Suggestions? Old hardware collecting dust, not sure what to install

General system Kernel, boot, graphics & hardware
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I have some old hardware that I’m not sure what to do with, so I’m hoping for some suggestions. Speaking on power efficiency, some of it is really antiquated, but I’m not worried about my electric bill. It’ll still get paid lol!

DIY built Intel i7-875k desktop (built it in 2010, everything still works just fine!)
Toshiba Satellite C55-A5195 (i3 3rd gen)
HP/Compaq 8510w Core2-Quad :rofl:
HP Chromebook 14-ca052wm (Celeron N3350)

AAAaaand one more edit, I already have a giant server with XCP-ng so I’ve got a hypervisor that I can dump loads of stuff onto. All of the machines I mentioned don’t necessarily need to fill a role with a home server/lab situation. But I’m open to suggestions that way anyway.

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A pihole install so all the devices on your network get automatic ad-blocking would be one thing I would do.

Although it would probably be easier to throw that into your hypervisor.

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You could use this as a Test machine for all your “I wonder what this would do” questions.

You could set it up as a headless LAN server and experiment with having a server. If you would like to build a permanent server, there are plenty of low power solutions hardware wise.

Pudge

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Thank you, Pudge. I ruined your reply with a last-minute edit in my OP. But your suggestion is still valid, especially when I’m like “Hmm gee, I wonder if this plugin/addon/thingie would work good in XCP-ng?”, rite? lol

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That being said, given what else you have, if it was me I would get rid of them instead of trying to use them. :slight_smile:

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I’m a packrat and a cheapskate. I hate throwing anything away, and it’s too old to sell for any amount of money worthwhile. I was thinking of just loading various Linux distros on them all. I’m sure the i7 would handle EOS just fine as would the Toshiba. Not sure which distros the Chromebook and Compaq would be good with though. :confused:

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Honestly, almost any distro would be fine on any of those machines from a CPU perspective.

The real issue is ram. Especially if you want to use it as a desktop.

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I think the Chromebook would do well as a spare unit I can keep on hand for when someone comes over asking “Hey can I use your computer really quick?” I can hand them that.

The compaq has 8 GB RAM and a DVD/RW w/ Lightscribe! It also has HDMI, VGA, FIrewire, PC Slot, Smart Card slot, SD reader, wifi, bluetooth, AAAAAAnd… drumroll… A DIALUP MODEM! :smiley: This thing was an enviable mobile workstation in its hayday lol

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For perspective, I ran EOS with KDE on a Celeron N4000 with 4GB ram and found it to be quite snappy as long as I didn’t do anything CPU intensive or exceed the RAM limitations.

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Well, that does it then. I’m just going to install EOS on all of them then. Probably run the leaner DE’s on them, of course.

Since the laptops all have Bluetooth, I was wondering about some form of AndroidTV or something? I have a Verizon Stream box, but a “roll-your-own” install of AndroidTV de-Googled might be cool. I could pair the Verizon Stream’s remote, I’m pretty sure.

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For androidtv, making sure you have supported hardware to decode video streams would be worth checking.

If you like retro-gaming, retroarch might be an interesting thing to run.

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Yeah I forgot. Codec decoding lol ok so probably not AndroidTV.

I have a PiStation (Pi4 in the PS1 style housing with built-in LCD, it’s adorable!), but I might consider each given machine’s hardware spec, then decide which OS is best suited for it to be an emulation box. As of now, AALLLL of my gaming is done on my main rig. So when I’m in the living room (not in my office) I zone out to Fixer Upper wishing I had my game controller next to my recliner so I could play some Zelda or something at the same time lol