Going through my in-laws old tech gear now that they’ve moved into an assisted living facility. I’ve now got a functional but slow iMac from 2012. Any ideas what it might be useful for?
@dynamitemoth A lightweight Linux distribution might be an option. I have Elementary OS running nicely on a 2009 MacBook, it’s a decent choice if they are familiar with Mac OS. For a Windows-like distro, Mint is an worth a try.
@dynamitemoth A file server? Something to share files with across devices, or be a backup server. Or perhaps a place to store media you can play on other devices, like movies?
@splinter @troykitch @Ddanielson Thanks for the suggestions. I'm wondering if I can convert this old Mac to Linux, hook up some reasonably high-speed disks, and serve up video that I currently only have on DVD? I'm assuming there's some kind of app for my AppleTV that can stream video from connected storage?
@dynamitemoth If you want to host it and they log in to it to view your videos, something like a Synology or a raspberry pi with Plex server would do the job.
@dynamitemoth Yeah, VLC can do that. As long as the iMac isn't doing anything else, it should work fine. It may work without even needing to install Linux (though that might help for security purposes).