Steps to repurpose old laptop as home server with Debian
Steps to repurpose old laptop as home server with Debian
I have an old ThinkPad 11e running Debian that I have repurposed into a home server. It's only supposed to run TVheadend. I don't need any other services for now, but later on i might add a few using docker.
Is it enough to set multiuser.target as default to disable gui and keep the system always on?
How can I disable all unnecessary services and minimize power usage?
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In case you didn't already do that: remove the battery. It's probably dead anyway, you don't need it and it poses a potential (albeit low) risk.
Depends. Usually it is still good as a UPS for a few minutes, and some laptops have a bios option to limit full charge which lowers the risk even further.
And how much need is there for a UPS in this scenario - realistically.
Some of the people here take their admin-LARPing a tad too seriously. Most households have reliable enough electricity, and even if there's an outage once every quarter, would a dead battery even help?
I advocate for being realistic with one's own needs. Don't build a five-nines datacenter for a glorified weather station or VCR.
The nice thing about some battery backup is not keeping it running during an outage, but safely shutting it all down.
I agree on the laptop battery, I'm just disagreeing on battery backup. It serves a purpose, as does decent surge elimination.
But not for us.
That's what I meant by larping. The vast vast majority of us here would probably not even notice if their systems went down for an hour. Yes, battery backup has its purpose. In a datacenter.
I mean, what's on the line here in the worst case? 15min without jellyfin and home assistant? Does that warrant taking risks with old batteries or investing in new ones?
That equation might change if you're in a place with truly unreliable electricity, but I guess those places have solutions in place already.
No, hard disagree.
I have many thousands of dollars worth of hardware. I have seen the results of a surge. I have seen a NAS reduced to a paper weight. You're making incredibly silly assumptions here - this has nothing to do with uptime, and everything to do with protecting your equipment.
You will not ever convince me otherwise, because I'm not willing to dump thousands of dollars on replacements because someone on the internet thinks it has anything to do with uptime.
You are wrong.
Edit: anywhere that weather exists is an area with "unreliable electricity". Full stop.
Oh come on, are you really that boneheaded not to understand that you're not the norm?
I literally had not a single power surge in my entire life. The only power outages I had were for a few minutes maybe three times in the last 15 years.
The larping refers to you. Either you are truly an outlier who actually runs a small DC, or you just like the feeling you can get pretending to do so.
Your attitude is roughly the "only gold plated cables made from solid silver" equivalent in audiophiles. Technically maybe correct, practically a self-important waste of money.
Its not correct actually, there will never be a difference in audio signal in any of those cables you're talking about, that's marketing nonsense. The biggest risk to audio signals is induction caused by nearby power, run parallel for more than 3' within inches of each other. Regardless.
And yes, you've had surges. You won't notice them in general, but your line is not going to be a perfect 120V at each outlet at all times. If you have a cheap surge protector and open them up, the MOVs in there have degraded, and I bet a few of them have popped if you have used them long enough. Everything looks fine when the lights come back on, the blinky lights on your hardware start blinking, but you just had a surge.
Your power supplies in those electronics will.
They will degrade faster when those minor surges and drops happen. When you have a brownout or a blackout, when the power comes back there is an in rush of current.
You can choose to let your hardware die faster because you don't want to take basic precautions, I don't care. But as someone who knows better, I won't. You say you've never had any surge? You probably think that a surge is just a lightning strike or something, which it isn't. That, like the gold plated cables nonsense, is also marketing junk. In part because those crappy MOVs in cheap surge strips can't handle an actually large surge
I'll also take the extra step of making sure my devices shut down cleanly, avoiding data loss, because that's an unnecessary problem to have.
You can think whatever you want, but I'm not going to waste my money replacing hardware or my time fixing an installation, especially for something that's a tiny fraction of the cost of the devices its connected to, regardless of what magical electrical service you claim to have that's always a perfect 120v delivered to every outlet.
We have blippy power in the windy season, a 1 second outage was enough to trash hardware, not to mention dirty power you may not visibly notice. My UPS kicks in every few weeks for a few seconds to provide clean power when the utility is falling short or over volting. Having a battery take over is super helpful
you speak for everyone in here? OP doesn't even mention jellyfin or HA. are you an asshole irl or just larping here as one?
Most households have reliable enough electricity
US defaultism in action, it seems.
US power sucks plenty!
Texas is an extreme example, but outages happen everywhere. It was only a bit over 10 years ago when Sandy basically hit half the US and took power out in the tristate area for weeks. With climate change making things worse...
But even when things are running well, not including the random downed line or busted transformers, its still better to give your hardware clean power and avoid the small spikes.
The US default, that I never left Europe. What an achievement for the USA!
This is true, the USA is better and it is invading your soul.
That is why I said it depends. There are many places where electricity cuts for a short duration are quite frequent. Often you don't even notice it, but a 24/7 server would be effected.
In general, I think the risk of laptop batteries catching fire is overstated especially if you limit the charge to 80% or so. So weighting these two issues against each other you can come out either way, but I think for most places it will come down towards a UPS being nice to have.
Everything has pros and cons. I've seen 3 laptops (of my family) with batteries that looked like a baloon after several years. I've subsequently removed or replaced them. I'd definitely check on them every now and then. A UPS is nice. Burning down a house isn't. I haven't seen them catch on fire (yet), they supposedly have at least some protection. But definitely get them out of the laptop once they're dead anyways or don't look alright. Everyone is responsible to make that decision on their own. Take care.
Worth taking a look at the battery - especially an old one on a repurposed device - before considering it safe. Spicy pillows happen.
Thanks. Yeah I'll do that. Is it also possible to enable auto power on after power outage and restore? My celeron mini pc has this feature.
That's typically a feature for servers or business desktops. Maybe your laptop has it, just look into the BIOS.
As I wrote in my other comment: try to be realistic about your needs. Chances are, pressing the power button every few months (if at all) is perfectly fine for your use case (and most others here).