Linux

It's not just the size constraint. The power usage is significant...

Get them from where? I always read about these basically-free computers but have yet to see one

Power consumption is a massive reason to really not do that. Its cheap for a reason, its takes a shitload of power to be shit and you will pay more in energy than you save in hardware unless its only powered on for short periods of time - a server typically isn't.

This is actually something that applies to cheap products too. Was in Asda a little while ago and saw 2 LED bulbs with the same lumen rating. Cheaper one used 3w more and you only saved £1. Running it for 8 hours a day for a year would cost double that saving in electricity. For a server you are looking at almost £2 per watt each year. Does that ewaste look so good to you now?

Some things are absolutely worth getting second hand, but you really should be careful considering the power cost as well.

Quick edit: If you don't need it running 24/7, consider something like AWS too. I love selfhosting but if its not running much it might be cheaper to not bother buying hardware.

Where are these cheap e waste laptops with gpio and actually low power?

l a p p i e s

The power constraints are more important to most than the size constraints honestly.

I have one of those 8.1 laptops - I LITERALLY fished it out of a dumpster.

You lose the I/O and power efficiency is no comparison. You can get better power efficiency and sometimes some I/O with an old router and OpenWRT, but you'll be in the class of a Beagle Bone and a much harder learning curve. I've never managed to get a sensor or peripheral working on some old laptop's SPI or I2C buses like how easy it is on a Rπ.

A RPi is going to be smaller, quieter, and 10x more energy efficient though...

Also, Raspberry Pi first got popular because of the size and cost. Now it's popular because it's popular. Not hating on them, I think they're cool, but they're not cheap any more. Especially with the scalping.

Getting x86_64 based systems is going to mean much less headache. Unless you truly truly need the size I wouldn't consider getting a Pi or other SBC. Just go to literally any used marketplace (Facebook, Craigslist, etc) and get anything.

I mostly agree, and did the same with my second gen lab build - instead of shiny new NUCs like I had used round 1, I bought old off lease Dell Xeon boxes. SO MANY PROS -

• Got them up to 14c/28t each
• They can take GPUs and actually do heavy transcoding/ML work
• They can take up to like, 128GB of memory, which is GREAT when they're all hypervisors

The downsides can't be denied though -

• Even without the GPUs and beefed up CPUs, they are power hogs - the CPU alone uses more than an ENTIRE NUC
• They run HOT
• They run LOUD

The same holds true for off-lease SFF stuff, Lenovo and the likes ...

So while reuse/repurpose is absolutely of the utmost importance, no question - when it comes to technology and how quickly it advances and miniaturizes, a thorough and logical pros/cons list is often required.

I'd add another option though - if you do need what a Pi brings to the table - do you really need a shiny new Pi 5? Is it possible a used Pi 3 or Pi 4 would do the trick, and check the reuse box?

All computers are single board computers if you take out their guts and tape them to a board

It's a good idea until you consider the fact that a Raspberry Pi will be astronomically more power efficient.

The only caveat here is the fire-hazard non-removable lithium batteries.

It's low power that is still making arm small computers popular. It's impossible to get a pc down into the 2-5 Watt power consumption range and over time it's the electrical costs that add up. I would suggest the RPI5 is the thing to get because it's expensive for what it is and more performance is available from other options supported by armbian.

And for some (including me) that's our only computer (other than phone). I just can't afford anything, so all I have is a shitty laptop from 2010 that barely plays 1080p video. I deeply want something better, especially a steam deck, but doesn't look like that'll happen anytime soon (or ever). And then you see people have steam decks that just sit there, unused, gathering dust.... fuck.

raspberries were viable while those were cheap. I think I got a 3b (plus?) in pre-deficit years for like $25 second-hand AND I got some shitty case AND a microSD card AND it could run off of a somewhat normal USB phone charger. so using those instead of a 10 year old decommissioned desktop was an awesome value proposition.

nowadays, those devices are encroaching on trip-digits territory and the power adapter is like $30. the computing power you can buy for a third of that designates raspberries exclusively for niche use cases where footprint and power consumption are primary considerations.

not to mention fake Jason Statham just rubs me the wrong way, like all them "visionaries". he makes this sound like he's the head of Feed Africa or something, on a noble mission to save humanity and whatnot.

Low power and arm architecture are big differentiators between Pi and laptops.

I totally agree recycle laptops where possible, but they're generally noisier and less energy efficient plus the battery degrades over time and is a fire risk.

They're not necessairly a good fit for always-on server or service type uses comparef to a small board like Raspberry Pi. But a cheap or free second hand laptop is definitely good for tweaking, testing and trying our projects.

I would say it can sometimes be nice to have an old Laptop for this purpose, you have to slightly over build your solar but can be nice to have a mouse and keyboard attached and monitor, ssh works. Still have an hp laptop with a core i5 2nd gen sitting out in my greenhouse, is a little more power hungry but not terrible on idle, and is nice to be able to configure changes to watering without going back inside or wrecking the zen by bringing phone.

Or get a used thin client (e. g. HP T620, T630, T640 or Dell Wyse 5070). Cost: ~40-100$. Biggest advantage: Passive cooling, i. e. they're absolutely quiet.

The day i can fit the power of a computer capable of emulating the switch 1 in a gameboy shell will be glorious.

I have an old pentium laptop N3520 with 4GB DDR3. I removed everything and put it in a receiver box 1U size. It consumes so little energy that it can run 5-7 hours from its battery (I call it build in USV). Last time I measured 3-7w. Also passiv cooled , no noise. Another machine I use , is with a i7 4770 with 16GB for Proxmox, 7-20w , peak is much higher but rarely used , only on boot and vm startup.

There are also a lot of mini PCs that are comparable in price to a Raspberry Pi 5 once you factor in the cost of a case, SD card, and power supply for the Pi.

Better than an old laptop, get a mini-pc like thinkcentre tiny. They're more upgradeable, space-efficient, power efficient, have better cooling

I wish there was a convenient place to get these