I have an old Pi hanging around doing nothing. When I originally got it it had the latest Pi OS with desktop loaded and ran like garbage, not surprisingly. So I messed with it headless for a bit, then found RISCOS as an option in Pi imager utility and that is just a neat OS. Fun to play around with for sure. But now I’m wondering what else I could use the old thing for. I see folks run Pihole on it, but I’ve already got 2 instances of Adguard Home running.
Could this handle Syncthing? Or would the data transfer be so bad it’s not worth it? Wouldn’t mind having an off-site backup device at my parents house if it would work.
i use an old pi1b to run rtl433 with some even older dvb-t stick to grab weather data from my neighbors (who can afford a brand new bresser weather station with wind speeds and everything etc…) and send that to mosquitto for use with home assistant. but can track even more…i figured out car tire air pressure sensors and other stuff give me a good insight on wether the neighbors are home or not.
I used Pihole for years, but have found AGH an overall better UI from a management perspective. And a quick searchs shows that unbound can work with AGH as well so I may give that a try.
I was wishing I had one just recently. I’m not smart enough to get my ancient APC UPS to interface to Debian with the USB cable, so I need a device I can ping that’s plugged into the mains (ie not through the UPC) so I can run a script that shuts the server down when the Pi stops responding to the pings.
So that’s all it’d need to do - respond to pings when it’s powered on. I’ve ordered a B+ for exactly this job.
Thanks - I sort of had that Idea and looked at the ESP32 with an Ethernet port, but it was looking complex to flash because of no UART etc. Looks like the ESP8266 would need an add on for Ethernet? Plus I might still be out of my depth figuring out how to flash it?
I also considered an Ethernet hat for the Uno since I have a couple of them floating around somewhere, but in the end the B+ was cheaper. Those little boards would probably be better for power consumption as well though
All you’d need to program that ESP32 is an USB to UART adapter, you can get those for pennies on the dollar. I’ve never used Ethernet on the ESP32 so I can’t attest to how easy it would be, however I do know that doing it over WiFi is super simple.
Make a Pi-hole for friends/family, unless you want to build discrete hardware projects that don’t need a fast CPU. My 17-year-old niece is doing breadboard projects on this gen of Pi.
I think the Pi 4 was the first Pi with gigabit ethernet. All the Pi’s before that were limited to 100Mbit. For that reason, syncthing is probably a bad idea since it will be very slow in terms of syncing speed
Eh, maybe. Depends on how much they’re backup up and how often. They said the backups are off-site, so unless BOTH locations have a very fast connection, I’d bet that 100Mbit networking wouldn’t be the huge bottleneck that you’re thinking.
Funny thing, I bought this one used off eBay to interface with my CRT TV for retro games (NES/SNES) because it had analog out. I didn’t realize at the time that most, if not all pi models can do it too. It’s just combined with the 3.5mm headphone jack. It’s an AV port! Oh well, got this one for a song so I’m not too mad about it.
I had a really important role of my Pi 1 B+ for a long time; it was a network storage for my PlayStation 2 to play ISOs from the network with Free McBoot and Open PS2 Loader.
grabbed a big HDD, and old CD drive case and put everything inside. The Pi could be powered from the PS2s USB, hooked up a short network cable and it was ready to go.
Tho I still have that PS2, it’s not in use anymore, so neither the Pi.
That’s great. I wonder if the same could be done on the original Xbox. I believe it had the ability to play over network connection from ISOs on a PC if modded. I have one kicking around that I have yet to put a bigger HDD in.
Realistically the best bang-for-the-buck is maybe to sell it to some collector and get a new one ;-)
Mostly tongue-in-cheek, though. I don’t know if anyone is actually willing to pay for it, but I know some people are quite happy when they find their old Pi 1.
I was using it for Pi-hole all the way up until I got a 4b and then put Pi-hole in a docker. Solid dude, will be hanging on my wall like those disassembled iPhones
Using it for Pihole + Unbound also, but running on DietPI OS. I recommend trying DietPI, since it is is basically Pi OS on a diet, which is very important on such an old device. It has a lot of software preconfigured to make them lighter, using less resources etc. You should really try it.
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I was thinking about hooking one up to a GPS module to run a local NTP server
https://blog.networkprofile.org/gps-backed-local-ntp-server/
i use an old pi1b to run rtl433 with some even older dvb-t stick to grab weather data from my neighbors (who can afford a brand new bresser weather station with wind speeds and everything etc…) and send that to mosquitto for use with home assistant. but can track even more…i figured out car tire air pressure sensors and other stuff give me a good insight on wether the neighbors are home or not.
I know you have an adguard, but have you thought about ditching those and using pinhole+unbound?
I used Pihole for years, but have found AGH an overall better UI from a management perspective. And a quick searchs shows that unbound can work with AGH as well so I may give that a try.
I was wishing I had one just recently. I’m not smart enough to get my ancient APC UPS to interface to Debian with the USB cable, so I need a device I can ping that’s plugged into the mains (ie not through the UPC) so I can run a script that shuts the server down when the Pi stops responding to the pings.
So that’s all it’d need to do - respond to pings when it’s powered on. I’ve ordered a B+ for exactly this job.
Does it have the weird rj50 (yes 50) endpoint ?
Yes
i have made a stl of that if you need the cable, it is janky but it works
Aww. Thanks. I’ve got the cable, I just need to invest some time into a couple of suggestions from here.
it should just work with KDE
Probably cheaper to just use an ESP8266 or the like
Thanks - I sort of had that Idea and looked at the ESP32 with an Ethernet port, but it was looking complex to flash because of no UART etc. Looks like the ESP8266 would need an add on for Ethernet? Plus I might still be out of my depth figuring out how to flash it?
I also considered an Ethernet hat for the Uno since I have a couple of them floating around somewhere, but in the end the B+ was cheaper. Those little boards would probably be better for power consumption as well though
All you’d need to program that ESP32 is an USB to UART adapter, you can get those for pennies on the dollar. I’ve never used Ethernet on the ESP32 so I can’t attest to how easy it would be, however I do know that doing it over WiFi is super simple.
That’s a clever idea. My UPS does already have the smart pants features like that, but I love the simplicity of that as a concept.
Have you tried using NUT? https://networkupstools.org/
No. That looks very promising. Thanks, I’ll check it out!
Make a Pi-hole for friends/family, unless you want to build discrete hardware projects that don’t need a fast CPU. My 17-year-old niece is doing breadboard projects on this gen of Pi.
I don’t see why it wouldn’t handle SyncThing, as long as you’re not syncing a lot of clients.
You could also get a cheap screen and use it for a news/weather/social feed.
i/o is shit on that thing. Syncing any reasonable amount of data is out of question.
I think the Pi 4 was the first Pi with gigabit ethernet. All the Pi’s before that were limited to 100Mbit. For that reason, syncthing is probably a bad idea since it will be very slow in terms of syncing speed
Eh, maybe. Depends on how much they’re backup up and how often. They said the backups are off-site, so unless BOTH locations have a very fast connection, I’d bet that 100Mbit networking wouldn’t be the huge bottleneck that you’re thinking.
Since its GPU has composite out, why not a cool arcane cabinate?
Funny thing, I bought this one used off eBay to interface with my CRT TV for retro games (NES/SNES) because it had analog out. I didn’t realize at the time that most, if not all pi models can do it too. It’s just combined with the 3.5mm headphone jack. It’s an AV port! Oh well, got this one for a song so I’m not too mad about it.
I use mine as kitchen radio with https://moodeaudio.org/
I had a really important role of my Pi 1 B+ for a long time; it was a network storage for my PlayStation 2 to play ISOs from the network with Free McBoot and Open PS2 Loader.
grabbed a big HDD, and old CD drive case and put everything inside. The Pi could be powered from the PS2s USB, hooked up a short network cable and it was ready to go.
Tho I still have that PS2, it’s not in use anymore, so neither the Pi.
That’s great. I wonder if the same could be done on the original Xbox. I believe it had the ability to play over network connection from ISOs on a PC if modded. I have one kicking around that I have yet to put a bigger HDD in.
the PS2 needed only just a Windows Network share (SMB). I guess the XBOX too should have an option for that, so I don’t see any problem with it
nice, it wasn’t where you could do that with the PlayStation 2
Realistically the best bang-for-the-buck is maybe to sell it to some collector and get a new one ;-)
Mostly tongue-in-cheek, though. I don’t know if anyone is actually willing to pay for it, but I know some people are quite happy when they find their old Pi 1.
Yeah, I have a pi 3 and 4 in the “fleet” already. Was mostly just looking some something to use it for aside from wall decor.
I was using it for Pi-hole all the way up until I got a 4b and then put Pi-hole in a docker. Solid dude, will be hanging on my wall like those disassembled iPhones
Mine is still going strong and runs my irrigation system with the gpio interfacing with a relay board.
ADS-B receiver that uploads to ADSBExchange, Flightaware, and FlightRadar24. Start tracking the skys
I had a pi 1b running my hvac/humidifier/HRV unit at home for years. Only removed it when we moved out.
Mine is my DNS. Pi-hole with unbound.
Hmmm unbound does work with AGH too… Might have to look at trying this
Using it for Pihole + Unbound also, but running on DietPI OS. I recommend trying DietPI, since it is is basically Pi OS on a diet, which is very important on such an old device. It has a lot of software preconfigured to make them lighter, using less resources etc. You should really try it.
I will check it out. I thought it was the same thing as the desktop-less options in the Pi Imager.