Old Hardware: How to turn your OLD MACBOOK PRO into something usable using PROXMOX

[@alexmelillo1247]

Fantastic tutorial man! I've managed to turn my old macbook pro into another hypervisor for my home lab. I appreciate it!

[@opentaq]

Thanks for the flowers! Glad it helped! :-)

[@lanceharvie]

Awesome videos!

[@opentaq]

Thank you!

[@tristanmendoza4628]

After reading the comments, I see what you guys think is "old" is very funny. I run 2012 MBP and MacMini as full workstations and they play 1080 HD video great while doing a full range of apps and 20+ webpages loaded - they work as modern workstations on a low budget and since the SSD upgrades, they run without any lag. I think it's funny someone thinks 2016 is old (hahaha) HW upgrades for these are cheap. Unless you are gaming or something these still work great (native virtual machines too). Plus I only talked about running MacOS Catalina- put Linux on there and you get the picture 😉

[@Mr.Jean-Paul]

Hi, interesting video…thanks for that! I‘ve got an old MBP15“ which still has a LAN port, but also a newer 13“MBP Pro only with Thunderbolts ports. Do you know perhaps if Proxmox is recognizing the TB Ports? I have a USB-C to LAN adapter which I could use then for networking as well as external storage for TB Nvme drives. Grüsse aus Luxemburg!

[@opentaq]

Basically, it COULD work. Never tried it with a Mac and Thunderbolt, but if you look at this thread at forum.proxmox.com/threads/nuc8-thunderbolt-10gb-nic-and-proxmox-7.96445/, it seems doable and could work.

[@Mr.Jean-Paul]

@@opentaq Thank you for the link. I‘ve found another video on YT from DJ Ware on how to enable TB for Proxmox. Idea behind is to build a Proxmox cluster with a NUC I already have, an old MBP Pro, and an iMac 5K with fusion drive. I considered installing Proxmox on the small 28GB SSD from the fusion drive, attach the built-in 1TB HDD as storage and eventually a much faster Nvme drive via Thunderbolt. Seems a little bit crazy but as the Mac devices are no longer in use…why not?!

[@BeanzCraftCartel]

Have an old MBP lying around and was playing around with promox on another older laptop with no upgraded internals and now has me thinking to repurpose the MBP as it’s got 500ssd 16gm ram and the i7

[@rogeriocamargo1984]

Nice video, thanks. By the way, I have a 2016 macbook pro. It only has USB C ports, but I have a USB C to Ethernet converter. I would like to install proxmox too. What do you think? Is it possible to run proxmox on my machine?

[@ivanlinuxandunix]

When I insert the USB into the macbook and try to enter the boot menu, I get a white screen and when I remove the USB I can get to the boot menu. Can you guys help?

[@cesarsantos4299]

Does Proxmox recognize the Mac wifi or you should have to attach a network cable in the Mac? Thanks

[@opentaq]

Proxmox could work with Wifi, but you would need to have a network cable attached while installing. Later on, it is a Debian distribution, so you could install the Wi-Fi-components by hand and connect from commandline. But I would not recommend it: It is just hard to set up and to maintain. I got myself a small switch, a cable, and connected the switch to my home Wifi. No installation of additional components, straight and easy deployment, no fuzzing around with settings.

[@cesarsantos4299]

@@opentaq Thank you very much for your time spent in replying to my question. Regards. Cesar.

[@twinflametaurus]

I think proxmox is an amazing tool. However , for the average home user I think many tutorials are leaving out some steps , like after proxmox install what do you do if you want a graphical interface on the same machine proxmox is installed. Again , to the advanced network administrator this probably isn't much issue but to the regular home user , its problematic and difficult.

[@Mr.Jean-Paul]

Hi, I have an additional question apart from the one a few month ago. How does the screen behave? Will it be always on, showing the concole login of pve? What happens when the lid is closed? Does the screen stay on? I have just understood in your video that the laptop will not hibernate.

[@gottfridbrandt3854]

For my Mac i had to have the screen on. Dont know if you can modify it.

[@gottfridbrandt3854]

Update* Found the solution here is a tutorial how to configure display sleep problem : kzbin.info/www/bejne/fqbGnnesf5pqn6M

[@Mr.Jean-Paul]

@@gottfridbrandt3854 Thanks for the info, but meanwhile I do not consider anymore using an old Laptop as Proxmox node as it still has HDD inside. But will check the video anyway. 🙏

[@esdrassouza3291]

@opentaq! Do you know if there Is a way to disable the laptop goes to sleep when closing the laptop lid while using Proxmox? The answer is: Edidt this file: nano /etc/systemd/logind.conf Uncomment this line and set it as per example: HandleLidSwitch=ignore Save the changes and restart the service: service systemd-logind restart All sorted! Thanks.