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I use a Raspberry Pi as my daily computer

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Re: I use a Raspberry Pi as my daily computer

#181

Post by StillBored »

blueflow wrote: post #163
StillBored wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not a Intel platform (trust issues due to IME) See, this is what I don't understand, the pi's GPU is running a huge pile of closed source proprietary code as well, and at a first approximation has full system visibility too (ignoring it apparently has a bug limiting its actual view of all system ram on the higher capacity models). It could in theory be injecting/monitoring the nic as well. AKA, its just as privil…

> It could in theory be injecting/monitoring the nic as well. Intel is known to do this shit, Broadcom isn't, yet. I'd always prefer a blob on the boot partition over an EEPROM that i can't access without disassembly.

When the machine owner asks for it, has there been a case where its been caught sending packets otherwise?

I mean its a "feature" being sold, if you get a vpro/amt machine it still needs to be turned on (the couple I have, have bios options for enabling/disabling the management features).

Re: I use a Raspberry Pi as my daily computer

#182

Post by outworlder »

PaulWaldman wrote: post #86

What is the point for a consumer to use a Raspberry PI 4 today? I recently purchased a mini PC with an Intel N5105, 16GB of Ram, 512GB NVME SSD, two gigabit ethernet ports, two HDMI ports, many USB ports, and Wifi 6. This system was $180, all in. You can't find a Pi 4, much less one with equivalent specs for anywhere near this price. If you can find it, an 8GB PI4 is $75 and then you need to buy the case, power suppl…

> I do think the PI is great from the hobbyist and industrial perspective, but to just use it as an inexpensive PC seems like a waste.

Given the current availability and prices, yes. Mind you, they started much, much cheaper.

Re: I use a Raspberry Pi as my daily computer

#183

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

mattkrause wrote: post #122
PaulWaldman wrote: post #86

What is the point for a consumer to use a Raspberry PI 4 today? I recently purchased a mini PC with an Intel N5105, 16GB of Ram, 512GB NVME SSD, two gigabit ethernet ports, two HDMI ports, many USB ports, and Wifi 6. This system was $180, all in. You can't find a Pi 4, much less one with equivalent specs for anywhere near this price. If you can find it, an 8GB PI4 is $75 and then you need to buy the case, power suppl…

GPIO pins. If you want to connect a "regular PC" to the real world, you can get a USB DAQ but even the cheapo LabJack, NI or MCC models are at least a hundred bucks.

The Odroid H3 / H3+ is a x86 SBC that has a 24-pin GPIO header and is only moderately more expensive.

Re: I use a Raspberry Pi as my daily computer

#184

Post by rambambram »

bee_rider wrote: post #169
bluGill wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first machine I browsed the web on was running at a wopping 40MHz. We have a bloat problem not a spec problem even on cheap machines. Now get off my lawn you kids.

We have an absolutely terrible bloat problem on the web. Unfortunately, using a slow PC on our end won't solve it. If we could force web devs to work on raspberry pis or old atom netbooks, the world would be a better place.

That's what I did, basically. I forced myself to work on low end machines because there might be a chance my website system also runs in a browser on a low end machine. My website with this blogpost is holding up perfectly fine by the way, even with all HN visitors, peaking at almost 2 visits each second for some hours. Also credits to my webhost!

Re: I use a Raspberry Pi as my daily computer

#185

Post by Sirened »

StillBored wrote: post #156
blueflow wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used a RPi in the past as main desktop, why i went for this: - Its not a Intel platform (trust issues due to IME) - Power consumption low enough for running 24/7 - Noise - its quiet enough so it does not disturb me while sleeping - No support for weird power management, machines going dark for no discernible reason has always been bugging me What i really disliked was the instability of SD cards, and the media play…

Its not a Intel platform (trust issues due to IME) See, this is what I don't understand, the pi's GPU is running a huge pile of closed source proprietary code as well, and at a first approximation has full system visibility too (ignoring it apparently has a bug limiting its actual view of all system ram on the higher capacity models). It could in theory be injecting/monitoring the nic as well. AKA, its just as privil…

>ignoring it apparently has a bug limiting its actual view of all system ram on the higher capacity models

AFAIK that SoC had big and little DMA engines. The little engines can't reach the upper half of memory but the bigger ones can, which means you can just use the big DMA engines to muck with any RAM you yourself can't directly see. It's annoying for practical purposes but it doesn't have any security value.

Re: I use a Raspberry Pi as my daily computer

#186

Post by StillBored »

eliasmacpherson wrote: post #82

I tried using it daily as you do, but youtube had stability issues in Chromium and Firefox for ages, so now I rarely use it. When it works, great, when not, I'm not spending any more time trying to figure out why. https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?t=323782 https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?t=323640&start=...

Stability issues on RPI's almost always are the result of power and cooling problems.

AKA, use one of the official power adapters, and one of the large 3rd party heatsink/fan combos.

Web browsing on the rpi is painful at best, and when its "working" will be stressing the poor thing to its max, so... see above.

Re: I use a Raspberry Pi as my daily computer

#187

Post by sys_64738 »

blueflow wrote: post #113
PaulWaldman wrote: post #86

What is the point for a consumer to use a Raspberry PI 4 today? I recently purchased a mini PC with an Intel N5105, 16GB of Ram, 512GB NVME SSD, two gigabit ethernet ports, two HDMI ports, many USB ports, and Wifi 6. This system was $180, all in. You can't find a Pi 4, much less one with equivalent specs for anywhere near this price. If you can find it, an 8GB PI4 is $75 and then you need to buy the case, power suppl…

I used a RPi in the past as main desktop, why i went for this: - Its not a Intel platform (trust issues due to IME) - Power consumption low enough for running 24/7 - Noise - its quiet enough so it does not disturb me while sleeping - No support for weird power management, machines going dark for no discernible reason has always been bugging me What i really disliked was the instability of SD cards, and the media play…

> Its not a Intel platform (trust issues due to IME)

You're right to be paranoid. If only people fully grasped what the IME actually was.

Re: I use a Raspberry Pi as my daily computer

#188

Post by eliasmacpherson »

StillBored wrote: post #186
eliasmacpherson wrote: post #82

I tried using it daily as you do, but youtube had stability issues in Chromium and Firefox for ages, so now I rarely use it. When it works, great, when not, I'm not spending any more time trying to figure out why. https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?t=323782 https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?t=323640&start=...

Stability issues on RPI's almost always are the result of power and cooling problems. AKA, use one of the official power adapters, and one of the large 3rd party heatsink/fan combos. Web browsing on the rpi is painful at best, and when its "working" will be stressing the poor thing to its max, so... see above.

it stands up to stress/linpack, I've the flirc case & and official adapter. It may be something to do with trying to accelerate video. Otherwise it has never crashed.

I suspect it's a compilation flag that this ubuntu distro has set correctly that RpiOS has not, I also see some about:config messing to try for another time.

Re: I use a Raspberry Pi as my daily computer

#189

Post by BackBlast »

hello_moto wrote: post #174
kajecounterhack wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The prices went up recently, but another similar one is the Morefine M8S (on aliexpress). N5105, 16G ram, 512GB SSD, 3x HDMI, 3x USB 3.0, 2x gigabit ethernet, Wi-Fi6, BT5.2, USB-C charging, ~$253.

What's the use-case for this PC by the way? I'm in the market for a cheap PC/Laptop for my kids (minecraft, zoom, MS teams, chrome, and Roblox)

N5105 Jasper Lake systems do this pretty well. Has a good iGPU, particularly for a low end budget intel chip. Efficient. Has Quick Sync for video.

The laptops use the N6000 chip, N5105 is for the small desktop lines. There is also a more expensive N6005 for desktop.

N6000 is more aggressive in power savings. So higher single thread, lower multi. It also has more silicon dedicated to the GPU, which is about a 25% boost (30 execution units vs 24).

The biggest practical difference I've seen is that 95% of the laptops have fixed memory that tops out at 8GB. HP has one that accepts an SO-DIMM. If this is a reasonable level for the minecraft they do then you should be fine. I know with my kid's systems I had to go up to 12GB because of the mods they like.

Re: I use a Raspberry Pi as my daily computer

#190

Post by veqq »

sbarre wrote: post #150
PaulWaldman wrote: post #86

What is the point for a consumer to use a Raspberry PI 4 today? I recently purchased a mini PC with an Intel N5105, 16GB of Ram, 512GB NVME SSD, two gigabit ethernet ports, two HDMI ports, many USB ports, and Wifi 6. This system was $180, all in. You can't find a Pi 4, much less one with equivalent specs for anywhere near this price. If you can find it, an 8GB PI4 is $75 and then you need to buy the case, power suppl…

I'd love to know where you got that PC for that price. I just spent 20 minutes doing some searches in all the usual suspects (Amazon, eBay, AliXpress, and some online stores I can usually get good prices from) and the cheapest I found for the configuration you specified was around $400.. Mostly it seems to be the RAM that boosts the cost. For 8GB I can get it down to $260, but I've seen nothing even close to $180. Ed…

Apply the coupon and it's 190: https://www.amazon.com/Processor-Beelink-Computer-Support-Di...
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