PC Suggestions

[KCarpenter12]

What’s a good small PC to use for Linux? I don’t need a lot of horse power. I have been using a raspberry pi which is usually great… but I want a little more power than that.

 

[uOpt]

Intel NUC from Ebay.

Or random Thinkpads.

 

[BlueLineSwinger]

What's the use case? Is this just to tinker around with and learn? Running services for home? Gaming/emulation box? Other projects, e.g., IoT-like stuff?

A common inexpensive go-to is used/refurb Lenovo Tiny, HP Mini, and Dell Micro desktop unit off of Ebay (just be sure to also get the PSU). Something c. 6th-Gen Intel can be found for ~$150-200. Serve The Home has a number of articles on these and newer units.

 

[Axman]

What’s a good small PC to use for Linux? I don’t need a lot of horse power. I have been using a raspberry pi which is usually great… but I want a little more power than that.

Mini PCs are fire right now: https://liliputing.com/

 

[zandor]

Really depends on what you want to do with it. If you just want to mess around or run some services that don't need much hardware, get a corporate mini/micro office PC used off of eBay.

Mini doesn't work for me since my Linux box doubles as a file server. Need a bigger case for disks, so it's in a mid-2000s Lian Li all alumnimum full tower I had lying around. That's actually overkill since I don't have that many disks, but it lives in the basement so I don't care about size. The rest of it's an i3-10100 on a cheap ATX board with 16GB of ram. Also have a 10Gb NIC in the vid card slot and a couple M.2 SSDs... the disks can't hit 10Gb but the 2TB SSD I use for fast network storage can easily. Other SSD is a small one I use for the root filesystem and boot off of.

 

[Stugots]

Used Dell SFF OptiPlex? You can get Kaby Lake and Coffee Lake ones for pretty cheap.

 

[dogDAbone]

6th-Gen Intel can be found for ~$150-200

I recently got my wife a barebones 10th gen/i5 HP EliteDesk for $125, from the buy/sell forum here...does everything she needs it to & then some. I gave it 32GB ram & a WD 750x, which I already had sitting in my parts box

 

[kirbyrj]

If you want something with low power draw, a N100 mini PC pulls less than 15W. I just bought a dual NIC one to use for a router at my house.

 

[Dopamin3]

If you want something with low power draw, a N100 mini PC pulls less than 15W. I just bought a dual NIC one to use for a router at my house.

Yeah N100 is a solid choice. Decent upgrade from a Raspberry Pi, low power.

Amazon has a Beelink with N100, 16GB DDR4, and 500GB SSD for $151.20 currently: https://www.amazon.com/Beelink-Desktop-Computer-Support-Ethernet/dp/B0BVLS7ZHP/

 

[kirbyrj]

Yeah N100 is a solid choice. Decent upgrade from a Raspberry Pi, low power.

Amazon has a Beelink with N100, 16GB DDR4, and 500GB SSD for $151.20 currently: https://www.amazon.com/Beelink-Desktop-Computer-Support-Ethernet/dp/B0BVLS7ZHP/

If you want the dual NIC version, you have to step up to the EQ12. I got one the other day for ~$170. They have fluctuating coupons and multiple sellers.