What can I do with my super old laptop?

Linux@lemmy.ml – 79 points – 2 months ago

I had installed Debian on an Acer Aspire One Laptop. It has a 32-bit Intel Atom CPU with just 1GB of RAM. I obviously can't run it like a usual desktop anymore, it's way too slow.

I tried it to connect it to my TV with HDMI to create some sort of "Smart TV" setup, but that didn't work out because I can't even play 1080p videos on VLC with it smoothly.

So.... What now? Can I only use it for headless stuff like pihole, nextcloud, etc. now?

Is there any hope left for my unsuccessful "Smart TV" contraption?

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You can get an old Raspberry Pi very cheap, i have a 2b but you can go even lower. It's probably a better idea to spend a few bucks and install DietPi with Pihole on it. It uses only 5 watts, your laptop takes probably ten times more.

This is a very good point, and it's one of the reasons I don't use my old laptop as an always-on server.

While this is true for my another older netbook (40 W), my netbook's power consumption for running Pi-hole is ~15 W. I think it's acceptable for such operation. 5 W is tempting though.