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.
No.
Unless there’s something about the RPi that you really want - GPIO, say - it’s not a good choice, especially not the 1GB model you mentioned. Virtually any used desktop or laptop PC from the last fifteen years will be more useful; if you’ve not done so already, search EBay for “USFF”. Those are desktop PCs the size of paperback books. Businesses love them and have them in fleets which means they tend to get cycled out naturally after a few years; the marketplace is full of them and can be had for €30 and up. Unlike a RPi 3, they usually come with storage included (and a proper SSD/HD rather than an SD card), a good quality power supply, plenty of I/O and, if course, a nice solid protective case.
Example: https://ebay.us/m/TxL4yR
Slap PROXMOX on that and you’ll have the seed of a solid home lab. With 8GB RAM you’ll have enough to run VMs for OpenWRT, Home Assistant, Yuno Host, and still have enough resources left over for your Debian tinkering box. Plus, by using PROXMOX you do away with the need for a KVM since you can either SSH into the VM or use PROXMOX’s web UI to access the console and use a GUI if that’s more your speed.
Gotcha, although I’m in the US, so would something like this DELL WYSE 5070 THIN CLIENT Intel Celeron J4105 1.50GHZ 8GB RAM 64GB SSD No OS ($34 w/ free shipping) be comparable?
Yeah, that’s pretty good. The only things I’d be wary of with that particular listing are that it doesn’t come with a power supply (these normally take laptop-style PSUs) and 64GB of storage might not be enough once you start to get to grips with it though you could easily upgrade the NVMe SSD (or hook up an external USB drive).
But aside from that it’s a smart little system and will handle a the setup I described with no issues. The J4105 can be sluggish with multitasking in a desktop environment but for ‘headless’ setups it’s excellent and uses very little power.
Thanks for clarifying that. One last question if you don’t mind – some listings (such as this one) say “no OS,” and “You must reload the unit to gain original factory functionality.” Are they just talking about installing my own OS or does “reloading” mean something else in the context of these thin clients that I’m not aware of?
No, it’s nothing sinister. Most user-facing business workstations run Windows and have a Windows COA or, more recently, have the Windows product key baked into firmware, so it’s easy-peasy for the seller to install a fresh, working copy of Windows. The Dell WYSE PCs are Thin Clients, which are used to access Windows (or another OS) running on another PC or a server somewhere so the Thin Client doesn’t have or need a license; this means it’s not easy for the seller to install a hassle-free version of Windows since it will immediately start pestering the user for a license and for novices they’ll assume the computer is broken and return it. The lightweight Thin Client OS they use is neither use nor ornament outside an enterprise settings so they don’t bother reinstalling that. Obviously the seller could install Linux but the majority of people who are okay with Linux would probably sneer and say “ugh, Distro X? I only use Distro Y” and reinstall anyway, so it’s easier just to sell it without an OS. Ask me how I know all this.
Edit to add: some thin clients do have strange architectures and use weird OSes but that’s not a concern here. Aside from size and specs, the only material difference between the WYSE 5070 and a “normal” PC is that the EFI will have limited configuration options, but unless you’re planning on installing Windows XP that’s probably not an issue.
Edit to add to edit to add: I just found this https://www.parkytowers.me.uk/thin/wyse/5070/. It’s a detailed breakdown of the device and mentions that it could be speced with an onboard SPF NIC? That’s crazy. It also shows someone modding a second NVMe drive into it.
Dang I didn’t know they got that cheap.
Thanks for the search advice.
Get a cheap mini PC instead.
1GB is probably enough to run one basic service without a GUI. If you want anything more than that you’re going to probably end up running out of RAM and hitting the SWAP file–grinding everything to a snail’s pace. Useful projects here might be to add smarts to something dumb around the house or making an old printer support wireless printing via cups.
Like others have said if you want to tinker, a virtual machine via virtualbox or VMware is free for your use case.
If you strongly prefer hardware, an old PC will probably be cheap or free.
If you really want a pi you’ll probably have to look for something that has at minimum 4Gb (which will be easy to outgrow), recommending 8GB+. Note that raspberry pi’s run best on the official power plug as a USB-a to micro/c won’t provide enough power to be stable and will cause weird issues or crash the pi under heavier loads or when drawing power from the pins.
As long as you don’t use a DE on it, a pi3 is great for experimenting with server software. I still use my 3b for plenty of things.
1gb ram is crap. Hardware capabilities aside it’s just not enough to run anything usable for real hosting. Get an old office machine for 50-100 with 8gb or more of memory and it will do infinitely better.
$25 is too much for a used 1gb pi 3. A new pi 5 with 1gb is $45 and way better. But, most ppl start with a vps.
As others have said, 1 GB RAM isn’t enough. It also isn’t a good deal. You can get old NUCs for $30-40 with 8 GB.
Oh, and on the “fail often” thing…
Get a basic/old/free pc/laptop and install Proxmox on it.
Loads of tutorials out there, but the basic installer will get you to a “I’m learning” stage.Create a VM, install Debian, play around.
Then: create a new VM, install Debian, create a snapshot, play around until it does what you want, restore the snapshot, do the steps that got you from vanilla to what you want. Create snapshots along the way as checkpoints. Snapshot, tinker, restore snapshot, advance.Proxmox is amazing for learning VMs and server things
So the rasp Pi is very versatile. It won’t work as well for certain things but you can also hook things up to it that you wouldn’t be able to with a normal computer. It’s also tiny. That being said, I’d just spend a few bucks more and get a new one. Raspb pi 3 with 1g of ram is very slow.
Raspberry pis are an easy intro to actually using computers (instead of using something like windows).
Raspbian is great (based on Debian) and there is a HUGE community for it.So yeh, it’s a great started for $25, as long as you have a PSU and SD Card. And an hdmi cable + monitor + keyboard at your disposal (and a mouse if you are installing a desktop environment (IE something like windows, whereas headless is a full screen CLI).
And don’t get your hopes up for a windows replacement.But… Why not run a Virtual Machine? If you have a windows machine, run VirtualBox, create a VM and install Debian on it?
That’s free. You can tinker and play.
And the only thing you are missing from an actual raspberry pi is that it isn’t a standalone device (IE your desktop has to be on for it to be running), and it doesn’t have GPIO (ie hardware pins. And if this is your goal, there are other ways).If you really really want a computer that is on all the time running Linux (Debian, a derivative (like raspbian) or some other distro) - aka a server - then there are plenty of other options where the only drawback is lack of GPIO (which, in my experience, is rarely a drawback).
And that is literally any computer you can get your hands on. Because the raspberry pi trades A LOT for its form factor, the ethernet speed is limited, the bus speed is limited (impacting USB and ethernet (and ram?)), the SD card is slower and will fail faster than any HDD/SSD. The benefit is the GPIO, the very low power draw, and the form factor - rarely actually a benefit.I’d say, play around with some virtual box VMs. See what you want, other than Fear Of Missing Out (things like PiHole? They run on Debian, or even in a docker container). Then see if you actually want a home server, and what you want to run on it.
It’s likely you won’t want a raspberry pi, but a $150 mini pc that can actually do what you want.Sure, I use them from time to time in my lab to spin up test runs. I also have a cheap VPS ($25/year) that I do the same on. You could also use VMWare Workstation Pro (free) or Oracle Virtual Box (free), on your desktop/laptop, to spin up a Ubuntu or other server, and test to your heart’s content. I would think the 1 gb spec on the RPi 3 might limit you somewhat on what you could test run, but I have surprised myself as to what I can jam into an RPi 3. PiMyLifeUP has a ton of tutorials for the RPi. Might want to take a glance to see what’s possible, but, for an initial investment of $25 seems like a doable opportunity.
I learned how to Linux on a Raspberry Pi. That is, in fact, what they’re for. I’ve got one (a Pi 2) that sits on my LAN with a hard drive attached as one part of my backup solution.
