Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

Question

Windows XP machine, re-use as server? Linux?

Dec 15, 2013 9:50PM PST

Like many people, I've got an XP desktop that I'm going to replace soon, with a laptop.
Rather than just scrapping it, I was wondering if it made sense to turn it into a server, perhaps using the Linux o/s?
I was wondering if I could then use it to store music and photos, as well as some files that my wife and I share occasionally.
Also, would it be sensible to use some of the disk capacity to backup documents from the new laptop?
Or is this just a daft idea?!

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
Answer
You could
Dec 15, 2013 10:21PM PST

You could, but the real problem becomes that such a task would probably be more efficiently filled by some kind of NAS device, which would probably use less power and be more reliable over the long term.

- Collapse -
I Agree with Jimmy
Dec 22, 2013 2:03AM PST

Unless you simply want to experiment with setting up a Linux server for the fun of it, I would recommend going with a NAS device too. It would probably pay for itself in the first year or two in reduced power consumption alone. If you plan to use it for backup, I would suggest going with at least a dual drive unit in Raid 1 mode. If you do decide to setup the old computer as a server, I would probably recommend replacing the hard drive if you plan to use it for any critical data.

- Collapse -
Answer
Nice way to get Linux exposure.
Dec 16, 2013 2:23AM PST

Many choices, lots of tutorials.

- Collapse -
Answer
That's EXACTLY what I do.
Dec 20, 2013 10:20PM PST

My old (c. 2003) ex-Windows machine, running an old AMD Athlon 1750 with 384 Mb of RAM) is now chugging along nicely as a Linux (Debian) based server.

But because of its archaic capacities I use it mostly to play with Linux.

- Collapse -
XP machine as server?
Dec 22, 2013 7:41PM PST

My machine is c 2007, with 1Gb of RAM, so should be OK, by the sound of it. I'm also wanting to "play with Linux", and wondered about getting a Raspberry Pi to play with/use in conjunction with "server". Would it make sense, I wonder?
What sort of things could I do, with the two?

- Collapse -
The Rsapberry Pi
Dec 22, 2013 10:00PM PST

The Raspberry Pi is an interesting sort of proof of concept, but when it comes to being useful for much of anything, it really isn't. The primary issue is the CPU which is more or less equivalent to a early Pentium 2 performance wise. It can be useful as a low (electrical) power XBMC system, but basically playing back even a single video pushes the unit to the max of its abilities.

If they roughly doubled the clock speed on the CPU or found a dual-core SoC solution that was low cost etc, the Pi could be very interesting for more people, but you have to remember the design aim of the Pi was to provide a very basic and very low cost computer for developing countries where even 25USD is a lot of money. The developers of the Pi basically wanted to give these people something that they could connect to a TV and combined with a keyboard and mouse, could learn about computers. It wasn't meant to be a hobbyist computer for people in developed nations where you can get computers with thousands of times better performance for relatively low prices.

If you want to experiment with Linux, use your laptop, don't bother buying a Pi.