Can’t agree more. I have my old Packard Bell netbook from 2011 as a Linux home server. In case it hangs up, I can just open it and see what’s happening from its screen and use its keyboard. I could imagine buying a more powerful laptop just to be used as a Linux server.
And similar to thin clients you can get old Laptops usually quite cheaply. Power-consumption is also not bad usually, even for old i7 ones. 12V car laptop chargers are also easy to get to run laptops off solar batteries.
The only real disadvantage is the lack of extension ports especially for storage. A USB3 hub with SATA adapters can work but it’s not as good as real SATA ports.
Can’t agree more. I have my old Packard Bell netbook from 2011 as a Linux home server. In case it hangs up, I can just open it and see what’s happening from its screen and use its keyboard. I could imagine buying a more powerful laptop just to be used as a Linux server.
And similar to thin clients you can get old Laptops usually quite cheaply. Power-consumption is also not bad usually, even for old i7 ones. 12V car laptop chargers are also easy to get to run laptops off solar batteries.
The only real disadvantage is the lack of extension ports especially for storage. A USB3 hub with SATA adapters can work but it’s not as good as real SATA ports.