Update:
I want to thank everyone who weighed in in the comments. Based on your feedback, I’ve decided to hunt for good deals by searching for usff, mini pc, and/or thin client on used marketplaces. Looks like I should be able to nab something very serviceable for my purposes for around $50 no problem. Again, this is not for a production environment, just something I can throw on the corner of my desk and kinda forget that it’s there except when I want to follow some random tutorial on the internet.
For those who suggested I use VMs for this, I hear ya. However, I’d like to get as close as possible to the real deal (bare metal if you will) so that I don’t have to futz around w/ passing through graphics or networking or anything like that. Tbh configuring VMs properly is almost more difficult for me than just working on a spare bare metal unit.
Thanks again!
Original post:
In my self hosting journey, which is very much in its infancy mind you, many times I’ve longed for an extra machine I can use to try following tutorials on setting up samba shares, home assistant, what have you without having to worry about messing up my main machine and having to clean up after myself. As for acquiring such hardware on the cheap, I keep reading how the laptopocalypse w/ Windows 10 end of life will flood the markets w/ literally unlimited free e-waste bro!!! But my own experience hunting these EOL once in a lifetime deals has been more frownie face than happy face. Lots of $100+ listings and, idk that just seems like a lot to ask for something like that.
So just for fun I searched eBay for “raspberry pi” and came across this listing for a raspberry pi 3 w/ 1 GB RAM for $25. 1 GB of RAM seems like not very much, but then again I’m not trying to break the sound barrier here, I just want something that can sit on my desk basically unnoticed and hook it up to my KVM switch so I can switch to it from time to time, like whenever I want to try following a tutorial and not losing any sleep if I fail (and I fail often).
I’ve also kinda always had a little bit of envy from not being in the raspberry pi club, so this is my shot at getting into the club. I think I’m going to spring for this one, so my question for the audience is, but like honestly am I about to piss $25 down the drain? Would this be good enough for my purposes or is the 1 GB of RAM going to bottleneck me like a boss?
Sorry for the run on sentences, my brain’s tired today.
Don’t look online, ask friends and family if someone has an old laptop you can get for free. Very likely someone does, especially if you are ok with a bad battery and/or a broken screen.
A RPi3 can work, but it being ARM based will cause various headaches when learning compared to something x86.
Yes, this is one of the few real valid arguments against something like a pi 3. Outside architecture issues they are fantastic to learn on.
@Eldritch @poVoq
The architecture may also be problem, when you want to use Containers (Docker, Podman). Some images are not available for all architectures.
The 3B has a 64bit ArmV8 CPU, there is a better support.
I have some Odroid devices with 32bit ArmV7 CPU, where often images are not available for.
https://wiki.geekworm.com/Raspberry_Pi_3_Model_B
Wow, armv7 is definitely back there in terms of support. One of the more known v7 devices was the nexus 7, released in 2012.
Definitely, though that can also be an issue with older x86 cores. Or, hell newer ones with non heterogeneous cores. Though that at least is getting better on both architectures.
Hmm, this is just enough to give me pause. Thanks for the heads up. I’ll have to think on this some more and maybe do a little more research.
I can confirm the ARM issue, I’m a newbie and I recently set up a NAS on an RPi 5.
Definitely take a look at what you’re looking to host and what it supports. Support for raspberry Pi and their Debian based pi OS is surprisingly widespread and robust. Not always first-party top-level support robust, but surprisingly adequate for a $35, $50 SBC.
Worst case scenario is still a solid introduction to open source software. Downloading, compiling, installing, et cetera. Some of my earliest projects on the pi involved that. Using the camera module along with the video for Linux subsystem, which wasn’t included or packaged under Raspian at the time at least. Go git project. Make, make install, and party
eBay has plenty of x86/x64 computers that don’t technically support Windows 11. An old Lenovo desktop/sff with a 7th gen i7 could be a pretty cheap entry point. 8th Gen and up will be more expensive since they can still run windows 11
Hell my home server is a i7 4700. It’s a solid experience, though it is missing a few nice to haves these days. I have three Linux desktops in the house, i7 6700. One dell one lenovo and one HP. The Dell and Lenovo I have no need or desire to replace them for the little amount of gaming, etc. I do. They have decent graphics cards since I do 3D modeling. RX 580 and NV 1050.
The HP, I don’t know if there’s legitimate hardware failing somewhere on it, or if it’s just HP suckage. I have a little power HP Elite Book with an AMD processor and APU on it, and that thing is awesome. But this little business tower was struggling with Windows 10 before they killed it off. It’s better with Linux, but it’s still a shadow of the other two similarly-spect systems. Who knows.
When going for older hardware, though, my biggest recommendation is to don’t get the low end. Go for something higher. A similarly specced i7 Perfectly offer a significant performance boost over the i5. If someone gave me an i3 I could find a use for it. But I would never buy one.
Can confirm this. I experienced this on my Pi3 recently with a VPN. I mean, it wasn’t the end of the world. Just that the specific docker container I wanted to use wasn’t compatible because of ARM so I had to go with a different one.
It could be bad for specific things that are more obscure. But I use my Pi for PiHole adblocking and VPN and that’s it. My other stuff lives on another machine and the Pi is set up for redundancy and it’s more reliable if power outages happen since power in means power on by default.
If you can get one for cheap and just want it for the same reason, could be alright.