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)
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
Well the portemanteau suggests it’s WINdows on inTEL, so that makes sense.
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.
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.
- I’d add a WireGuard VPN configuration file and make both accessible outside the LAN but only on my devices
I don’t understand this part. Wouldn’t this device be on your home network already, or am I misunderstanding your meaning?
Indeed but by doing so I can connect from the outside World too, e.g. if I’m at the dentist waiting for an appointment, I just connect to the VPN over my 5G connection, no login required.
You only need one VPN peering point inside your network. You do not need WG on other internal devices, just routing between intermediary subnet and LAN.
Am I misunderstanding your scenario?
I setup WireGuard only last week so maybe I’m the one who misunderstand something : on your LAN assuming you are NOT using your router (or switch, or a networking device) to be a peer of the VPN, don’t you need to add each machine as a peer to the VPN? Also doesn’t that leave the most granularity so that the (root) user of each machine can chose to be on/off and more, e.g. split tunneling?
What you’re saying is true, however VPNs connect both hosts and subnets. If you have a VPN server on your subnet, you can easily allow any client that connects to it to have access to your LAN.
VPNs are simply networking over encrypted tunnels. What you do with that tunnel is up to you.
- headless Debian pre-configured with WiFi and
homelab
LibreElec (Kodi pirating box)
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 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.
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.
You could install Batocera and use it as a home theatre PC and retro gaming station.
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.
Noice run a local LLM on it! /s or /as idk
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.
Pretty much only good for a headless debian file server
