this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2026
46 points (96.0% liked)

Selfhosted

63469 readers
579 users here now

A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.

Rules:

Detailed Rules Post

  1. Be civil.

  2. No spam.

  3. Posts are to be related to self-hosting.

  4. Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or readme if you're providing a link.

  5. Submission headline should match the article title.

  6. No trolling.

  7. Promotion posts require active participation, with an account that is at least 30 days old. F/LOSS without a paywall has exceptions, with requirements. See the rules link for details. Tags [CBH] or [AIP] are required, see the links in Rule 8 for details.

  8. AI-related discussions and AI-involved promotional posts have additional requirements for tagging, as noted in Rule 7 and the AI & Promotional Post Expanded Rules post, and find example disclosures here.

Resources:

Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.

Questions? DM the mods!

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Hi I'm a volunteer in a youth center. Some time ago, their organization switched to OneDrive and their old server got shelved. I thought it would be a waste to just throw it out, but I'm not sure what to do with it. It runs on an outdated system (CentOS 7, I believe), but otherwise works fine.

I have dipped my toes into Linux, but I am in no ways an expert.

So I would like to ask for ideas, suggestions or maybe just some pointers. What is a fun way to use a server for a youth center? While I'm at it, any ideas what to do with this?

Use it, donate it, sell it? I'm not trying to profit, by the way. Selling would mean to reinvest it into new equipment for the kids, whatever that may be.

I also have a bunch of Lenovo ThinkCentres and old or broken Notebooks at my disposal.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com 28 points 6 months ago

the issue is that its very old. when running it, you will use a ton more electricity and be a lot slower than even a 5-8 year old unused retail box/workstation.

yes, you could throw ubuntu on there and it will work fine. then you could toss docker on there and play with some container apps for the kids maybe... like a mintecrafter server.

but, like i said, youd be better off digging a more recent workstation out of some garbage can and doing the same thing.

e. ha, just checked that is a desktop/workstaton box..i thought you were talkin a real HP server... they have much larger power requirements. that little box you have there would be fine for a little mini server for light apps.