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 using 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?
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Worth taking a look at the battery - especially an old one on a repurposed device - before considering it safe. Spicy pillows happen.
Thanks. Yeah I’ll do that. Is it also possible to enable auto power on after power outage and restore? My celeron mini pc has this feature.
That’s typically a feature for servers or business desktops. Maybe your laptop has it, just look into the BIOS.
As I wrote in my other comment: try to be realistic about your needs. Chances are, pressing the power button every few months (if at all) is perfectly fine for your use case (and most others here).
I would just do a minimal reinstall if you had used this as a personal computer OS before
And also take the battery out
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
systemctland then disable unneeded ones. For examplesystemctl disable gdmbut there shouldn’t be that much running on a plain Debian anyways.For powersave I run
powertopin auto-tune mode as a systemd service. A description is here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PowertopUnfortunately, 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.
It would be useful to know laptop spec. In general, do not bother power consumption should be lower enough as it is.
It’s a Thinkpad 11e with AMD A series A4-6210 (1.8 GHz), 8GB RAM, 120GB SSD, AMD Radeon R3.
A4-6210 with build in GPU has TDP of 15W. There is no point to optimize anything it is seeping power already. may be try to use tlp to limit max charge level of the battery ( i’m not sure is you laptop is supported). You can play with governors too, but I personaly will not bother. You obviously need multiuser.target but not GUI.
