I have an old Mac Pro that has been collecting dust for years. Today I bought an SSD and install Debian on the machine. It works flawlessly.
Further reading revealed that there is an active community around the classic mac pros and thanks to their modular nature they can be fully upgraded. People even upgrade the CPUs in this thing.
So if you like playing around with a PC like the old days, that is also Linux compatible, a Mac Pro 5,1 seems a good choice. AFAIK you can get it for cheap and a decent upgrade won’t break the bank.
I love the old Mac Pros and even built a trashcan setup for Debian a few years ago. But TBH, they use a lot of electricity for the processing power they provide. If you already have one or can get one for free, great, use it. Linux runs great. But I wouldn’t go to OWC and buy something that would be outperformed by a fanless, low TDP machine these days.
Depending which version of the MacPro you have exactly, that machine from 2010 is around the speed, or slightly faster, than a Raspberry Pi 5 with 8 GBs of RAM these days. The problem is the energy consumption, not really a green machine to run.
I also discovered that these are pretty cheap and really upgradeable while looking great.
I would never buy anything from Apple new, but old Mac Pro or MacBook Pro are really tempting.
Converted my fiancée ´s 2012 MacBook Pro to Linux two years ago and it’s a great machine which shouldn’t be collecting dust.
Sometimes people underestimate the treasures they have lying around 😅
It’s amazing how powerful a real workstation is even from fifteen years ago.
Oh man, I gotta dust off my wife’s old 2009(?) MacBook now. I think the battery might be toast, but hopefully there’s enough of a cult following that I can find a replacement for that as well.
Update: 2007
Processor 065-6991 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Memory 065-6993 4GB 667 DDR2 SDRAM - 2x2GB
Hard Drive 065-7452 250GB 5400RPM HDD
Optical Drive 065-6998 SuperDrive 8X
Display 065-7039 MacBook Pro 17-in Hi-Res GL WS
