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Comment by KC8ZKF | Hacker News Reader

Five or six years ago, I bought a lot of three ThinkPad R40 Celerons sold for parts, hoping to get one useable machine. I did, ending up with a rather pedestrian LXDE Linux laptop.

Just this week I got a second one running with a whopping 256 MB of RAM, and put OS/2 (ArcaOS) on it. It’s quite a snappy machine. Loads of fun.

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I had an R40 run as a router / home server for 12 years, until this January. Lovely machines.

https://snafuhall.com/home-lan-1-the-beginning.html#cracktop

Its not quite low end but I use a T480 with ubuntu as a home server for plex etc.

I set it up to boot from the ACPI signal and run with lid closed so it boots from the wall switch.

"Not quite" is an understatement, that's a nearly brand new premium laptop. Isn't it a shocking waste to use such a thing for a server, and not - say - a Raspberry Pi 4? Like using a Porsche as a standing generator.

I actually used a raspberry Pi for a while as a Plex server but it's underpowered for transcoding.

I dont use that laptop at all these days so I put it to use there.

I had an r40 from 2003-2006. Shipped with XP, then I put Linux and later OpenBSD. I had to stop using it when the GPU soldering came loose. (I was able to fix it with a heat gun the first time. For a while. Then I gave up.)

Is it a collector thing? Do you use it or was it a fun project and now it’s idle?

I’m just playing. It will probably be idle before too long. The Linux box was used in anger for a couple of years.

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