51–60 of 218 posts
This is nice but I can't even buy one! I've been "casually" shopping for a Raspberry Pi for a while now and it seems almost impossible without assistance from a bot, or immense effort.
Linux is just “almost” there. I could probably use it for my daily programming environment - Elixir, PostgreSQL, Vim, Firefox. But then my job takes a turn… creative. Document manipulation, convert multiple Images into a PDF, easy screenshots and then make a thumbnail with that. Sign docs with my signature. Access to apps like Pixemator. Share files easily. Dropbox. It’s just easier and more productive. It’s hard to…
If someone would build a Linux-friendly competetor to the ARM64 Mac Mini, I would consider that for my home computer. As it is, I either have to stick with x86_64, go to Apple, or have an under-powered RPi.
Why ARM specifically? Many Linux packages are not ported to ARM. Furthermore, non-Apple ARM CPUs are much slower. There are lots of fanless x86_64 options that are also energy efficient if you are willing to buy from small manufacturers or stick a fanless case yourself. The M1 performs so well partly because it uses a very advanced fabrication process. A modern Ryzen is going to have comparable single-core performanc…
The closest ARM systems in price and performance are the new RK3588 based ones like the Khadas Edge 2 or ROCK 5B, but those really are only practical if you really need the NPU and MIPI camera inputs they provide. They carry only a minor power efficiency edge (max draw around 12W vs maybe 18W for the x86 boards), are compromised in software compatibility, and are limited in IO (i.e. either PCIe-2 only or PCIe-3 but with only 4 lanes).
I cannot buy a Pi 4 (8GB) locally at all. Amazon appears to offer one for 200-250 euros. For 200 euros or less, I can get a NUC-style mini PC at my local electronics store that is more powerful. I wouldn't mind trying out a Pi-as-a-PC, but new models either just aren't available or aren't reasonably priced.
I use an old NUC with a i5-4250U CPU on an Akasa fanless case and it's pretty great. One of the tricks is to run a very thin and simple stack to get really low latency. No compositor, no DE, just a WM and X. And Ethernet. It copes with Google Meet or MS Teams just fine, as well as any light development. I do all heavy lifting by SSHing to a huge workstation. There are lots of nice options if one wants to purchase a b…
On the netbook, OpenBSD with cwm+xterm+gnufont+tmux plus mpv,gv,mupdf,nsxiv and sometimes links -g and a forked dillo. On SSH, I don't care even if I use wireless: I use Mosh and the remote server it's handled either by Tmux or Screen.
The latency on both are comparable.
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/the-raspberry-pi-store-pops...
> I use a Raspberry Pi 4 (with 8GB of RAM) as my daily desktop computer. I browse the internet, read and send e-mails, program software, edit photos, create images, watch Youtube videos and play games on it. Without any significant problems. Yes for those lite tasks is fine, and you can also save some watts. The things are different when you want to do audio/video/photo production.
Of course! But I still was positively surprised that GIMP, Youtube and even Kdenlive worked flawlessly on the thing.
Why wouldn't they work on a Pi 4 with higher specs?
Steam deck is a good option as well and you have great control out of the box of power draw.
What would be best if the primary motivator was reducing electricity for a solar-powered setup? I assume e-ink would be the best screen, though it costs a pretty penny for a respectable screen size. It might be worth using a laptop to have the battery taken care of.
> I use a Raspberry Pi 4 (with 8GB of RAM) as my daily desktop computer. I browse the internet, read and send e-mails, program software, edit photos, create images, watch Youtube videos and play games on it. Without any significant problems. Yes for those lite tasks is fine, and you can also save some watts. The things are different when you want to do audio/video/photo production.
> audio/video/photo production No one I know does this. The biggest problem for me is to use our corporate remote desktop you need spyware that only works on Windows and Mac.