Was given this little wintel box by a friend fairly recently, but I haven’t yet even powered it on. I don’t have a power cable for it unfortunately but when I do, what do you think I should do with it? What would you do with it?
I think it could potentially be just a basic lightweight desktop for web browsing and such, maybe a little smart tv box or something like that to replace the Chromecast I’m ashamed to admit I use, maybe run some basic self hosted stuff like pihole or home assistant? Could probably be a little emulation machine for retro games but I doubt it would be capable of much more than that. But I’m not sure there’s too many ideas! I need suggestions people
Because it’s low end I’d put :
- headless Debian pre-configured with WiFi and
sshdto then add CopyPartyvia its single.pyfileapt install minidlnato serve media files back to add devices on LAN, e.g. VLC on desktop and mobile devices- mount a large microSD for data
- I’d add a WireGuard VPN configuration file and make both accessible outside the LAN but only on my devices
All that is relatively quick if you have done it before (maybe 30min total) and can run 24/7 for years requiring very little power.
- headless Debian pre-configured with WiFi and
Noice run a local LLM on it! /s or /as idk
You could check for Linux support. I suppose it runs on an Arm-Processor.
Maybe it runs PostmarketOs.
Edit: If you can run Linux on it:
Selfhosted:
- Gitea (If you are a programmer)
- Stash (Organized NSFW-Content ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) )
- Nextcloud
- Simple-Server ( NAS/SFTP/SSH)
- MeTube (Youtube-Downloader)
- Kitchenowl/Mealie (Kitchen-Organization / Mealprep)
- Lute (Selfhosted Alternative to Duolingo)
- Speedtest (Monitoring Internet-Speed)
- wishlist
- Hortusfox (For managing your Plants)
- MotionEye (Security-Cam-Monitoring)
On-Device:
- Libreelec/Kodi (Media-Device)
- Retroarch (Retro-Gaming-Station)
Forgejo > Gitea, though.
Looks interesting. But i am used to gitea. I use it for Years now on my workplace and in my homelab.
Maybe i will try Forgejo in The future.
For what it’s worth I was able to migrate my docker of gitea to a docker of forgejo by just changing the image to be forgejo and remaining some if the environment variables. It uses the game data and database so it’s basically a drop in replacement that they have instructions for on their website.
Makes trying it out pretty simple, not sure about migrating back to gitea from forgejo though.
There’s probably some lightweight Linux distro you can get to run on it. It could be used for some edge computing, like Pihole.
I have something like that set up as a discrete print server. Also one as the mini file share for the guest/untrusted devices network.
I have pihole lumped in with a more substantial machine, but these little guys are always nice for retro gaming up to the N64/PS1 era.