[GTALUG] Raspberry Pi as a desktop or settop computer

Sun Jun 23 12:23:17 EDT 2024

| From: Evan Leibovitch via talk <talk at gtalug.org>
| 
| On Sat, Jun 22, 2024 at 12:13 PM D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk <
| talk at gtalug.org> wrote:
| 
| When the Raspberry Pi first came out, it was appealing to think of it as an
| > ultra-inexpensive computer for your desktop (perhaps as a very secondary
| > unit) or to play media on your TV.
| >
| 
| I never thought the first two or three revs had enough power to do this.

They were not great as desktops, but they worked in a pinch.  At that 
time.  Hence the modifier "very secondary".

| They were a good fast way to learn Linux without reconfiguring a Windows
| PC, which is mainly how I used them.

Or to let a kid play without compromising the household's real computers.

| I tried OpenELEC and some of the other
| media distributions and was frustrated. IIRC you had to pay separately to
| unlock hardware support for certain codecs.

You had to pay to unlock one CODEC.  It was easy and cheap.  It was 
conforming to licensing rules, something cheap SBC's may not do.

| Out in the world, paired with cheap peripherals they were a
| ground-breakingly inexpensive way to create a WWW-access desktop.
| 
| Note: this wasn't the intent of the Raspberry Pi designers.  They wanted a
| > totally hackable, cheap, simple (as possible) computer to encourage kids to
| > dive into computing.  They fondly remembered they youth spent hacking and
| > mastering BBC Micro and other home/educational computers.
| >
| 
| That may have been how they started out, but things evolved. As a pure
| hobby/maker platform they had solid competition from Arduino, but as a
| cheap computer they had the field mainly to themselves for quite a while
| before we saw workalikes like the BeagleBoard.

They overlapped with Arduino.  At the time, for hardware hacking, Arduino 
was way weaker and way easier to understand.  Arduino had a different 
great community.

| > There was little competition at the price point of the Raspberry Pi.
| 
| 
| This self-awareness of early near-monopoly status went to their heads.
| Wearing multiple hats and in many different contexts I found the Foundation
| impossible to work with as a partner. This opened a window for others in
| the space who were hungrier.

They offered what they offered.  What kind of thing could you imagine that 
they would do with a partner?  Subsidize/discount?  No margin.  Pretty 
much all customers were treated equally: they had to go through 
selected distributors and those distributors apparently could not mark up 
the product.

| - a bunch of new SBCs inspired by the Pi have been released.  Each has its
| > own advantages and disadvantages compared with Raspberry Pi models. None
| > has the depth of support of the Raspberry Pi.
| >
| 
| True that none of the others could match the community around the Pi. That
| meant the Pi could have multiple custom Linux distributions for it while
| with other boards you mostly had to trust the vendor's distro. But at a
| corporate entity IMO the Foundation offered nothing that I would even
| charitably call "support".

The oldest hardware still gets official software updates.  Most 
competitors don't do that for even a year.

| - Raspberry Pi models improved a lot but the price crept up.  Note: older
| > models are still available at roughly original prices.
| >
| 
| They came out with the Pico which seemed like little more than more
| aggressively competing with Arduino.

Quite a different thing.  In things I think about, the ESP32 seems like a 
better choice, but that's all daydreaming.

| And the Zero looks more like an
| embedded device than a hobbyist one.

Those are not opposites.

| Then, after a year the audience  were hoping for an upgraded  board from
| the V4, all they gave us in 2020 was that embedded-in-a-keyboard Model 400
| crap. The V5 didn't come out till 2023.

Their supply chain problems were terrible.  I have no particular insight 
about why.

| As far as I was concerned all of the innovation in that space was coming
| from the case manufacturers.

You weren't paying attention.  There were a lot of things other than 
cases.  For example, cameras, hats, etc.

Creating an open platform is exactly what we need.

I wish all the SBC manufacturers would ship with a universal boot 
environment so distros could support all of them.  Sadly, UEFI looks like 
the only hope, even though it is too fat for my taste.  Raspberry Pi was 
popular enough and open enough to attract some distro support.

| - streaming media players were introduced at RP prices.  They play better
| > with the many forms of DRM that infest the services.
| 
| 
| Used as media devices, they also have much better UIs, remote control
| support, etc.

Yes, but it was possible to add remotes.

| IMO the Pi was never a credible player in this field. Nobody ever used them
| as the core of a pirate media device.

Of course they did.

| > - tiny x86 boxes have become a lot better and cheaper
| >
| 
| Just last week my technophonic friend needed a new no-frills PC to replace
| their decade-old Dell. I helped them get an Intel NUC on sale at Canada
| Computers. Small as anything, powerful enough for anything except gaming,
| less than $600 complete, includes Windows and runs it well, and it still
| has a 3.5" audio jack. A Pi 5 kit with all parts is about $250, but that
| still means you have to assemble it yourself (with the added complexity of
| needing a CPU fan) and primary storage is still a MicroSD card.

A Pi 5 doesn't seem to be $250.  PiShop.ca offeres Pi 5/4G, case with fan, 
power supply, for $114.95 + tax + shipping (not a sale price).  You need 
to add your own SD card for the OS (PiShop charges $14.95 for a 32G card 
that is preloaded).  There are some nice-to-have things but they are 
optional.

The competition for a cheap box is an N100 box.  But maybe not: prices 
seem to have gone way up.  Last fall I bought a Bee-Link N95 box from 
Amazon.ca for something like $120; now it is twice that.

$600 seems like a lot for a minimal box.  Not sure what "complete" means.  
Does that include a monitor, keyboard, and mouse?

There are reasons to buy something better than minimal.  My main desktop 
is a quite powerful mini PC.
<https://www.amazon.ca/Beelink-7840HS-Computer-Desktop-Display/dp/B0CH7XHM7M/>

For a minimal system, a cheap laptop is even more complete than a mini PC.
It has a much better footprint than a mini PC and, I presume, space is 
expensive in modern homes.

| There are SO MANY reasons;
| 
|    - Desktop RAM tends to be cheaper and more expandable.r
|    - Desktops can upgrade their GPU to enable gaming, video editing or AI
|    assist; laptops can't.
|    - Picking the right keyboard for me is critical as it's where I spend
|    most time interfacing with my computing world.
|    - Ditto screens. What if you want yours higher resolution, or larger, or
|    curved?
|    - Most laptop keyboards and speakers SUCK. Ergonomics? Forget them. And
|    not everyone likes trackpads as their pointing device.

Agreed, but those are probably not concerns for minimal systems.  You can 

My most recent laptop was $300 (new, from Costco.ca).  I admit that the 
deal was pretty good.

It came with 8G of RAM -- enough for ordinary users.  I added an 8G stick 
in the empty socket (cheap) -- generous for ordinary users.

It came with an iGPU.  Not powerful.  I don't need a powerful GPU, 
especially for a low-end system.

It has an HDMI out for attaching a monitor.  I think that it is limited to 
30 Hz at UltraHD resolutions (I haven't checked).  I don't use it.

You can plug in a keyboard or mouse if you want to.  I don't.

You can plug in speakers through an analogue audio socket.  I don't (so 
the sound is poor).

So most of your complaints are solveable.

| The main reason for buying a laptop that's not mobile is for simplicity.
| The components are all pre-matched (regardless if the matches are optimal)
| and pre-assembled, including peripherals. If you have any interest in
| expandability, gaming, AI, or decent input devices, a laptop isn't your
| best bet.
| 
| 
| >   That market is much larger and the competition has produced some quite
| > good option.
| >
| 
| The simplicity means that you can probably buy a laptop easily at Walmart
| or Bestbuy.
| As is frequently the case there are always tradeoffs as one chooses their
| balance between simplicity and flexibility.
| 
| As for me... I have zero interest in the Raspberry Pi now. Its day is done
| and its producers are jerks.

You are not everyone.  I must remind myself that I'm not everyone.

I'd love to know in which way they are jerks.  But perhaps these are 
things that one must not talk about.

| If anything, I am hoping to see the next generation of commonly-used
| Raspberry Pi style experimenter boards to be using RISC-V instead of ARM.

There are a bunch of them.  So far, most are inferior at the same price.  
I hope and expect that will change.

There are a few rays of sunshine at the low end.  For example, the ESP32 
C-series uses RISC-V (but isn't suitable for Linux).

Here's a random example of a low-end one that can run Linux (barely, I'd 
guess): 
<https://vi.aliexpress.com/item/1005006442665261.html>

There are higher end ones.