Blocking Ads With a 15 Year Old Computer

I setup an old mac mini to run Pi-hole, blocking ads on my network and serving as a local DNS.
#pihole #homeserver #homelab

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Music (in order):
"VULF JAMS" - GARRISON
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Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
0:35 What Is Pi-hole
1:18 What We're Doing
2:36 Importance of Internet Privacy
3:25 The System
4:20 Installing Debian Linux
5:32 Installing Pi-hole
6:54 Setting Up Pi-hole
8:20 Local DNS
8:40 "Just Use a Raspberry Pi"
11:32 Closing Thoughts

[jimmyriggleman]

Dude straight up plugged an ad on a ad blocking video. Im impressed.

[itsseanl]

I still break out my 2009 mac mini like once a year to mess around with projects like this. Trying to give an old computer a new purpose is always super fun for some reason, I guess it's just cool to see how useful they can be even after 10+ years. I'd love to see some more mac mini content!

Your breakdown of the power consumption/cost was very helpful. That was one concern I had with leaving mine on for extended periods of time, but that's really not too bad at all.

[jrambo]

Thank you for the PiHole reminder! I used to run it on an original Raspberry Pi a few years back... Completely forgot about it! I just reinstalled, during your video, and now have my own running! Thank you for another great video!

[First_Grafter]

I genuinely get excited whenever I see you uploaded a new video

[kyleallred]

Loved the price over time comparison.
Thank you for the chapters in your vid.
Would you consider turning an old laptop into an all-in-one or repurpose the screen as a second monitor and the motherboard as some server?
And as always this was another great video, keep up the good work.

[briianhebert]

Thanks for the video! Pi-Hole is really a great tool, I have donated multiple times, usually when they come out with major release updates. I figure it is so worth donating to the project since it saves you on bandwidth that would have been wasted on ads. All open source projects rely on donations to keep going so I'd hate to see Pi-Hole go away for a lack of support.

[Ironapple]

The good old macmini 1, 1 from 2006. I still use mine as a little file server with a bunch of drives plugged in. Its maxed out with a core 2 duo and 4gb of ram. Still runs great for my needs.

[karsten_m]

For a bit of extra control you could install unbound as a local DNS server. Works like a charm with pihole.

[ntgm]

I use two Raspberry Pi's using PiHole to ensure if one is slow or doing an update/down the other one takes over, so I can still surf the web. I did this with a Pi 1 and 2, so don't really need a 3 or 4 to run it. I'm happy that you go over the cost of the item along with power consumption and cost, it is something I look at too.

[imacmadman]

In addition to the savings of using an existing PC you already own, you're keeping hardware out of the waste stream and taking advantage of processing power that is still viable. The newest PC I own is from 2014, I have a Mac Mini from 2009 and another PC from 2008. For some folks, modest processing power is plenty of power indeed.

[RobertLugg]

Can you “under clock” a PC to make it run cheaper? Or maybe disable unused ports/hardware? Thank

[crowncontrol]

Came here to find out if my 2010 mac mini will be capable of this. Perfect!

[bytswap]

Awesome video! It's cool seeing an old Mac mini still getting used today! You should also look into cheap slightly outdated thin clients, I've been getting dell wise 3040s when I can find them for cheap, the bench similarly to a 2GB pi 4, and you can find them used for cheap, same with various other thin clients

[flipthekillerbear]

colt,

i love to see you grow in your YouTube career. i loved the Linux Minecraft server (i actually runned that for a while) and have watched since. I'd love to see you growing to a higher level. keep up the good work man

greetings,
slither in her

[samuelweaver]

Thanks for the video!! I'm hoping to get pi-hole set up soon! I'm either going to get it set up on my TrueNAS Scale server, or repurpose my old laptop that was acting as my starter server to just handle pi-hole and Home Assistant. I'm still very new to this stuff, so your videos have been a major help in inspiration, installation, and troubleshooting! Thanks for all your hard work!

[jimaki_]

I managed to snag a pi zero kit for pihole for around 30€ with shipping. It had the pi, a case, a power adaptor, microsd card(16gb), ethernet, mini hdmi adaptor and a 10/100 ethernet adaptor, which unfortunatelly runs at 6 mbps due to the usb 1.1 interface and it's bad... So I added a gigabit adaptor for 12€... Runs great since the start of the year and I use it also for Wireguard, so I can remote at my home computer.

BTW, Another Great Video!

[woodmanvictory]

I have pihole running on one of the micro Optiplex's along with Plex. Works great and if I remember correctly the Optiplex is like 10-15W at idle.

[hydrosphere-diving]

Thanks - great video. Recently picked up an orange pi Zero 2 - for pi-hole and wireguard. Works very well and stable since 2 months on armbian. Will you do a video on Nextcloud? Your budget home lab videos are great!

[msthalamus]

Mac Minis are cool, versatile little things! I just set a 2006 model up as a dedicated, headless MIDI synth emulator. I run commands from my retro DOS gaming rig to switch between Roland MT-32 and SC-55 emulation, etc., and use the Apple Remote to adjust its volume. It's not networked in any way, either, so it's essentially an appliance device now, like a Roku or a router running Linux under the hood.

[paw]

Man I wish I could get my hands on some pc from the recycle bin to make all those super funny projects like you.