Linux

Yeah... no. Old laptops idle at around 50 °C.

I wish there was a convenient place to get these

I dislike posts like this. Technology moves quickly. PIs are great for hobby electronics where you need a little computer. Want a cheap computer to run a few things 24/7 and know what you're doing? Pi it is. You don't need to run containers on a pi because you have the skills to install the dependencies manually. They cost pennies to run 24/7.

I think of pis as beefed-up calculators. I have made lots of money using a pi zero running code I needed to run 24/7. Code I developed myself.

Having an old laptop with outdated parts taking up lots of space, weighing a lot, and having components like fans, keyboard, and mousepad most-likely soon dying and needing replacing is an additional concern you don't want.

Someone below saying use an old laptop if you're living with parents and don't pay the electricity bill is a bit lame. Do your part for the world. Someone will be paying for it.

Ultimately, use what you want but if you're just starting with servers, use a virtual machine on your computer and log in to it. You can dick about with it as much as you want, and reset back to a working state in seconds.

Yeah... I'm not going to stick a clunky old laptop on top of my bookshelf and have it run 24/7 as my PiHole. My Pi Zero 2 W is far more appropriate.

Only if you're running it at full load all the time and comparing that to a comparable number of raspberry pis it would take to do the same amount of work. Also, only if you live in a cold climate and the heat generated is not a concern and power is supplied by a renewable source so power isn't a concern.

the 20 year old pc of my grandparents had a graphics card failure, i fixed it but tgey decided i should keep the pc and help them pick a new one (valid after 20 years ngl) now this PC runs debian and hosts my game servers and all

You'll have no end of problems and won't know whether it's a hardware or software problem.

I use old Mac Minis that were cycled out from a company and replaced. An e-waste laptop is still probably cheaper, but you can still find the older model Mac Minis fairly cheap too. I have 2 of them that sit vertically side-by-side in a small rack with my router stationed above them. They both run Elementary OS.

Or any compact pc like gigabyte brix, nucs, lenovos , etc. you can get those for 70-200 on ebay and they are amazing for running any homelab projects, including stream services like jellyfin with hardware decoding.

Add use of gpio to reasons to use pie.

While gpio adaptors are available for pc. The software architecture is not as well rounded and documented.

So for any complex hardware project development. Gpio based SBCs are often essential.

So space, low power and gpio development.

Otherwise yep old laptop or even desktop can be cheaper and more able.

But overall. The wide software support and documentation for hardware connectivity is a bloody good reason to keep pie supported.

I'm setting 2 up to control the hot water and solar dump system on my shared little boat. As I want to link 12v Lifepo4 batt charging with the solar dump and visually impaired control for AC and diesel heating of the water.

Pies really are the best option to play with. While low power and easy to design a unique low vision interface.

Also UK boat safty. Is issuing warning about permanently connected li ion batts on boats. So it is likely setting up a laptop to manage this while not on the boat. Will be banned in the near future.

Only an issue for UK boating but worth considering the risks of leaving laptops to run when not observed.

damn you all, now I impulse bought an old thin client for 30EUR :-) but, fwiw: I mostly use RPi for my purposes, up to RPi4; RPi 5 I think missed the mark, with its active cooling requirement and power use. (and price...) the only use case where an i86 alternative is justified is my jellyfin setup (where realtime transcoding is needed).

Its all fun and games until the power bill arrives. Performance per watt is important, please look at that first. Don't be me.

I'm sure silicon valley are stepping on each other, vying to get their hands on these super cheap laptops for their 24/7 AI training.

Rockchip boards are way more efficient than Pis

I now have a stack of Thinkpads laying around. Right next to my two RPis 😂