I love the old Mac Pros and even built a trashcan setup for Debian a few years ago. But TBH, they use a lot of electricity for the processing power they provide. If you already have one or can get one for free, great, use it. Linux runs great. But I wouldn't go to OWC and buy something that would be outperformed by a fanless, low TDP machine these days.

Depending which version of the MacPro you have exactly, that machine from 2010 is around the speed, or slightly faster, than a Raspberry Pi 5 with 8 GBs of RAM these days. The problem is the energy consumption, not really a green machine to run.

I also discovered that these are pretty cheap and really upgradeable while looking great.

I would never buy anything from Apple new, but old Mac Pro or MacBook Pro are really tempting.

Converted my fiancée ´s 2012 MacBook Pro to Linux two years ago and it’s a great machine which shouldn’t be collecting dust.

Sometimes people underestimate the treasures they have lying around 😅

It’s amazing how powerful a real workstation is even from fifteen years ago.

Oh man, I gotta dust off my wife's old 2009(?) MacBook now. I think the battery might be toast, but hopefully there's enough of a cult following that I can find a replacement for that as well.

Update: 2007

Processor 065-6991 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Memory 065-6993 4GB 667 DDR2 SDRAM - 2x2GB
Hard Drive 065-7452 250GB 5400RPM HDD
Optical Drive 065-6998 SuperDrive 8X
Display 065-7039 MacBook Pro 17-in Hi-Res GL WS

My dad has one from 2008 or 2009 with a swapped motherboard and firmware mod to 5,1 so he can run more recent mac versions. Also put in a r9 280 with custom firmware but somehow is still using all spinning hard drives

You're making me thing: can we still do that (change the OS to Windows or Linux) with the new Apple silicon Macs?

I don't believe it works "flawlessly" and I'm tired of people exaggerating their experience in such a misleading way. There's always some hitches and I don't get why people basically have to cake their OS experience with makeup like this.