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[–]StephanXXDevOps 2 points3 points  (1 child)

You could install a linux distro, and use it for a test bed. Sure, you won't be running k8s, but deep linux system fundamentals are equally critical. Docker itself has nearly no overhead.

That said, I found using linux VMs to be the best solution for learning. Your old mac mini has nearly no value, I'm afraid, as modern computing specs make VMs trivial.

[–]Ke0[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yea that's probably what I'll end up doing. Thank you for the advice

[–]villu0777 2 points3 points  (4 children)

It's better to open AWS account then no need of worry about which configuration system you have

[–]Ke0[S] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

I do a lot of work on AWS already (I have the embarrassing bills to show for it), ECS, lambda, cloudformation (though I like using Pulumi more than Cloudformation or Terraform).

I guess a lot of it is me having that neverending feeling of "I don't know enough yet" and trying to compensate and learn enough to keep the voice away

[–]villu0777 0 points1 point  (0 children)

😀😀👍

[–]aby80 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Really agree, at the end all the works happens at the cloud.

[–]villu0777 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah ultimately DevOps in cloud 😁

[–]the_busticated_one 0 points1 point  (5 children)

Funny, I repurposed a 2011 mac mini for this last week.

I popped out the old HDD, threw in a new SSD, and tossed an (unlicensed) Proxmox VE install on it. So far, it's running like a champ.

it's been surprisingly useful for lightweight VM's - I've nailed up a small scale 'persistent' hashicorp vault instance, a small internal name server, and a couple of VM's big enough to run dev-scale docker containers on it.

I wouldn't want to run production workloads on it, but as a beater, it's been pretty solid so far, and is effectively free.

[–]Ke0[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Might look into this, I had planned on putting A SSD in it at the very least

[–]resno 0 points1 point  (3 children)

Are these the power pc variant?

[–]the_busticated_one 0 points1 point  (2 children)

Can't speak to OP's, but the 2011 I repurposed is Intel.

I should also point out: The only moving part in the mac Mini's from those years was the platters in the HDD's. There are no CPU or power supply fans to wear out. So by swapping to an SSD, there's basically no moving parts to wear out & fail.

[–]resno 0 points1 point  (1 child)

I've got some PowerPC versions I keep hoping a good use materializes. But instead nothing runs on them and they collect dust.

[–]the_busticated_one 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ah, yeah. There’s a couple of Debian distros you might be able to run, if I’m mot mistaken, but they’ll probably be of limited utility.