5 operating systems for reviving your old PC as a server

Ask any hardcore home lab enthusiast about their hardware configuration, and you’ll probably hear tales involving server rigs outfitted with an ungodly number of CPU cores, plenty of memory, and tons of storage drives. Although powerful enterprise-grade equipment is undoubtedly ideal for VM-heavy tasks, it’s far from the only option at your disposal.

In fact, you don’t have to shell out extra money just to build a home lab. The server ecosystem is chock full of cool operating systems that are compatible with most hardware released over the last decade, regardless of whether it’s an old PC, SFF system, or even a mere Single-Board Computer!

Great for container-heavy setups

Containers are a lot lighter to deploy than virtual machines. So lightweight, in fact, that you can easily deploy a few dozen containers on an aged machine that can barely run a GUI virtual machine (and yes, I speak from first-hand experience). Better yet, you don’t have to be a Docker or Podman maestro to get into containerization, as there are dedicated platforms for running services and apps inside containers.

YunoHost is one such utility, but rather than deploying it on top of another distro (like CasaOS, Cosmos, or Runtipi), you’ll want to install it as a bare-metal OS. But you shouldn’t let YunoHost’s low hardware requirements deceive you; this powerful distribution includes a plethora of services in its app store, many of which are oriented for hardcore developers. That’s before you consider the support for custom domain names, built-in backup system, compatibility with custom apps, and a host of other features available on YunoHost.

Built for Kubernetes lovers

When I first started my venture into DevOps and sysadmin projects, I considered clusters to be an expensive endeavor. Turns out, you don’t need a lot of firepower to set up a Kubernetes cluster – and I say that as someone who built a K8s setup comprising a couple of Raspberry Pi boards.

Talos Linux is easily one of the best distributions for Kubernetes server nodes, and its minimal nature is only part of its charm. Rather than relying on a shell interface, Talos relies on an API for management tasks, with mutual TLS, immutable design, and Role-Based Access control further reinforcing its security.

Or a Debian server

DietPi is a name you’d often hear in the SBC community, and for good reason. Compatible with something as old as the original Raspberry Pi, DietPi has exceedingly low system requirements and even natively supports RISC-V systems. The only caveat is that you’ll have to configure a couple of server-oriented packages after installing DietPi on your low-end system, though the DietPi-Software utility built into the OS simplifies this task.

Alternatively, you can also go for a CLI-based Debian setup, as it strikes the right balance between stability, performance, and functionality. I’ve been using Debian on virtual machines and old systems for a long time without running into major bugs or deal-breaking compatibility issues. Sure, it may be the most vanilla distro in the Linux landscape, but it’s so versatile and stable that the remaining distros on this list are built on top of Debian!

A terrific NAS distro

Building a Network-Attached Storage server is one of the most common ways to repurpose old computing systems, and OpenMediaVault is ideal for devices with low memory. Unlike its ZFS-based TrueNAS rival, OMV can work with as little as 1GB of RAM, and it’s also compatible with Arm devices, like the Raspberry Pi family.

The barebones version of OpenMediaVault houses most of the NAS-centric facilities you could ask for, be it support for multiple file systems, SMB/NFS shares, RAID provisions, S.M.A.R.T. monitoring, or snapshot management. Depending on your device’s specifications, you can even arm OpenMediaVault with ZFS pools, container runtimes, KVM modules, and other useful home server facilities.

Ideal for home lab workloads

Despite packing most of the features you could ever need to build an experimentation-cum-self-hosting workstation, Proxmox requires surprisingly low system resources. While it doesn’t natively support Arm systems like OpenMediaVault, you can deploy a PVE node on any ol’ x86 system with 1GB of memory. Since it relies on KVM under the hood, Proxmox is also very resource-efficient for tasks involving heavy VM usage.

But if your system can’t handle the brunt of virtual machines, PVE is also compatible with Linux Containers, and you can deploy a handful of LXCs using simple commands inside the Proxmox VE Helper-Scripts repository.

There’s a lot you can do with an old system

Aside from the distros I’ve mentioned in the list, there are a couple of other lightweight home server platforms that deserve a shout-out. XCP-ng is a decent alternative to Proxmox if you’re a fan of the Xen hypervisor, while SmartOS is an Illumos-based home server distro that’s worth checking out if you wish to tinker with jails and VMs running on Bhyve. For folks who want a cool-looking UI in their container-hosting workstation, you won’t be disappointed with UmbrelOS’ sleek aesthetics.