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Raspberry Pi releases an OS to breathe new life into old PCs
- nathan_f77 10y agoThis will be an interesting one to watch. There's a huge number of tiny Linux distros, but most of them couldn't compete with something released by the Raspberry Pi foundation. I think their biggest competitor is lubuntu. It's just a stripped down Ubuntu with the LXDE desktop. PIXEL also uses LXDE, and it looks like they've made a few design tweaks to the file manager. They both have Chromium as the default browser. Right now I think lubuntu supports way more machines. I'm wondering why they didn't just use lubuntu, or just fork it and make a few changes. I've been using lubuntu on a small media PC, and I've been very happy with it.
- em3rgent0rdr 10y ago> "I'm wondering why they didn't just use lubuntu" They could of, and that might have been a great idea. Although not as headline grabby as "we made a new OS!". I think that Debian probably is slightly better on PIs simply because Raspian has been running off Debian from just after the first Pi's came out, and since Debian historically supported more architectures, so maybe makes more sense from stability standpoint to build off of Debian instead of Ubuntu. I recall the creators of Raspbian saying it was actually quite difficult as it was to port Debian to RPi 1 due to the particular architecture, so starting from Lubuntu might have been a little too difficult.
- khedoros1 10y agoUbuntu dropped ARMv6 a long while ago and refuses to consider bringing it back, so it was out of the running as a Raspberry Pi OS, back when just the Pi1 was around. Ubuntu will run just fine on the Pi2 and 3, just not on the 1 or 0. Pixel is a mildly-tweaked version of LXDE running on Raspbian, which is a mildly-tweaked version of Debian. That's problematic, when part of their brand is providing a good environment for learning (which is helped by keeping the OS as similar as possible between different versions of the hardware).
- Fuzzwah 10y agoI use lubuntu on my daily drive laptop and older PCs I have laying around. I'm a huge fan. I wanted to note that with the up coming 17.04 release it will be using the LXQt desktop environment.
- Narishma 10y ago> I'm wondering why they didn't just use lubuntu Ubuntu is compiled for ARMv7, so it doesn't run on the RPi 1 and 0.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- pulse7 10y agoClean, simple PIXEL UI is attractive...
- onesun 10y agoJust installed it on a Zero I had laying around and I'm surprised by the general responsiveness of the UI. Of course, now that I played with it for five minutes I'll turn off the GUI and go direct to CLI like every other Pi I have. Trying to get weewx up and going on my Zero.
- webwanderings 10y agoWith 512 MB, there's hardly an Internet browsing experience here. The biggest reason why old hardware have gone out of use (relatively quickly) is mostly due to Internet browsers and their need for more memory. So even if you have a computer with 2-4 GB laying around, and you attempt to revive it seeing the news here, it will be soon before you give up the idea altogether.
- onesun 10y agoA lot of Chromebooks are still shipping with 2GB of RAM and they do a perfectly sufficient job of running the "Internet" for most everyday users. I would argue your lower limit of a reasonable Internet browsing experience is higher than average because of your technical background. 512MB would be limiting for sure, but a machine with 2GB of RAM running a Linux desktop, especially with an SSD if possible, would make a fine everyday laptop. *edit: Forgot to mention also that ad blocking aids tremendously in making the internet more usable on underpowered machines.
- webwanderings 10y agoWell, I'd argue that Internet browsing with 2GB is only suitable for reading news and email. This then is a common denominator for layman user, who then wouldn't be using Linux or Pi to begin with. However, this thread is not about Chromebook (and I agree with you there about Chromebook - my wife uses it for email/youtube browsing, and it works perfectly fine). There's a big difference between Chromebook and Linux/Pi/etc world of hardware/software experience for any person. You can throw a Chromebook to anyone and you wouldn't have to care about it. But try imagining the idea of giving Linux type OS to anyone...we know what happens next. This is one reason why tablets (particularly starting with iPad) became popular among average crowd.
- StavrosK 10y agoWhat happens next? I've given Ubuntu laptops (2010 laptops) to my dad, mom, girlfriend and sister, and they're liking it a lot, especially the fact that they don't have to worry about malware. They're fine with it, it's not like people are born with an innate understanding of the Windows UI and are incapable of learning anything else.
- ImAGirl 10y agoIt's wonderful how the RaspberryPi foundation achieved everything the OLPC initiative--backed by huge names--tried and failed to do.
- carussell 10y agoEverything OLPC set out to do? OLPC was meant to come with a display and a keyboard baked in, all in a (fully open) package that you could chuck across the room; a "View Source" button to let you inspect and edit the code to all your apps; UI making it easy to set up ad hoc networks to share/collaborate with anyone around you; and to put this all into the hands of children across the world, not just first world schoolchildren and the offspring of upper-middle class tinkerers. These just the main points from OLPC's value proposition—we're not even delving into obscure or nuanced stuff yet. How does RaspberryPi's success measure at any one of these things, let alone all of them?
- justin66 10y agoThe Pi was something people could actually buy cheaply.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- johansch 10y agoThe details around the commercial relationship between Qualcomm and the Raspberry Pi foundation is lacking quite a bit in transparency in my mind. I guess that one of my suspicions here is that some people are making lots of money on something that is billed and marketed as a selfless charity. (https://www.raspberrypi.org/files/about/RaspberryPiFoundationReport2015.pdf https://www.raspberrypi.org/files/about/RaspberryPiFoundatio... is not nearly detailed enough.) OLPC is a whole other kind of (a very academic kind of) disaster.
- ZenoArrow 10y ago>"Qualcomm" I think you're thinking of Broadcom.
- crispytx 10y agoPuppy Linux has already been breathing new new life into old PCs. I have an IBM ThinkPad just like the one featured in the article running Puppy Linux.
- JayHost 10y agoHeadlines like these are always mind bogglin. I always wished the Puppy project would allow better browsing on the raspberry pi. I really dislike the new Raspberry pi toolbar / desktop
- agumonkey 10y agoIt's sad that they're using the RPI brand to distort reality. Even though in a way the RPI project was already twisting things (GPIO + python isn't computing education but I'm nitpicking).
- seanp2k2 10y agoYeah, it'd be cool if they also taught Linux fundamentals, the way the internet works, networking in general, etc.
- Nexxxeh 10y agoI think that may be looking at it in a different way that doesn't necessarily reflect the impact of all this, in the UK at least. The way many of my generation was taught IT was Office (with maybe some Macros), a largely useless high-level overview of networking, an out-of-date comparison of "client-server", "mainframe" and "peer-to-peer" computing etc. It was dry. Unless you already had an interest in the field, it was boring. It taught you enough about Microsoft Office to do your other school work, it taught you enough about the web and email to get by, and it taught out-dated terminology that you would unlearn in the real world. It didn't teach troubleshooting of any kind. It wasn't engaging. Many of us were already ahead of the teachers. If the teacher had a problem, it was usually a student that could give the answer. (I only had one IT teacher who wasn't below the level of a teenager with an active interest in IT.) But the worst thing was that it didn't get people interested and didn't teach the mindsets required. The underlying logic. The basics of troubleshooting. Binary exclusion. Shit, how to deal with a paper jam! Nowadays everyone has a smartphone, can follow a YouTube tutorial, can Google stuff, before they're in their teens. The Pi and the teaching around it gets kids exposed to the lower levels of hardware (or at least a simplified version of). It's interesting and engaging. There's a far bigger pay-off than "my spreadsheet looks nice". A blinking light gives a greater sense of accomplishment than a ".ppt" file. The Pi gives the tools and motivation to actually learn the stuff you are talking about. Hook 'em with the fun stuff while still being useful. Most kids won't need to know "ls" or "mount". They're never going to "modprobe" anything. They are already taught the very high-level basics of the Internet and networking. But they're never going to use variable length subnet masks. But many more kids will hopefully be interested enough to pursue careers in IT. And those who don't will at least have an appreciation for it, and will have been taught skills and a mindset invaluable in the increasingly digitally connected world in which we live.
- mysterydip 10y agoThe more lightweight OSes, the better as far as I'm concerned. I've tried all the usual suspects over the years and each has pros and cons. I'm sure this fits the use case for some people out there that others don't.
- em3rgent0rdr 10y agoLubuntu is worth mentioning as something that has been breathing life into old PCs while being noobie-friendly and with the access to current ubuntu software repos.
- Brakenshire 10y agoI think PIXEL is based on LXDE.
- tagrun 10y agoIt's an LXDE theme, plus a few aesthetic modifications to a few LXDE programs. I wouldn't call it an OS or a DE.
- zdkl 10y agoManjaro as well! Slimmer than ubuntu and less headaches than arch, it's pretty good for linux neophytes. https://manjaro.org https://manjaro.org
- manaskarekar 10y agoLubuntu is, IMHO, the best balance between barebones, and works out of the box. Of course, this line moves for different people. Previous post listing reasons why I like it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12979949 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12979949
- Animats 10y agoThe next step above Lubuntu is Xubuntu. If it will fit, use it. I buy old ASUS subnotebooks on eBay for about $40 and put Xubuntu on them when I need a little machine for something. Drivers can be a problem. However, [UXL]buntu finally fixed the years-old bug where the cursor goes away on devices using built-in Intel graphics. (You could make the cursor come back with CTL-ALT-F1, CTL-ALT-F7, which switches the display to text mode and back.) That prevented anyone not heavily into Linux from using the thing.
- abrowne 10y ago
- calebsurfs 10y agoI'm surprised they ship with chromium, I have had a much better experience with firefox than Chrome on my low end laptop. Does chromium have a smaller memory footprint than Chrome?
- type0 10y ago> Does chromium have a smaller memory footprint than Chrome? If it does it's negligible after you disable google apps addons and flash. Had the same experience, my old AMD semphron can't handle Chromium but Firefox runs just fine. That machine has 2GB DDR-I RAM but it is almost nonexistent CPU cache that kills it.
- Klathmon 10y agoChrome and chromium should have about the same footprint. But IIRC chrom(ium|e) modifies it's memory usage quite a lot depending on the hardware it's running on. If it's a low spec machine, it will disable many of the memory-hungry features and speed improvements.
- olegkikin 10y agoSSDs are what breathe new life into old PCs. And they are quite cheap. My wife's laptop turned from extremely annoying to decent, almost pleasant to use.
- Brakenshire 10y agoThink that's a different class of old PC. They're talking about computers with 512MB of RAM, you're getting up towards 4GB before spending money on an SSD is going to be a sensible I'd say.
- FreeFull 10y agoSSDs and extra RAM are the two best upgrades to improve how fast and responsive everything feels.
- Klathmon 10y agoI've found that an SSD is significantly better for most "store bought" computers/laptops. They advertise "gigahertz", RAM, drive space, and sometimes screen size. So everything else is left to the cheapest possible part. Updating the 5400 RPM HDD to an SSD has completely changed every single laptop a family member has brought me as "too slow to use". I've also found it's damn near impossible to buy a cheap laptop with an SSD.
- squarefoot 10y agoI would put extra RAM first, then the SSD, just to prevent the OS from abusing the SSD for swapping.
- hh2222 10y agoFor sure, but Pixel is free.
- pjc50 10y agoAnd, especially for laptops, check the thermal management: clean the fans and vents, and if necessary redo the thermal paste.
- rocky1138 10y agoI installed PIXEL on my Raspberry Pi a few days ago. It looked really good, and I was impressed how clearly everything comes out over the composite video output.
- dispose13432 10y agoPractically, what's the difference between this and Debian+LXDE/fvwm/icewm? Is it only eye-candy or more substantial advantages?
- n0b0dythere 10y agoDon't see Chromebooks listed. Is there a always-new OS you can boot off of a USB stick, that functions with Chromebooks? Not super important, just when I want to feel like James Bond doing secret spy stuff.
- SixSigma 10y agoDo the power equation before you get your old PC out and include kWh for your future TCO.
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- seabrookmx 10y agoLooks great. Not sure I like the name though. I can see people newer to the ecosystem and other consumers getting confused between this OS and Google's line of Pixel devices.
- bartvk 10y agoI bought an old PC with an Intel Atom 330 @ 1.6 GHz. I equipped it immediately with a SSD and 4 GB RAM but found out that the second bottleneck is really the CPU. It's most obvious when using Firefox. Opening a tab takes a second or two. Even scrolling and clicking a link is a bit exasperating. What browser does the Raspberry Pi use?
- savad 10y agogood move
- squarefoot 10y agoDietPI (.com) already runs on a lot of embedded platforms and is incredibly fast (despite its terrible webpage). Sadly there is no x86 image and it seems it will never be due to excessive hardware fragmentation, but the VM image is so fast that it makes one wonder how good it would be if run natively. It has become my choice for very small systems, followed by Armbian for ones with less constraints.
- holtalanm 10y agoim looking at https://www.neverware.com/#introtext-3 https://www.neverware.com/#introtext-3 to breathe new life into my older laptop. Anyone use it yet? I'm curious if it is as slim as ChromeOS.