Raspberry Pi 400 – First Impressions • Hacker News Board

Re: Raspberry Pi 400 – First Impressions

#101

Post by cbozeman » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 5:18 PM UTC

poisonarena wrote: post #89

jaster wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're looking for a fun use for your shelved rpi, I can recommand installing a retro-gaming distro such as recalbox ( https://www.recalbox.com/ ) or retropie ( https://retropie.org.uk/ ). I installed recalbox on a rpi3, and it runs nes/snes fine, and even some n64 games. On occasions I brought it along when visiting friends, and plugged it into the TV/projector with a couple of joysticks. It has been a blast! All…

thats always the suggestion, but every computer and laptop can easily emaulate all those things+ more.. I see no reason to use a rasp for that

This is always where I struggle as well.

I can bring two old corded Xbox 360 controllers with my Surface Book 3 and play pretty much any console game on an emulator. My SB3 has an HDMI dongle that I got with my SB2, so I just struggle to see the point.

I bought an SNES Classic, and it sits in the box because I can emulate all those games, plus more, with better graphical quality and more features on SNES9x.

Re: Raspberry Pi 400 – First Impressions

#102

Post by Asmod4n » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 5:26 PM UTC

Can this be used as a keyboard for a normal PC?

Re: Raspberry Pi 400 – First Impressions

#103

Post by Frenchgeek » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 5:33 PM UTC

Asmod4n wrote: post #102

Can this be used as a keyboard for a normal PC?

I would say it's not impossible, but extremely impracticable. And since the official rapsberry pi keyboard looks just like it and is cheaper to boot...

Re: Raspberry Pi 400 – First Impressions

#104

Post by nelaboras » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 5:38 PM UTC

kllrnohj wrote: post #57

jl2718 wrote: post #48

Is this thing suitable for kids and grandparents? Every other platform seems to abuse them with bloatware.

Not at all. Chrome OS would be a better fit there. Unless you're teaching your kids & grandparents how to sysadmin linux and don't think they want to watch any videos online (browser support for accelerated video decoding remains a giant disaster on linux), then sure? And also that they want a desktop instead of a laptop.

Ubuntu with chrome and chromium tends to work fine, except for a bunch of copyright blocked Netflix shows.

Re: Raspberry Pi 400 – First Impressions

#105

Post by Frenchgeek » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 5:41 PM UTC

simonh wrote: post #34

So going through the actual comments here, what this really needs to make a compelling product is: A built in touch pad, an audio jack, a full size HDMI port (even thought the accessory set includes an HDMI cable), an M.2 or SATA connector and a backlit keyboard. Anything else? Maybe an Intel processor, Windows, a built in battery and a hinged screen that folds down over the keyboard. Are we getting there yet?

https://learn.adafruit.com/introducing-the-raspberry-pi-zero...

Re: Raspberry Pi 400 – First Impressions

#106

Post by JohnBerea » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 5:42 PM UTC

jdietrich wrote: post #96

walrus01 wrote: post #73

One of my main concerns about the use of a raspberry pi as a desktop PC is microSD card write lifespan. microsd cards were not meant to be used as the boot disk for a live operating system. The amount of times you can write over one sector on them, and the write wear leveling algorithms, are much worse than even a $45 consumer grade SATA3 interface SSD. Yes you can now boot a raspberry pi from an external usb3.0 hard…

>One of my main concerns about the use of a raspberry pi as a desktop PC is microSD card write lifespan. If you're so inclined, you can buy microSD cards with better endurance ratings than typical consumer SSDs. https://www.westerndigital.com/products/embedded-removable-f...

I still have issues with the high endurance cards. Bought two identical high endurance 128GB's for Pi4's. After 1 day of use each (with minimal writes beyond installing RPi OS), GParted could resize one partition, but the other failed due errors that couldn't be repaired with fsck.

Re: Raspberry Pi 400 – First Impressions

#107

Post by kuon » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 5:48 PM UTC

kllrnohj wrote: post #57

jl2718 wrote: post #48

Is this thing suitable for kids and grandparents? Every other platform seems to abuse them with bloatware.

Not at all. Chrome OS would be a better fit there. Unless you're teaching your kids & grandparents how to sysadmin linux and don't think they want to watch any videos online (browser support for accelerated video decoding remains a giant disaster on linux), then sure? And also that they want a desktop instead of a laptop.

It works with firefox under wayland, but there are still many issues with wayland (like drag & drop often not working).

Re: Raspberry Pi 400 – First Impressions

#108

Post by billfruit » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 6:07 PM UTC

poisonarena wrote: post #89

jaster wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're looking for a fun use for your shelved rpi, I can recommand installing a retro-gaming distro such as recalbox ( https://www.recalbox.com/ ) or retropie ( https://retropie.org.uk/ ). I installed recalbox on a rpi3, and it runs nes/snes fine, and even some n64 games. On occasions I brought it along when visiting friends, and plugged it into the TV/projector with a couple of joysticks. It has been a blast! All…

thats always the suggestion, but every computer and laptop can easily emaulate all those things+ more.. I see no reason to use a rasp for that

Other usable ideas could be as an "Internet Radio" listening device if you can cobble together a descent front panel display and software stack.

Another could be some type of a Twitter ticker tape display for your front room.

Re: Raspberry Pi 400 – First Impressions

#109

Post by kllrnohj » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 6:16 PM UTC

nelaboras wrote: post #104

kllrnohj wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at all. Chrome OS would be a better fit there. Unless you're teaching your kids & grandparents how to sysadmin linux and don't think they want to watch any videos online (browser support for accelerated video decoding remains a giant disaster on linux), then sure? And also that they want a desktop instead of a laptop.

Ubuntu with chrome and chromium tends to work fine, except for a bunch of copyright blocked Netflix shows.

Chrome doesn't support hardware acceleration video decode on Linux at all. There's some unofficial patches for VaAPI support if you want to carry those around, but the Pi 4 also changed decoder support and it's generally all just a messy disaster.

Low-res video can be software decoded fine, but once you start pushing 1080p or 4k it's not going to go well at all.

Re: Raspberry Pi 400 – First Impressions

#110

Post by kllrnohj » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 6:19 PM UTC

kuon wrote: post #107

kllrnohj wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at all. Chrome OS would be a better fit there. Unless you're teaching your kids & grandparents how to sysadmin linux and don't think they want to watch any videos online (browser support for accelerated video decoding remains a giant disaster on linux), then sure? And also that they want a desktop instead of a laptop.

It works with firefox under wayland, but there are still many issues with wayland (like drag & drop often not working).

Still behind an experimental flag, though, isn't it? I don't think https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Firefox#Hardware_video_... really qualifies as something I'd want to send a non-technical person through.

Fun if you're into it, incredibly confusing if you're not. Which also means amazingly ~7 years later this XKCD is still relevant https://xkcd.com/619/