2022-02-04 16:44:17 (edited by JaceK 2022-02-04 16:44:51)

So given the UK's plan to make the costs of living higher (because reasons), I decided last night, fine, I'll cut back on my electricity bill and go with a low powered computer and settled on the Raspberry Pi 400, bcause...I like the form factor, and it is a much, much lower powered device than either my desktop, or laptop that sucks down wall power like it's going out of style, because hey, sealed Dell and wonky battery. Plus after recent experiences i'm a bit skittish about lithium batteries thank you very much, thank you being linked to articles on thermal runaway and UPS Flight 6. Thanks for that...

So. Those of you who have, or have used Pis in the past or currently use them.

1. Aside from Stormux, which is the distro I'm eyeing to put on it...is Raspberry Pi OS any good in general? I'd be going with the Bullseye version. How good's the Pixel desktop as far as general usage and Orca and suchlike?

2. This is the biggie. How can I ensure my SD card won't wear out in a few months/weeks with log file writes? I know, log2ram, and configs and such. I know about that and it's on my list to get that working once my Pi gets here, but any other good ways to minimize the SD wear? I'm eyeing getting a USB SSD or HDD to go with the Pi too, but given I have a puppy in the house I don't really want cables jerked out or chewed up at all.

3. How good/bad/meh/whatever else, is the keyboard? I've not found  astupidly in depth overview of it, most of the stuff I've read is along the lines of oh, it's on okay keyboard, without going into okay so hey, there's no Super/Windows key, there's mdia keys, that sort of thing

4. I've seen mixed reports for the web browsing. I don't need Youtube since I can do that via command line stuff, but I'm planning to do stuff like Kodi on it, and web surfing/emails. From all I've found/been told, and asking on the Stormux list, my Pi 400 should be good for that.

5. How slow, really, are updates? I did see it took 45mins-1hr to do a series of updates due to the processor being slow.

EDIT: Okay fixed the title. Didn't realize I messed it up

Warning: Grumpy post above
Also on Linux natively

2022-02-04 17:33:56

Laptops are the last thing to worry about when it comes to energy consumption. You would need a processor that would be running at 100% 24/7, and not a mainstreem processor clocked somewhere between 2.7 to 3.5 GHZ, but rather something that would generate 10 times the power of a computer processor, to say that your device is spending considerable energy.
What really consumes electricity are air conditioners, space heaters, vaccume cleaners, laundry machines, big refrigerators. But laptops? No mate.

2022-02-04 17:39:34 (edited by Chris 2022-02-04 17:46:26)

I don't have the 400 model, but the last time I  tried the Buster release of Raspberry Pi OS on my Pi 4 with 4 GB RAM, it wasn't great. They use the LXDE desktop, and Orca doesn't really work well with it. It won't announce window titles when you Alt+Tab through them, only when you let go of the keys to switch applications. There's no way to access the status menus from the keyboard. I doubt this has changed in Debian 11.
I tried Ubuntu Mate and 21.10, and it didn't perform well. It was extremely slow, and when I tried replacing Gnome with Mate, I couldn't get Orca to work at all. Ubuntu Mate didn't work at all. The installer is inaccessible and it produces an irritating buzzing noise when I connect directly using the Pi's audio jack or HDMI port. I'm not sure if it was my unit or just Orca being crummy, but I'm not terribly impressed with any of these options. That blind Arch distro is extremely confusing and not at all meant for newbies. I'm glad I only spent $100 on my Pi 4 kit.

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2022-02-04 21:40:00

If you want my personal opinion, don't even try to use a Pi as a day to day working machine. This is one of those things where yes... it looks kind of cool on paper, but no, it's not a good idea. At all. Also as mentioned above, you really wouldn't be saving much. Doubly so if you're living with family or whatever and not footing the entire bill.

2022-02-04 22:11:52

So what's a good alternative then? Ideally I want something I can throw in  abag and travel, and not have to worry about battery life or charging at all. Which is why I was leaning towards a Pi as well, because small form factor, easy to throw in abag and travel easily...without having to fight with a mass of wires whenever I want to take out or put away the computer. Which is what I have to deal with currently. Yes. i'm lazy when it comes to that and have enough cat's cradle horror stories about cats cradle wires.

I was looking at all in one PCs, but couldn't find one I liked, and my laptop is a sealed unit so if something goes bad (and I have my suspicions the battery is going that way) I can't fix it myself and have to either pay through the nose for repair (which around here isn't cheap), or buy a new machine.

Hence why I want something simple and easy

Warning: Grumpy post above
Also on Linux natively

2022-02-05 00:53:27

Well, a raspberry Pi with all its peripherals can still involve a bunch of wires, such as a USB hub, power supplies, etc. Though a raspi 400 may be fine by itself. There are a number of different operating systems you can install on a raspberry pi however besides Linux, such as Android which has talkback, or even [windows 10] with narrator (since NVDA et al don't support ARM), though its recommended you do that on a Raspberry pi 4, so the raspi 400 should be sufficient.

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2022-02-05 01:14:45

@Maggerp:

Ideally it'd just be two wires. Power supply, and USB headphones however, more than the four or five I have now which is a nightmare when packing/unpacking from my laptop bag. I just want to simplify it down to something that's manageable, far as wires go however. Ideally, I'd want something lightweight on it as not to bog it down.

@Hailey:

Which OS were you trying? I've heard different things from a lot of people with a whole range of opinions however, everyone seems to have their own different experience from oh this is not doable to okay this is doable but... and everything in between.

Warning: Grumpy post above
Also on Linux natively

2022-02-05 02:13:01

Did Raspian for awhile, ran into no end of UI / Orca issues and gave up on it. Switched to regular Debian, and it... mostly worked, but the power supply tended to get in the way / disconnect at inopportune moments, so it wasn't exactly an ideal setup. Granted I was using a regular Pi with a keyboard and things attached, so YMMV.
You can install standard windows on the Pi4 now as well, I forget the exact process, possibly it may even just be burn the regular ISO to SD card / another hard drive and go from there.
One thing to remember when installing *anything* on the Pi is that the firmware on the SD card cannot be fucked with, ever, unless you want to give yourself a hard time fixing it. A lot of installers aren't exactly optimised to prevent this, so you have to be careful when selecting hard drives for formatting. Unless you're using a distribution with an installer specifically designed for the Pi's rather unique setup, I'd recommend installing whatever OS you plan on using on a dedicated hard drive of some description. Which is just one more peripheral you have to think about.
I know this is probably coming across as rather cynical, but trust me, I love the Pi. I just think it serves it's purpose so, so so much better as... well, a microcomputer. VPN, perhaps NAS if you have the hard drives to support it, ETC ETC. It's kind of one of those things where really your first priority should be to set it up and forget about it, unless accessing it remotely via SSH. That's just my opinion though.

2022-02-05 05:51:34

Hi.
So after my first 20.04 VM wouldn't boot, I decided to run 21.10, and I wouldn't recommend it. For one thing, I wasn't able to get the Ubuntu software thing to read. Maybe I was doing something wrong but not sure.

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2022-02-05 07:25:23

I'm gonna agree with Haily here, the pi is a fine board for Pi-Hole, some kind of nas, as a DMR hotspot or whatever set it and forget it network appliance thing you can think of. I attempted to use one as a daily driver to see if I could but it just lacks power.
You'll want to look into some mini PC thing like the minisforum EliteMini HX90 or HM90. These are Mini PCs about the size of an average router (7.5" by 7.5" by 2" roughly) with beefy AMD APUs in them powerful enough for you to run Linux and virtualize something else on the side if you need to. If those are too pricey then even the lowest end Intel Celeron mini PC will run rings around a pi.

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2022-02-05 09:10:08

Well, if you want something light-weight, portable, fast and efficient, then buy a Microsoft Surface or a Microsoft tablet. You will need just 2 wires: charger and headphones. They already have a built-in keyboard that you can fold. They are a bit pricy though.

2022-02-05 15:36:37

I use a GPD Micro whilst on the go, and I actually rather like it. The keyboard takes a lot of getting used to, though, but it's worth it given how small it is.

2022-02-05 20:55:17

GPD anything except the Win 3 with its touch keyboard is awesome! It's the true pocket PC I've always wanted!

Grab my Adventure at C: stages Right here.