Refurbishing old toshiba laptop

A little power hungry and not powerful but that's absolutely not a major issue. Run it with a Linux server (DietPI is excellent and easy to use) and you'll be able to make it into a file server, video server, music server, VPN... and so on - ALL at once!

I use some very unexciting ARM machines (think Raspberry Pi) and it powers all of those. It's just great.

DietPi-Software - Lightweight justice for your SBC!

That Celeron Toshiba is a trooper but for a general server in 2024 it might struggle. However, it could be a fun learning tool to play with basic server setup.

I guess it depends on what kind of server they're expecting. I can remember the days when a 486 would serve hundreds of users, logging in an out, inter and extra office email and more. Yup, a lowly 486 and an early version of NT Server, Un*x or Netware.

Most of the work a server performs is I/O (unless we're talking games but Minecraft and some others will run on RPi3). So what's left is the infrastructure. I use 5Ghz wireless lan (because I don't need the security of a fancy smart switch and wired network) but it can easily handle me saving/loading photos and playing an audio book at the same time.

With SSDs the lag time is not that noticeable because the discs don't have to spin up. 

I might be a bit late to this post (possibly by a few months) but yes, I would recommend looking into Alpine Linux.

Alpine is wonderful but not really for people new to Linux. It's probably the smallest "serious" Linux around, and that includes the ones designed to run inside routers. I haven't followed it for a few years now but I just checked and sure enough, it now has a desktop option running Gnome 48, LXDE or KDE Plasma. (Swoon!)

For people who just want to "get it done" with the least amount of pain (or at least, the minimum of learning) DietPi is the better option. It's got all the setup baked in and, to date, after running it for many years, I've never had an issue. Most recently we've had some unexpected power cuts here and in spite of that (and not having a UPS) the couple of nano-servers I run on DietPi came back without missing a beat.

I'm sure Alpine would have too of course. Windows... Mwahahahah! I'd still probably be trying to get the hard drives unscrambled. 

I have a Toshiba laptop from 2009. It also had a single core Celeron CPU. It should be able to be upgraded to 4GB of RAM and a SATA SSD drive.

The processor should be socketed which means you can upgrade the CPU. I have upgraded the processor in it twice. The current and most powerful processor it can socket is the Core 2 Duo T9300. It is not the newest CPU, but the most capable one which I also have put in mine. You can find them like on eBay or AliExpress for less than $10 USD.

A caveat though, you will need to upgrade the power supply from 60 watts to 90 watts. I found a universal (comes with different plugs) Targus online for inexpensive. 

I run Debian 12 on it with Cinnamon Desktop Environment, and even have Steam installed where it can play most of the older games like Garry's Mod, Counter Strike, etc. Should also be able to run Windows 10 without problem.