What can I do with an old iMac?

[silicon_lottery]

In my Dad's office, there is an iMac from mid-2009. I want to connect it to the internet and Amazon Photos so that I can digitize all the photos from the Mac. Once they're all in Amazon Photos, there's no real purpose for the Mac any more.

 

I was going to consider erasing the entire thing and running Ubuntu/Linux Mint on it, but I could also just run them from a virtual machine and leave the Mac as it is. I know that old Macs can handle Linux without breaking a sweat, but is it something I should really do?

 

Or should I do something else?

[Phrench]

Could use it as a folding@home machine

[Vishera]

It can be used for basic web browsing,a small game server,and more.

[GDRRiley]

2 minutes ago, PhreshBrread said:

Could use it as a folding@home machine

that mac doesn't have great cooling good luck doing that 24/7 without issues.

so its a core 2 duo right?

can you find a model number like this MB419LL/A?

[Phrench]

2 hours ago, GDRRiley said:

that mac doesn't have great cooling good luck doing that 24/7 without issues.

tape a desk fan to the side

[PlayStation 2]

4 minutes ago, PhreshBrread said:

tape a desk fan to the side

For that money, OP should just sell it on eBay rather than having a highly mediocre F@H machine that uses more power than most modern day GPUs.

[Zodiark1593]

Wonder if current Xcode can run on it? Could be used to install Retroarch on i devices. 

[Noira]

Mac has native support for almost all mainstream systems: macOS / Windows / Linux / iOS and Android (If you have available devices). It's a great computer for learning. I don't know if recent Android and iOS SDK can run on a 2009 iMac though.