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
You could put your weed in there.
This is the answers I come to Lemmy for thank you bestie
Sorry, I didn’t mean to be an ass. It’s a dumb movie quote. I hope you get some proper answers fam.
Lol you’re fine, I wasn’t trying to be sarcastic here it was a genuine response I thought it was funny :)
Movie quote? I recognize it from a recurring Rob Schneider character on SNL. What movie was it in?
I had to look it up because I didn’t remember. Aparently “the hot chick” from 2002:
SNL might have been first but not being from the US I’ve never watched that.
Yup! Though that’s Adam Sandler doing the bit in the Rob Schneider movie, the original bit on SNL was done by Schneider (originally in 1993 i think). 🙂
4GB RAM? That’s a whole vanilla Minecraft Java edition server right there, for free! :)
Install home assistant on it
+1 for Home Assistant, and then with Add Ons it can also do other useful home network stuff (network ad blocker, VPN, *arr, etc).
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.
Seems most of these Wintel boxes are Intel Celeron/Atom based, so it should be able to run just about any Linux OS.
Well than the possibilities are endless for OP. Let The Linux-Party begin :P
I suppose it runs on an Arm-Processor
It would be odd if a device labeled “Wintel Pro” had an arm CPU.
Wintel means Windows on Intel, or more broadly Windows on any x86 or x86_64 processor.
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
homelab
I would use that to make it a vpn passthrough for my work so I could dich windows 11 for good and use Linux on my main rig.
You could install Batocera and use it as a home theatre PC and retro gaming station.
LibreElec (Kodi pirating box)
I used one of these (might even be the exact same model) as a little music player attached to an old soundbar. I could connect via ssh and play music through the speakers. The main challenge was finding a distribution that worked well with the internal sound card, since I wanted to use the aux output for sound. I don’t think that I ever tried connecting a monitor to it, but it worked well for what I used it for, right up until I needed the sound bar for something else.
NetBSD. This box seems to have a vanilla x86 processor and it has plenty of resources (for NetBSD, that is). You can’t use this as a daily driver, but it should be good enough to learn UNIX and/or self-host some stuff.
I got some old Futro S920s recently. Put in WiFi/BT, loaded them up with Batocera and some Retro ROM’s and gave them to friends to game on. Setup was super easy.
Pretty much only good for a headless debian file server
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.
Sell it. Put your money earned to buy a general computer to tinker with instead.
If you have the skills you’ve already been tearing it down, soldering some pins, and compiling your modified uboot/EFI firmware and flashing it. The hack above has only like twenty people in the whole world who know how to do.
If it was a TV box and still functioning, there are people out there genuinely have a valid use case for it, to watch TV of course. Don’t ruin it.
