16
What can I make out of a Old Pentium D desktop
(lemmy.world)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 06 Jun 2024
16 points (83.3% liked)
Selfhosted
40247 readers
712 users here now
A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.
Rules:
-
Be civil: we're here to support and learn from one another. Insults won't be tolerated. Flame wars are frowned upon.
-
No spam posting.
-
Posts have to be centered around self-hosting. There are other communities for discussing hardware or home computing. If it's not obvious why your post topic revolves around selfhosting, please include details to make it clear.
-
Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or github here. Just post the link for folks to click.
-
Submission headline should match the article title (don’t cherry-pick information from the title to fit your agenda).
-
No trolling.
Resources:
- selfh.st Newsletter and index of selfhosted software and apps
- awesome-selfhosted software
- awesome-sysadmin resources
- Self-Hosted Podcast from Jupiter Broadcasting
Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.
Questions? DM the mods!
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
Yeah, it would make a beefy router for sure. Wouldn't be very power-efficient, but would handle the job well.
Outside of that, you're most limited by the 512 MB RAM. Adding a larger drive would be an easy/cheap upgrade (though it may be SATA II speeds or possibly SATA I).
If you use OpenWRT for your router OS, you can also install AdGuard and get a bit more use out of it.
If you can add an HBA for better SATA speeds, and have room in the case, it might make a halfway decent NAS (or backup NAS).
I have an old Raspberry Pi as PiHole and another Pihole running on as a virtual machine. I have an ryzen PC running as a NAS and Jellyfin.
I was trying to get a half decent PC to make a firewall router out of.
Aside from being a little power hungry, then that should do the job. opnSense or OpenWRT should run really well.
I read on OPNSense guide it needs 2gb ram to run, it would be difficult to even get a 1gb ram for it. Not to say expensive too.
Good to know, thanks. I haven't deployed it in years (have been using OpenWRT which will run on a potato). Getting ready to build a new router/firewall myself, but I don't think the 2 GB is gonna be a problem. Have been debating sticking with OpenWRT or going to OPNSense.
Nice to be of your help.
How's OpenWRT to use and install. Though pretty experienced with linux. This is the first time trying to do the hardcore networking stuff.
Most of my devices I was able to flash it right to it (or TFTP boot the installer and go through the steps via console cable). On x86, you just flash a boot image with
dd. The hardest "install" was to a batch of enterprise APs where I had to attach a programming clip to its flash chip and use a Rapberry Pi to burn the image. After that, though, I could update them normallyIf you've reached this point in your OpenWRT install, turn around. lol. I only kept going because I thought I was bidding $12 on a single Aruba AP-105 and ended up getting a lot of 20 (for $12), so I had to figure out some use for them.
Usage is pretty straightforward through the web UI (LuCI). For some more complex configs, it's sometimes challenging to figure out the UCI syntax to configure (when I was playing around with B.A.T.M.A.N for example) but otherwise is pretty nice.