I have an old ThinkPad 11e running Debian that I have repurposed into a home server. It’s only supposed to run TVheadend. I don’t need any other services for now, but later on i might add a few uding docker.

Is it enough to set multiuser.target as default to disable gui and keep the system always on?

How can I disable all unnecessary services and minimize power usage?

  • leisesprecher@feddit.orgEnglish
    11·
    7 hours ago

    In case you didn’t already do that: remove the battery. It’s probably dead anyway, you don’t need it and it poses a potential (albeit low) risk.

    • poVoq@slrpnk.netEnglish
      31·
      5 hours ago

      Depends. Usually it is still good as a UPS for a few minutes, and some laptops have a bios option to limit full charge which lowers the risk even further.

      • leisesprecher@feddit.orgEnglish
        71·
        5 hours ago

        And how much need is there for a UPS in this scenario - realistically.

        Some of the people here take their admin-LARPing a tad too seriously. Most households have reliable enough electricity, and even if there’s an outage once every quarter, would a dead battery even help?

        I advocate for being realistic with one’s own needs. Don’t build a five-nines datacenter for a glorified weather station or VCR.

        • curbstickle@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          3·
          4 hours ago

          The nice thing about some battery backup is not keeping it running during an outage, but safely shutting it all down.

          I agree on the laptop battery, I’m just disagreeing on battery backup. It serves a purpose, as does decent surge elimination.

        • poVoq@slrpnk.netEnglish
          31·
          2 hours ago

          That is why I said it depends. There are many places where electricity cuts for a short duration are quite frequent. Often you don’t even notice it, but a 24/7 server would be effected.

          In general, I think the risk of laptop batteries catching fire is overstated especially if you limit the charge to 80% or so. So weighting these two issues against each other you can come out either way, but I think for most places it will come down towards a UPS being nice to have.

          • hendrik@palaver.p3x.deEnglish
            2·
            2 hours ago

            Everything has pros and cons. I’ve seen 3 laptops (of my family) with batteries that looked like a baloon after several years. I’ve subsequently removed or replaced them. I’d definitely check on them every now and then. A UPS is nice. Burning down a house isn’t. I haven’t seen them catch on fire (yet), they supposedly have at least some protection. But definitely get them out of the laptop once they’re dead anyways or don’t look alright. Everyone is responsible to make that decision on their own. Take care.

  • bdonvrAEnglish
    6·
    6 hours ago

    I would just do a minimal reinstall if you had used this as a personal computer OS before

    And also take the battery out

  • hendrik@palaver.p3x.deEnglish
    4·
    7 hours ago

    I usually do the expert install and don’t install a graphical environment in the first place. But your solution should be fine, too. I think you can show running services with systemctl and then disable unneeded ones. For example systemctl disable gdm but there shouldn’t be that much running on a plain Debian anyways.

    For powersave I run powertop in auto-tune mode as a systemd service. A description is here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Powertop

    Unfortunately, the Debian Wiki doesn’t seem to have a lot on laptop power saving. The Arch wiki has some more (random) info: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Power_management

    I’d say do the powertop systemd service on startup, set the multiuser target or disable the login manager and that’s it.

  • Limonene@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    7 hours ago

    The easiest way to disable unnecessary services is to uninstall them with aptitude, or whichever package manager you like. Try terminating services one by one, and see if anything bad happens. If nothing bad happens, you can probably uninstall it. On the other hand, if the system does get wonky a reboot should fix it. Or, you can research the services by name and decide whether to uninstall them. (avahi-daemon for example is a good idea to uninstall.)

    To make the GUI not run, uninstall your display manager (gdm, xdm, nodm, or whatever) and uninstall your xorg server or wayland server. There may be GUI programs remaining after that, but they will only be consuming disk space, not RAM or CPU.

    If the battery is old and holds little charge, you may save a few watts by removing it and throwing it away, instead of letting the system keep it topped off.

    Get a power meter, such as a Kill-a-watt device. Then, experiment with different settings. If it’s consuming less than 30 watts, you’re probably fine. If you live in the US, one watt-year is about one US dollar (or a little more), so for every watt it consumes, that’s about how much you will pay per year for its electricity.