this post was submitted on 14 Jun 2025
833 points (97.9% liked)
Linux
55252 readers
1775 users here now
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
Rules
- Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
- No misinformation
- No NSFW content
- No hate speech, bigotry, etc
Related Communities
Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0
founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Laptops don't even use that much power. You guys are really not into home labbing or as good with tech as you think you are lol. Lots of people run older real servers and desktops as home servers. They use way more power than laptops. Raspberry Pis sound good but use progressively more power in each generation, and still struggle to compete with mini PCs and even older laptops in performance. They also never had good performance per watt. In performance per watt basically nothing beats a Mac Mini, though other mini PCs are also good. Laptops aren't bad in energy efficiency either. They are literally designed to run on battery so have as little idle draw as possible. They would be comparable to a mini PC if you turn off the display.
Edit: Modern RPis apparently use 25W, which is firmly in the territory of what a laptop would use when not running the screen or charging the battery.
Rpi uses 25watts? My old acer 6th gen laptop has a 15watt TDP and remains around 8watts 24/7 even with my services and without disconnecting the internals. My 8th gen laptop pulls 6watts with the screen on. People here saying older laptops arent a good choice are insane considering the ~$100-300 diffrence between an ewaste laptop and dedicated minipc + backup power bank (laptops have internal batterys you can easily replace when they go bad)
yeah even the best overheating overpowered gaming laptops have way lower power draw compared to your average desktop? It's really not that high or crazy to use an old laptop instead of buying a pi lol.