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Ask HN: Does anyone use a Raspberry Pi as your main computer?

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Re: Ask HN: Does anyone use a Raspberry Pi as your main computer?

#141

Post by nextos »

D13Fd wrote: post #114
freedomben wrote: post #85

My son currently does and has for about a year. I also have for short periods as computers were "in the shop." He's used a couple different pis with varying success. At least 4 GB of RAM is a must. The distro you run also matters a great deal. The Pi4 with 8 GB is very usable as a main computer. I'm a Fedora person normally but for the Pi Raspbian is always my choice because it is so well optimized for low memory dev…

This is fascinating to me. 4GB of memory is not enough, on an OS "optimized for low memory devices"? What crazy world do we live in? I remember browsing the web with 64 mb of RAM, upgraded from 16 MB , and a 100 MHz CPU. I'm not saying you're wrong in any sense. I'm just marveling at the state of memory use in computing.

My Linux machine boots X with less than 300 MB (no desktop, StumpWM, SystemD and PulseAudio on NixOS). It's probably possible to compress it further.

The problem might come from heavy webapps, but its doable to work with just 2 GB and 4 GB never posed a problem.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone use a Raspberry Pi as your main computer?

#143

Post by johnklos »

HWR_14 wrote: post #69
johnklos wrote: post #62

Since my primary computer is a 2008 MacBook Pro with a Core 2 Duo and 6 gigs of memory, I wanted to see if a Pi 4 with 8 gigs would be an improvement. Of course, I'm not using an SD card for primary storage - I'm using a USB attached SSD. For many things, it is definitely faster: compiling, ffmpeg, running lots of shells with lots of scrolling in the background, interactive use with high loads. For browsing, it was d…

Did you jump of the MacOS upgrade path? I had to get rid of a computer that couldn't upgrade around the same age (but maybe slightly older)

Are you asking if I jumped off of the macOS upgrade path? I think that's what you mean. No, I didn't.

I'm running Catalina (10.15.7) on my 2008 MacBook Pro using DosDude1's tools. It runs quite well, and I still use it. I'll probably keep using it until I can get an ARM Mac.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone use a Raspberry Pi as your main computer?

#145

Post by nateb2022 »

I used to use a RPi 3b+ as my main machine shortly after it came out, and everything was (pretty much) fine. It did instill in me a minimalistic emphasis on stuff, so I got very attached to nvim and swaywm during that time period. Overall it was fun, and the closest I got to a constricted environment.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone use a Raspberry Pi as your main computer?

#146

Post by MaXtreeM »

Decabytes wrote: post #81

I used an 8gb RPI4 as my main dev computer for a bit. The idea was that if I was wasting cycles it would become a lot more apparent earlier on using the RPI 4 than on my main desktop. Also because I had less stuff on the PI (No steam/games) I had less things to get distracted about. YouTube can play 1080p but because of the slowness consuming video after video is not a smooth experience which stopped me from binging…

I don't know which class of SD card I used, it wasn't the top speed one, but switching to older M.2 SSD connected via USB case was night and day difference. I have RPi4 connected to a TV as a home center with full Raspberry OS because some local TV providers play only in browser. After switching to SSD the OS became snappy and playing video streams (less optimized then youtube) in browser is now non problem.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone use a Raspberry Pi as your main computer?

#147

Post by Syonyk »

shofetim wrote: post #126
Syonyk wrote: post #101

I've been using Pis around my office (and various other ARM small board computers of similar capabilities) for quite a few years now, and as they've become more capable, I use them for more. I've spilled quite a bit of digital ink on the variety of systems as well (the tag includes some of the other systems too): https://www.sevarg.net/tag/raspberrypi/ Computers I've used as "desktop grade systems" over the past 5 ye…

How was your experience with the PineBook Pro? I've been experimenting with ARM systems for the last year or so — changing how I compute to fit into the tighter limits of the SBCs etc. The governor settings and disk IO seem to be the most important points. I've been eyeing the PBP (once they come back into production). What is the battery life like with the governor set to performance?

I usually don't run it actually to the end of the battery, but with the screen at mid-brightness, 6-8 of estimated use is pretty common, and I'll often see 10-12 if I'm fully charged. I just don't know if those are accurate. But with deep sleep (BSP uboot, not mainline), it's quite well behaved.

It's my main laptop at this point, but I don't ask that much of computers anymore. They did, at least, fix the trackpad firmware, which was beyond vile until about a year ago.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone use a Raspberry Pi as your main computer?

#150

Post by l72 »

I don't use a pi, but I do use a pinebook pro as my primary personal computer (I don't like to do anything personal on my work laptop).

It has been great for all my needs including:

  - Running a business on shopify, including all my asset/image creation
  - Development (React/Javascript frontends, Elixir/Erlang backends, python)
  - Consumption (Hacker News, News Sites, RSS, Youtube Videos, ...)
  - Productivity (Email)
  - Writing (Mostly in emacs + pandoc)
Everything works well on it, and for only $200 I don't get too concerned about traveling with it and it breaking.
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