this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2023
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Retro Computing

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What can be done with old computers that are very low end? (lemmy.fmhy.ml)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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So me and my fmaily members have a bunch of old junky desktops,computers, and laptops but they refuse to get rid of any they wont even let me get rid of any of my old ones. i have pc and laptops dating from windows xp to windows 8.1 and most of them are missing minir parts that are needed like a good amount of ram, sound card, wifi, etc. is there something i cna do with old pc's escpecially ones with no sound card? i would buy upgrades buy pc parts are so pricey even old ones and i tend to collect diffrent computers fom thrift stores aswell, the pc rang from 1gb of ram-to 2gb of ram so there all slow, old and janky but just plan annoying.

any tips or suggestions would be very helpful.

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[โ€“] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Linux & BSD can make them useful as servers, media centres, retro emulators or even a desktop pc if you are patient.

They will chew more power than a raspberry pi but they are easier to come by.

An old desktop and an old laptop is enough to get a solid selfhosted homelab and media centre up and running.

Current favorite suggestion is install linux, navidrome & tailscale on an old machine with your music library. Then connect with Symfonium, web client or other app and enjoy.

[โ€“] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Good suggestions. Linux can do wonders on very low end hardware. Make sure to pick a good distro that has a good package manager with all of the software that you need. I recommend to look into Arch based distros if you feel like tinkering a bit. Debian and Fedora based distros would also do the trick, but the AUR from arch linux will cover all the software you'll need (use yay package manager for AUR support).

Good luck and happy tinkering!

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