My $0 Home Lab: Converting an old Windows 10 Laptop into a performance-optimised server

A project to turn a resource-constrained machine gathering dust to a fully functional, headless Ubuntu server that can keep up with the latest cloud tech and what I learned along the way

Why?

To stand out in the crowded junior dev/tech support market. Many other candidates will have built similar portfolio projects like I have - JavaScript to do lists, weather apps and similar HTML/CSS/JavaScript websites. I also want to demonstrate a willingness to wear multiple hats in professional environments, demonstrating an understanding of the infrastructure side of development. Also to give myself a foundation in DevOps, seemingly bridging the gap between my interests in IT Operations and Dev.

How?

The old laptop I had lying around had these specs:

Model Name: Acer Swift
Processor: Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU N3450 @ 1.10GHz 1.10 GHz
Installed RAM: 4.00 GB (3.84 GB usable, non-upgradeable)
Storage: 58 GB SSD VID:90 HCG4a2
Graphics Card: Intel(R) HD Graphics (128 MB)
OS: Windows 10 Home Build 19045.5965, x64

I made sure to back up all existing files/data onto an external SSD before starting. I downloaded the latest version of Ubuntu Server 25.04 and installed balenaEtcher to create a bootable USB flash drive with the server image.

I used the Advanced startup settings in Windows to boot from EFI/USB, then pressed F12 during boot to install Ubuntu server. Choosing the correct SSID for my WLAN, I set a static IP (manual IPv4) in the Network Configuration step so that I can always connect to the server with the same address. To potentially speed up browsing, I used Google's 8.8.8.8 and Cloudflare's 1.1.1.1 DNS resolvers . I also installed OpenSSH server so I can remote into it from my Mac.

The wizard then asked me to reboot to finish the setup.

After login, I used the following command to update and upgrade the packages that came with the install:

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade

That was pretty much it! It was a very straightforward process. Only issue I had to troubleshoot was mistyping my WiFi password and having to use nano, the text editor, to change it within Netplan, Ubuntu's networking configuration tool.

I looked for the configuration file:

ls /etc/netplan

...then opened it for editing:

sudo nano /etc/netplan/50-cloud-init.yaml

I used Ctrl+O to write out the changes to the file, then Enter and Ctrl+X to exit.

I automated security and other upgrades with the unattended-upgrades package.

sudo apt install unattended-upgrades

It comes already installed with Ubuntu Server 25. It saves me a bit of time and effort to ensure my server is always up-to-date with the latest security patches, reducing risk of vulnerabilities. It also ensures stability of installed packages.

I enabled unattended-upgrades so it starts on boot without having to manually check:

sudo systemctl enable unattended-upgrades

I'm keeping my server headless (without a GUI) to allow lots of practice with the terminal, also reducing the potential attack vectors and optimising performance due to the very limited RAM (4GB).

Now what?

I set up remote login using SSH, a secure protocol that allows me to manage my server remotely (from the dinner table, or the cafe). This means I can be away from home and still tinker with my server as long as it's powered on, opening the terminal on my Mac and typing:

ssh my_username@my.servers.static.ip

I've also set up integrations with Grafana to gain further experience in infrastructure management and monitoring the server's stats, and Jira/Slack for service alerts. SSH, firewall/security hardening and integrations to be detailed in another post!

Learning Curve:

Setting a static IP - I didn't use advanced router configuration as my router has its firmware restricted by my ISP. I chose an IP outside the given DHCP range but within the same existing subnet.

Conclusion

Memory Efficiency: With the OS running Windows 10, the system would have used around 1.8-2.5GB or 40-65% of the non-upgradable RAM just sitting idle. Now running as a lightweight headless server, I've managed to reduce that to 378MiB idle or 16.7%, a huge improvement to breathe new life into an older system. This means there's much more of the RAM available for running services I'd want to include in future, such as a reverse proxy, a web server or even containers.
Install: The Ubuntu wizard makes the process very easy, and it's a good distro for all the documentation, forum posts and community support you can find for it. Looking forward to loading my server with services, touching on automation and whatever else I can get it to do!

Artifacts

Gemini: Ubuntu Server Static IP Configuration