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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.

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Is a old raspberry pi viable for anything with Linux? (programming.dev)

submitted 4 days ago by vrek@programming.dev to c/linux@lemmy.ml

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I don't expect much but I found an old pi I bought probably 2016(may of been 2017). It was supposed to be a pi-hole but was never able to get the dns forwarding to work on my modem. It still works but wanted to somehow convert it to a regular distro(it's based on a micro-SD and I don't have any more microsd readers). I wanted to set it up as a basic system I could ssh into a terminal. Not expecting anything fancy or even graphic based. A lot of stuff I want to learn/practice "work" on windows but are native to Linux, like vim/neovim nmap gcc etc. Is this feasible? Am I under estimating what's possible with it?

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[–] azimir@lemmy.ml 3 points 4 days ago

The biggest limitation on the older models is RAM. There's other issues with network contention (the Ethernet is actually a USB device on the board), raw CPU (especially gen 1 boards), but really it's all about the RAM.

I use these kinds of boards for more hardware/embedded kinds of situations. No GUI Linux machines will easily run in 200-400MB of RAM before you start spinning up additional services or tools.

If you're really RAM blocked you can use a more stripped down Linux install or even hop to BSD and run real lean on resources for the OS. All of these options can still run most network services or simple build/dev kinds of support systems. They could be message queue servers, run GPIO-driven hardware systems, be sensor platforms, run DNS/DHCP/PiHole kinds of systems, be a speaker driver endpoint for a larger system, bong a clock sound every hour, or whatever. That's just what I could come up with while typing on the fly. If you start adding hardware to the IO ports it just goes nuts what even the older boards are capable of.