Modern Linux on an AM1 box

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[H]F Junkie
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Mar 31, 2001
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Hey guys,

I was poking around my basement & found an old AM1 box I'd like to do something fun with. Specs are:

Mini-Itx board with AM1 Sempron 3850.
16G ddr3 (tried ecc unbuffered w/o success)
60GB ocz solid ssd
10Gbit Mellanox Connect-x 3 NIC as well as an onboard 1Gbit/s

Usable for web browsing on most sites? The gpu is whatever is onboard. I was thinking it might be fun to see what kind of gaming I can do in 25w at 1920x1080, but looking for other suggestions as well.

What I don't need:
1) Firewall/Router (I have pfsense/cisco 3945e for this already)
2) Plex (I have a box for this)
3) FreeNas (I have a box for this)

What else would you guys suggest as something fun rather than just a plane/jane desktop?
 
If you aren't already running this on one of your other servers you could make it PiHole server. Or you could poke around with Home Assistant.
 
If you have it in a really small portable case... Install Kali on it. Make it your fix em all box. Use it to reset relatives forgotten windows passwords, recover boffed drives, do a little pen testing on your own network.... or your neighbors wifis. (kidding don't do anything illegal... but kali has a lot of nice tools around when you need them.... and hey you can also use it as a standard desktop) lol
 
I use the AM1 Athlon as a media computer in my living room (1080p only) and it works well for that duty. Playing Netflix, Youtube, or Amazon Prime show no problems.
 
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Another idea, you could set it up as a Wireguard or OpenVPN server to provide a remote tunnel into your home that you can use while you are away. This of course assumes your router isn't already performing this task for you.

EDIT: Ignore everything I just said in this post. Didn't notice that you're running Pfsense. That would be much better for use as a VPN tunnel.
 
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