{"id":355,"date":"2026-05-04T01:41:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T01:41:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/underwoodtechnologies.com\/?p=355"},"modified":"2026-05-11T13:45:52","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T13:45:52","slug":"extreme-budget-home-labbing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/underwoodtechnologies.com\/?p=355","title":{"rendered":"Extreme budget home labbing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I-Introduction<br>I decided I wanted a secondary DNS server for my home lab, since I decided to tie my main home network into it. I have a few Rasberry Pi Model 1Bs, so I am going that route initially. As it turns out, they support only a 32 bit OS and it has a fair amount of lag even running the basic OS and no services. This lead to thought creep, and within that thought creep I had an idea. &#8220;Why not do a budget series about running a Raspberry Pi 5 as a home lab?&#8221; I then went and looked at Pi 5s. An 8GB RAM Pi is about $130 on their web site currently, and a 16GB RAM Pi is about $200! Not exactly the budget friendly thought I had in mind, and definitely not within the premise of <a href=\"https:\/\/underwoodtechnologies.com\/?p=32\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/underwoodtechnologies.com\/?p=32\">The Home Lab Manifesto<\/a> to run BIND.<br><br>If a person is trying to do a bucks down home lab, what are the other options? <br><br>When I was in web hosting, one of my first virtualization boxes was simply an E8400 with 8G RAM and a 250G hard disk. It wasn&#8217;t much, but I had a few VMs on it and it worked just fine. Linux with a CLI is incredibly efficient in a server role, and this is still viable. The VPS this blog is hosted on has less resources than that, and it&#8217;s a fully functional LAMP stack hosting DNS. Plenty of web sites ran on similar (or less) hardware.<br><br>II-The solution<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"768\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/underwoodtechnologies.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/E6400-768x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-356\" srcset=\"https:\/\/underwoodtechnologies.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/E6400-768x1024.jpg 768w, https:\/\/underwoodtechnologies.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/E6400-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/underwoodtechnologies.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/E6400-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https:\/\/underwoodtechnologies.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/E6400-1536x2048.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/underwoodtechnologies.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/E6400-1024x1365.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/underwoodtechnologies.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/E6400-scaled.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This laptop is an E6400. It&#8217;s been beat on like an Altima, having changed hands a few times based off the corporate\/government\/refurbishment stickers on the bottom. The screen is in tact shockingly but the keyboard has seen better days. I got this for free after it had been left for dead by a school district who didn&#8217;t even want it back (I presume they&#8217;d have had to pay the e-waste disposal fee for it.) It&#8217;s got a P8700 in it and 4G of RAM. It doesn&#8217;t have a drive in it, but a 128GB SSD is likely. If I had a spinner that fit I would toss that in instead. These systems were released in 2008, and the age is definitely reflected in this system.<br>Pros:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>X86_64 CPU<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Laptops are more energy efficient than desktops in general<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Small size<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Virtualization Technology capable<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Whole laptops available on Ebay for sub-$100, and sub-$50 in many cases<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Port expander allows physical serial and parallel ports if needed<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Built in Ethernet and WiFi Networking<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>SATA and E-SATA functionality<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Cons:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>8GB RAM Limit\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Looking on Ebay, 2X4GB SODIMMS looks more expensive than just buying an 8GB laptop<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Low CPU power by todays standards\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>RasPi 5 8GB likely more powerful<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Less flexible hardware than a comparable desktop<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Inability to upgrade CPU<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Still bigger than a RasPi<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Lack of GPIO on RasPi<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Single Ethernet port with only a PC Card add on slot<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">III-What can I do with this thing?<br>While the hardware is extremely modest, there are a lot of things that can be done on this hardware. Examples include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Web server with full LAMP stack\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The possibilities here are multiple, such as a forum, WordPress or other system<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>When I was in web hosting, Atom 330s with 2G RAM and significantly less powerful CPUs were common for LAMP Servers<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Many basic LAMP stack VPSes today still use less resources than this system has<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>DNS server<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Multiple programming systems<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Serial console server (a dock, USB adapter or breakout setup is required)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Extremely light virtualization, say 3X1GB Linux VMs\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Despite being small, these are still useful<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Containers are an option as well (Docker, LXC)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Target for system automation like Chef, Puppet or Ansible<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Code development<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Learn how to get around a Linux OS, and how to configure basic things like networking<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Most of this doesn&#8217;t involve Windows. Why? Windows left this hardware behind a long time ago performance and update wise. If you do a non-GUI install of Linux on this, performance should still be acceptable. If you must install a GUI, XFCE is encouraged over GNOME or KDE.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">IV-Getting started<br>The first thing to do is install an OS on this hardware. My current recommendation is probably Debian or maybe OpenSuSE Stream. OpenSuSE LEAP will not work on this hardware, due to CPU generation requirements. Slackware may be an option, but that&#8217;s mostly for the nostalgia on my part. After that, all it takes is imagination to make a plan.<br><br>Part II of this series will be post OS install. I will likely be just doing a basic LAMP stack, just to illustrate how a system like this can be useful even though it&#8217;s nearing 20 years old.<br><br>V-Conclusion<br>I keep saying it, and I want to make the point that starting a home lab doesn&#8217;t need to be expensive if you are creative and it meets your goals. For a person who&#8217;s never touched a Linux server before, a low to no barrier of entry is a great thing.<br><br>If I were trying to do this on a budget (much like I did when I was young) I would ask around for computers, make a call to PC shops looking for junk etc. Craigslist, Freecycle, Marketplace or the usual suspects are probably good places to look. E8400 desktops seem to be about $50 on ebay, which are a good start if you can find one locally to pick up. If you can get a couple to part into one another, all the better.<br><br>What wouldn&#8217;t I use for a home lab? I would try to avoid 32 bit CPUs these days for software\/OS support reasons, and I would try to avoid Pentium Ds unless I was cold in the winter and had electricity to spare.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I-IntroductionI decided I wanted a secondary DNS server for my home lab, since I decided to tie my main home network into it. I have a few Rasberry Pi Model 1Bs, so I am going that route initially. As it turns out, they support only a 32 bit OS and it has a fair amount [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodtechnologies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodtechnologies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodtechnologies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodtechnologies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodtechnologies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=355"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodtechnologies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":378,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodtechnologies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355\/revisions\/378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodtechnologies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodtechnologies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodtechnologies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}