I can't possibly be the only one who still has perfectly capable and newish 32-bit hardware laying around. Of course some things are used for retro computing but a lot of my newer 32-bit hardware like a first gen Ras Pi and a 2006 ThinkPad with a 1.8GHz Core2 aren't really being used. There's less and less software support for them even though they still function as well as the day I bought them. What are some cool things that I can do with this old hardware other than throwing it away? Is there any Windows, Linux, OS/2, BeOS, etc software that only runs well on 32-bit? I already have a media center, a home server (two of them actually), and a desk clock. I'm open to almost anything.
Use the 1st gen pi as a pi-hole box, or plug in a DVB-T stick and use it as a server for SDR, works OK if you run it into your router via ethernet cable. Put Kali Linux on the Thinkpad. Or set up the world's slowest bitcoin miner.
Ryan Martinez
>Use the 1st gen pi as a pi-hole box I'll actually consider this. I might just toss OpenBSD on it and make a second email server for reasons.
>Put Kali Linux on the Thinkpad. Fedora Security Labs is better and isn't named after a Pajeet god.
>Or set up the world's slowest bitcoin miner. It's cheaper to and easier to buy Asscoin and just sit on it. I do it now and I've made a few thousand dolans since late last year. I don't even know how to mine the stuff or what software to use and it sounds like a pain.
Jacob Smith
>recommending Fedora >worrying about naming it aferter a pajeet god
Connor Hernandez
I hate to say this but it's pretty pointless and unless you're into retro things as a hobby it's just a waste of time and electricity.
32-bit hardware isn't bad because it's 32-bit, your 2006 Thinkpad will be slow running almost everything because a 1.8 GHz Core2 is really slow compared to modern CPUs. That being said.. many (most?) GNU/Linux distributions come with 32-bit versions and this will work and you can do things. I use a Athlon XP as a night-stand (old solid metal case) and I tested it a few months ago just for fun and Fedora did install just fine on it and it was able to browse the Internets. It just wasn't exactly a sweet experience. Old hardware also sucks power like crazy so over time it's rather expensive.
Dylan Young
a while back I tried to put one of my similarly aged x60s to work as a dedicated remote access system using OpenBSD but it didn't like it all that much you could always just sperg out and libreboot it, have a novelty 95% free system to dick wave and use for general *nix shit >Old hardware also sucks power like crazy so over time it's rather expensive. that's not really true at all though, his old thinkpad isn't going to use much more power than a contemporary counterpart, it's just not going to deliver as much for what little it uses, same thing with the RPi, there's nothing "expensive" about one of those things no matter how old it gets the overall message isn't totally wrong though, unless you like to dedicate bare metal to a specific task or you're naturally inclined to fuck with it, it's probably more worth it to sell it or donate it to someone who will do that
Asher Cox
>retro computing you mean jerking off
>are there any 32 bit etc linux distros Yes? A million of them? Stop trying to unconvince yourself to end up in circlejerk retro threads frog shitter.
>It's okay if I disregard it pre-emptively as long as I say it first that "frogshields" me
Nathan Ross
multiple sites say C2D line is 65W while i3 line is 50W. can we go over these numbers? P4 is 85W before we go there.
Justin Perez
I have an Amiga 1200 NiB.
Eli Morris
>Old hardware also sucks power like crazy so over time it's rather expensive. Not really, even my PowerMac G5 running 24/7 only added around $10/mo to the power bill.
A laptop C2D can draw even less, my E8335 is only 45W
Aiden Rogers
Oh wow dude, a mobile chipset uses less power? I didn't know that
sites say i3 15W mobile P4 70W
Curious where this "old hardware uses less power" shit comes from.
Liam Johnson
What can a RDI Powerlite running SunOS on SPARC be used for in this day and age? Have one in a cupboard somewhere.
Nathaniel Long
You've got a SPARC laptop? That's neat as fuck. I'd use as a terminal
Caleb Thompson
It's really old so it probably uses 1W. Because it's so old.
Caleb Evans
Yeah, but a RPi model 1 would probably outperform it nowadays, been a few years since I last booted it up. It has a nice rollerball instead of a trackpad though, so there's that.
Evan Kelly
>Curious where this "old hardware uses less power" shit comes from.
Where does the "old hardware uses more power" come from?
Luis Butler
The CPU's got a TDP of around 4-9W
Not like performance is really necessary for a terminal, even an original rPi would be extreme overkill
Nicholas Barnes
>RDI Powerlite running SunOS on SPARC Post pics of this, please.
Justin King
>it's just a waste of electricity Not necessarily true, unless you're talking about the Pentium 4 and Pentium D. A lot of old PCs before the early-2000's consumed no more than 100W (compared to 200W+ on modern PCs).
Zachary Brooks
>a 2006 ThinkPad with a 1.8GHz Core2
Core 2 Duo processors were 64-bit capable, son.
Also: 32-bit software runs just fucking fine on modern x64 64-bit capable CPUs.
>fucking stupid people will be the death of us all
Jack Clark
Instead of comparing wattage try comparing performance/watt
James Gray
>top of the line Pentium MMX: 18 W >top of the line i9: 165 W
