I have an old Mac Pro that has been collecting dust for years. Today I bought an SSD and install Debian on the machine. It works flawlessly.

Further reading revealed that there is an active community around the classic mac pros and thanks to their modular nature they can be fully upgraded. People even upgrade the CPUs in this thing.

So if you like playing around with a PC like the old days, that is also Linux compatible, a Mac Pro 5,1 seems a good choice. AFAIK you can get it for cheap and a decent upgrade won't break the bank.

  • Eugenia@lemmy.ml
    ·
    25 days ago

    Depending which version of the MacPro you have exactly, that machine from 2010 is around the speed, or slightly faster, than a Raspberry Pi 5 with 8 GBs of RAM these days. The problem is the energy consumption, not really a green machine to run.

    • mFat@lemdro.id
      ·
      24 days ago

      Yeah it's definitely not the best machine to get by any means. I'm waiting to see how it affects my next electricity bill :)

  • MerchantsOfMisery@lemmy.ml
    ·
    24 days ago

    I don't believe it works "flawlessly" and I'm tired of people exaggerating their experience in such a misleading way. There's always some hitches and I don't get why people basically have to cake their OS experience with makeup like this.

    • MyNameIsRichard@lemmy.ml
      ·
      24 days ago

      It does work flawlessly, or at least I haven't encountered flaw. Why should I downplay my experience for people like you?

      • MerchantsOfMisery@lemmy.ml
        ·
        24 days ago

        Because you're making stuff up. Literally every install of an OS has some little issue here and there-- but this is my mistake for assuming any Linux community could be humble enough to cut the BS and stop acting like Linux is a flawless experience. I'm out, keep hanging out at that ~5% market cap and wondering why folks don't flock over despite it being free.

        • Cpo@lemm.ee
          ·
          24 days ago

          Not to pretend I know it all, but have actively been using Linux on desktops and normal laptops for years now and I do have to agree.

          Those old Macs are actually quite hard to get working right (fans, touchpad etc).

          It is not impossible, but it takes quite an investment.

          But Macs aside, nowadays a lot of desktops ánd laptops install flawlessly though.