this post was submitted on 05 Jan 2026
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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I don't expect much but I found an old pi I bought probably 2016(may of been 2017). It was supposed to be a pi-hole but was never able to get the dns forwarding to work on my modem. It still works but wanted to somehow convert it to a regular distro(it's based on a micro-SD and I don't have any more microsd readers). I wanted to set it up as a basic system I could ssh into a terminal. Not expecting anything fancy or even graphic based. A lot of stuff I want to learn/practice "work" on windows but are native to Linux, like vim/neovim nmap gcc etc. Is this feasible? Am I under estimating what's possible with it?

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Someone more knowledgeable about the older gen Pis could probably help you a lot more than I could. I have a Pi 4b 8GB for my server, so that's gonna be a bit more capable than what you've got, but I imagine you can probably still find lots to do with it! Setting up a basic headless server should be no problem at all.