, software, electronics and documentation spannig 70 years of
computing history. And during these 20 years, medialab (the server) has
followed Freaknet Medialab (the hackerspace and cultural association)
from place to place, continuing to provide services to several hundred
users around Europe, and effectively representing the digital heart and
soul of Freaknet.

After being down for several months, medialab is now back online. The
cool thing about medialab is that it is a "digital time capsule". The
server was installed in 1999 as a Slackware Linux 7.1, with several
applications compiled from scratch and some ad-hoc customisations. Since
then, medialab has been running pretty unmodified (and unbroken) for
about 20 years, so most of the software running on medialab dates back
to 1999-2001, with the exception of a few vital security patches.

When you login on medialab you will be using a GNU/Linux system from the
late '90s, maybe one of the few still available on the Internet, and
probably the only one which still allows free access. But more
importantly, you will be breathing the history and passion of Freaknet
Medialab, and be part of a unique story.