It’s not worth shipping and handling, it’s beaten up, and I don’t know anybody who wants it. Nothing is upgradeable, unless you count inserting a microSD card.
Of course I could use it as a janky media server or a dumb SSH terminal, but I’ve already got other machines for those jobs. Or I could recycle it, but what’s the fun in that? Suggest me your wackiest programs to try, dangerous distros, or most unorthodox setups to make use of it.
Batocera linux and retro games!
Minecraft server is always easy and fun. Honestly any game server.
You could use it to host a simple webpage too.
It would have to be a very old version of Minecraft. The recent ones take a lot of CPU power and RAM, even without mods.
It would probably work great for something like a Quake III or Unreal Tournament server though.
The recent ones take a lot of CPU power and RAM, even without mods.
AFAIK the footprint is only slightly heavier than the old versions if you use the performance mods, not to mention these flags for the OpenJ9 JVM.
Swap in a new display controller board, get a cheap Bluetooth keyboard and wire the eee PC (maybe?) to the controller board. Then, remove the internal board and drive to make space for an old Android phone on which you can install a Linux distro.
Voila! A “laptop” that you can upgrade whenever you get a new phone or if someone donates a phone to you.
I don’t think there’s any useful way to put it to regular use for yourself, but you could:
- install debian on it and keep it around in case of an emergency. turn it on once in a while to keep it updated (doesn’t need to be that often, it’s debian)
- use it on the go (no worries about it getting stolen)*
- use it a place where you wouldn’t use your main laptop as to not risk damange (camping, hiking, on a trip, etc)*
- install a friendlier linux distro and give it away to someone who doesn’t have a computer (a 10yo cousin maybe)
- give it away to someone who has a computer, but doesn’t have a second one and might be happy to get one to play with
*though i imagine the battery is not in good shape given your “beaten up” description
- SliTaz is fun to play and very small.
- Puppy Linux is very capable and there are Debian variants.
to play with, sure. but in the case of a backup machine, you want something reliable, rock-solid, low maintenance and easy to use, which is why I recommended debian
See if it runs either Menuet OS or Kolibri OS, they’re about the smallest non-linux OSs I know of.
You could turn it into a Home Assistant control panel if it has touch screen support
Server for various open source games that don’t require much cpu or ram. E.g. freeciv, battle for wesnoth.
If it’s an asus ee, the vents are all on the sides. With a couple of shims underneath it would fit in a bookshelf with a bunch of other books.
As far as uses… nat hole punching for an overlay network is one way I’ve used these devices before.
WireGuard, and an external HDD. Run at a remote location for off-site backup.
I do this with a raspberry pi 3 at the in-laws. I copied the data over locally before setting it up, and after that it’s just nightly incremental rsync, which is fine even over my slow (35Mbps) upload.
I’ve been thinking about doing this too! I have a RPi 4 that’s not doing anything, and I don’t really have a great offsite solution for backups and I have family in another country. Maybe next time I go over there I’ll see if they’ll let me set one up lol.
@monovergent I’ve always wanted to get something like this and just make it boot up to a full screen asciiquarium. Lol
As a TV for your kitchen?
Bad idea, they struggle with YouTube or any video because they don’t have hardware decoders for AVC/HEVC.
Maybe can decode by software, something easy on CPU (MPEG1 maybe), and the conversion is done by other machine.
Maybe audio?
Reference: I have one of those Atom netbooks.
I recently discovered kmscon: a hardware accelerated utf-8 & emoji capable replacement for the standard Linux console. Put that on.
Nothing. Power waste and it doesn’t do much.
Home Assistant host MAYBE, but you can find lesser power straws to run that.
@[email protected] 24 hours “remind me”
@kionite231 Ok, I will remind you on Tuesday Feb 4, 2025 at 12:27 AM UTC.
Well, right now I’m experimenting with an old mini PC, and using a couple of USB HDDs im creating a ZFS pool to serve as storage for an email server
