this post was submitted on 05 Jan 2026
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I don't expect much but I found an old pi I bought probably 2016(may of been 2017). It was supposed to be a pi-hole but was never able to get the dns forwarding to work on my modem. It still works but wanted to somehow convert it to a regular distro(it's based on a micro-SD and I don't have any more microsd readers). I wanted to set it up as a basic system I could ssh into a terminal. Not expecting anything fancy or even graphic based. A lot of stuff I want to learn/practice "work" on windows but are native to Linux, like vim/neovim nmap gcc etc. Is this feasible? Am I under estimating what's possible with it?

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[–] vrek@programming.dev 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Yeah, I remember having a full desktop to show videos back in the day(like pre-2005ish). I knew it was more powerful than it seemed but it appears I underestimated it.

[–] wltr@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 3 days ago

Actually, modern Linux software not that much power hungry. In my opinion this computer is very valuable for the 24/7 use case. I have a laptop with broken screen, could be a decent server, but it looks like with the essential services that I have, Raspberry Pi is just ample. That’s not for everyone, I have a friend who needs much more, but this computer can run at least some basics. To me that’s (as I’ve mentioned the names already) network wide ad block, syncing my files, having some simple web services. I’m thinking of hosting Immich, I’d just dedicate a more powerful computer to that. Which I plan to turn off and on (perhaps even via Wake-on-LAN) when needed. Not that convenient, but manageable. So, I’d recommend to start with the services you think of essentials and see what it can handle.