this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2025
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Hiya!

I have a Raspberry Pi 4B set up as a print server, so it has to run 24/7. But it irks me that it's mostly idling.

I'd move my website to it, but I don't want to deal with it being open to the internet. The same goes for an e-mail server.

I was also thinking of running a Minecraft server on it. (Being able to play on the same world from different devices is kinda cool.) Alas, my RPi only has 4 GiBs of RAM. I worry that such a load would interfere with the print server.

Any ideas what I could run on it?

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[–] Schlemmy@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 hour ago

Joplin notes. A really nice notetaking app you can selfhost. Simple enough but stil verry advanced.

[–] utopiah@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 hour ago

irks me that it’s mostly idling

Well it's a small processor and relatively efficient one at that so... how about going the opposite direction? How about measuring the power draw on idle? With other task? I don't actually know if that architecture handles that but I saw some things on the do https://developer.arm.com/documentation/100095/0002/functional-description/power-management/dynamic-power-management?lang=en

Also what about using a RPi Zero instead?

[–] thespcicifcocean@lemmy.world 2 points 3 hours ago

let it run dwarf fortress from within the terminal, then ssh into it from wherever you are so you can play df from anywhere in the world. i did this at work.

[–] technopagan@discuss.tchncs.de 0 points 2 hours ago

Skimmed the title. Brain registered words "rpi" and "linux" underneath it. Instant reaction: "Not another app package format please". 😶‍🌫️

I should spend more time reading properly & less time being an old man yelling at tech.

[–] haych@feddit.uk 4 points 7 hours ago

AdGuard Home (I prefer it to PiHole)

OtterWiki

Wireguard

Forgejo

Tandoor

[–] eugenia@lemmy.ml 3 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Jellyfin music server. It needs about 1.2 GB of RAM for itself, plus the system.

[–] Mouette@jlai.lu 1 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

My PI with podman jellyfin and flatnotes is sitting at 600 MB ram

[–] eugenia@lemmy.ml 1 points 42 minutes ago

Mine needs 1.3 GB with an itunes library of 160 gb.

[–] troglodytis@lemmy.world 3 points 9 hours ago

Get yourself and adsb antenna and feed flightaware, flightradar24, and adsbexchange. Help track the skies!

[–] sic_semper_tyrannis 7 points 12 hours ago

Paperless ngx

[–] pitiable_sandwich540@feddit.org 4 points 12 hours ago

You could also setup a git repo for your config files. That way you could revert changes, if you break something.

If you don't want do open your pi up to the internet you could take a look at tailscale. I use this script on my laptop and home pc to share files with sshfs while having any other traffic go through mullvad. Set this up on your pi with it as an exit node and you basically have access from anywhere.

[–] slacktoid@lemmy.ml 26 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Pihole, homeassistant, a music server using moodeaudio

[–] b72@lemmy.ml 17 points 19 hours ago (2 children)

Another vote for Pi-hole here. I don’t know how I lived without it before!

[–] markstos@lemmy.world 2 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Does PiHole ever break a family member’s browsing, and then they don’t know to fix the issue because it would involve understanding opening up the PiHole web interface?

[–] b72@lemmy.ml 1 points 41 minutes ago

Yes, that does sometimes happen but the frequency depends on the blocking list used, or if multiple lists are used. When a family member encounters something like this, I can usually quite quickly identify the relevant blocked item and whitelist it.

[–] winety@lemmy.zip 6 points 19 hours ago (2 children)

I use an adblocker on both my PC and my phone. Does a Pi-hole have many advantages over that?

[–] thejml@sh.itjust.works 20 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

PiHole is DNS based ad blocking and local DNS for everything on your network. So, even things that can’t run their own adblocker.

[–] winety@lemmy.zip 4 points 19 hours ago (4 children)

So it can block ads in Google Chrome on my moms phone? Then I'll have to figure out how to set it up!

Do you often run into issues when blocking traffic like this? I can imagine some software (i.e. Samsung's or Google's bloatware) kicking up a fuss.

[–] oktoberpaard@feddit.nl 4 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

Ive been using the OISD list for myself and family members for the past couple of years without issues. It’s specifically made to to be unnoticeable, by whitelisting hosts that would cause issues.

One thing to note is that it’s not a full replacement for adblockers, as DNS blockers can only block full hosts and not all ads and tracking are served from dedicated hostnames. Things like YouTube ads will be unaffected by DNS based blocking. It does really make a difference, though, including for apps with banners.

[–] bdonvr@thelemmy.club 7 points 18 hours ago

Sometimes it can. Google and Samsung never had an issue though. The more ad lists you setup the more false-positives you get.

But 99% of the time it's fine. The other 1% you open the dashboard and look at the last few blocks and whitelist whatever it causing issues.

[–] thejml@sh.itjust.works 5 points 17 hours ago

Sometimes I’ve found a site that gets partially blocked and causes a fuss. There’s an option to allowlist domain(s).

Also, some sites try to use ad domains to serve legit traffic, and some use legit domains to serve ads, so it’s not perfect, but it works pretty darn well overall.

[–] slacktoid@lemmy.ml 5 points 18 hours ago

Depends on the level of block lists you add. The defaults are pretty sane and it doesn't need any configuration, you configure your router to use it

[–] b72@lemmy.ml 9 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

One major advantage is that on the domestic TV channels here in the UK which have ad breaks (essentially all of them except the BBC) it removes the ads altogether and the programmes run seamlessly from the part before the ad break into the part after. I still smile every time it happens!

[–] winety@lemmy.zip 6 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

That sounds cool as heck! But I am very confused about how television broadcasting works in the UK. This only works with some sort of over-the-internet TV, right?

[–] b72@lemmy.ml 3 points 9 hours ago

Yes, that’s right. It would only work with TV over the internet and not with a digital signal transmitted direct to the TV via aerial.

[–] Quazatron@lemmy.world 11 points 18 hours ago

Another vote for PiHole. It keeps your home network cleaner by ignoring the ads.

[–] tkw8@lemm.ee 11 points 19 hours ago

On my Rpi4B I run syncthing 24/7. It acts as my sync hub. All other machines are connected to it.

[–] Cobrachicken@lemmy.world 8 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

SANE scan server? Paperless ngx also comes to my mind, find it pretty useful.

[–] winety@lemmy.zip 6 points 19 hours ago

I was trying to set up a scan server last week. No luck yet. 😅

Paperless ngx looks looks amazing. I was actually thinking of finding a solution for this type of thing as pdfgrep was getting kinda slow.

[–] Brewchin@lemmy.world 3 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

I run AdGuard Home, WireGuard and a couple of other things on my 4B, all in Docker.

I used to run HomeAssistant on our for a while, but they stopped supporting that architecture (armhf?). Also used to run Unbound on it.

[–] Schlemmy@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 hour ago

HomeAssistant is still supported on Pi4b

It's support for the rpi3 that is getting fased out.

[–] melroy@kbin.melroy.org 4 points 17 hours ago

qbittorrent (docker) 😁😎

[–] Kidplayer_666@lemm.ee 6 points 19 hours ago (3 children)

Maybe Nextcloud? Jellyfin?

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[–] boydster@sh.itjust.works 5 points 19 hours ago

PiHole, PiVPN, maybe a reverse proxy like nginx proxy manager to make connecting to your various web management portals you have an easy way to map it to a human readable url

[–] ravermeister@lemmy.rimkus.it 4 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Nextcloud is very useful, or a lemmy Fediverse Instance

[–] winety@lemmy.zip 3 points 19 hours ago

Nextcloud seems a be an alternative to the G-Suite, did I get that right? That move to the cloud kinda missed me. I'm happy with LibreOffice and having everything stored locally.

Do you have experience with running a single-user Lemmy instance? I remember trying out some smaller instances, and they weren't as federated (i.e. I could see less content) than on the bigger ones.

[–] wildbus8979@sh.itjust.works 4 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago) (1 children)

Another vote for a music server. Gonic/Navidrome is pretty low power and super useful!

Home assistant is another option, but I'll say that if you're serious about home automation you'll quickly outgrow a Pi. It'll run if you only have a handful of devices though.

[–] winety@lemmy.zip 4 points 19 hours ago (3 children)

I like the music server idea! Where do you get your music? Many artists don't even sell CDs nowadays.

Home assistant is probably not for me. The house I live in is still very analogue. I enjoy not having to debug software when investigating why there's no hot water.

[–] blayd@lemmy.ml 1 points 4 hours ago

Seconding Bandcamp & Qobuz, or ripping CDs. I use fre:ac to get accurate FLACs.

[–] wildbus8979@sh.itjust.works 5 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago) (5 children)

Plenty of artists still do sell CDs though. I often buy them at the merch stand at shows. Many also sell DRM free digital files on sites like Bandcamp. I also buy a lot of music at the thrift stores and rip them. If all else fails, there's always the high seas.

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[–] StrawberryPigtails@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 19 hours ago (3 children)

For CDs, Amazon, ebay, or discogs. Digital music I usually get from the artist's webstore if possible, otherwise I'll buy it from Amazon or BandCamp.

One heads up, Buying and downloading digital music from Amazon is a pain in the butt if you have an Amazon Music subscription. Easy and straightforward though without.

Apple music is also possible but you have to burn the tracks to CD using itunes to move it out of Apple's ecosystem.

I also hear good things about Tidal but I've never used them.

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[–] boydster@sh.itjust.works 3 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Another idea: dokuwiki, to document your process setting up various service for future reference

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