this post was submitted on 28 Sep 2023
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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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While I love Raspberry Pis and have a few older ones, it's a shame that the latest ones were very hard to come by and far exceeded the $35 price point.
I was looking to upgrade to a Pi 4 a while back but prices were outrageous or it was sold out completely. I eventually discovered tiny form factor PCs.
I bought some used Lenovo Tiny ThinkCentres (which are about 10x more powerful than a Pi 4), off eBay for ~ $70. I upgraded the Ram and SSDs and they are quite capable, low power units!
So to anyone looking for a low power computer to run Linux, consider buying used off eBay. You can get some pretty good deals on used hardware that's more capable.
Is it something you could run an arcade emulator from? Thinking of building my kids a tiny arcade.
That would be more than capable. Retro emulation can run on very low end hardware.
But here's an ebay listing for same model that I bought earlier. It doesn't include an SSD but you can buy M.2 SSDs for very cheap which I also did. Plus they're much faster and more reliable than micro SD cards.
It's very easy to open the machine up which I liked.
RAM upgrades are cheap too but 8GB is a lot for most cases.
A lot of corporate environments use these so when they upgrade you can find them used for dirt cheap, if you don't mind some possible cosmetic defects. Mine are just stacked on a shelf and I just use them as servers for docker and whatnot.
A friend of my dad's old PC recently shit the bed and recommended such a ThinkCenter purely by specs and price point. I did some remote setup last night and I got the impression that it was pretty snappy running Windows 10. Such a tiny computer is definitely on my list for the future.
If you need something with power sure! RasPi has a huge community that supports it, that's what sets it apart.