5 ms·

Anyone with one can comment on performance? Because the pro made me think “enough to be a dev machine” but the price suggests otherwise.

Operyl 6y ago
Personally, for myself, I'd be running into limits with 4GB of memory pretty quickly. The Wiki article suggests that they are targeting the market that takes Chromebooks and converts them to complete Linux machines (without chromeos bits), and I'd say that seems to be on-par with how I see this device.
- fpoling 6y ago
  I used Samsung ARM Chromebook from 2012 for Java development. 2GB of RAM was enough to run couple of Eclipse instances. Properly configured memory compression made it possible.
clarry 6y ago
Whether ~$50-$100 ARM SBCs are powerful enough to make a dev machine for you depend on a lot of things. I wouldn't want one for my day job, but these would be sufficient for nearly all the coding I do on my free time. It's in the same ballpark with Raspberry Pi 4. A bit more powerful.
- karatestomp 6y ago
  Things that make an Rpi4 + 4GB memory unsuitable as a development machine: needing to use more than one webshit thing at a time (heavier versions of gmail, Jira, Asana, Slack), needing to use a heavy Java IDE, or needing to run more than one or two very small VMs locally. If you do need those things but can offload them to remote VMs with X forwarding or VNC or whatever, then they're still fine. A Pi4 is downright spacious and plenty capable if you can avoid that junk. Which are also the same things making old 4GB laptops "too slow" for modern development, and even 8GB machines feel cramped.
  - NikolaeVarius 6y ago
    Answer is don't load those. I use a Jetson nano with 4gb RAM. Vim and Firefox has been fine for writing go and python.
gknoy 6y ago
I don't have one, but was considering buying one. I went looking for benchmarks a while back, and it seemed that it performed about as well as a several-year-old cheap laptop, from some guy's blog that I can't find right now. :-( However, most reviews I've read have said that it generally performs better than you'd expect for its price, e.g Hayden James' review [0]. He later updated to say: """Two months later, I can report that although my Pinebook Pro still sees some usage, for the most part I’ve reverted to my old laptop. It’s a very capable laptop for the price and I still strongly recommend ownership! The lack of CPU and graphics performance was the eventual deal beaker for me. At times loading email messages in Gmail would take ages.""" After reading this, I still feel like it might be a decent chromebook alternative for the kids. 0: https://haydenjames.io/pinebook-pro-my-first-impressions-and-setup-tips/ https://haydenjames.io/pinebook-pro-my-first-impressions-and...
ndsipa_pomu 6y ago
I use mine for browsing and some linux admin work (a bit of bash scripting too). The 4GB memory will be a bit of a limit and I wouldn't recommend it for serious dev work. I like the screen but I've noticed some issues with the keyboard on occasion (usually fixed with pressing harder on some of the keys). I've also had issues with one of the usb ports, but I think it might be due to me using totally the wrong power supply at one point (the connector fitted, but the voltage was wrong).

Operyl 6y ago

Personally, for myself, I'd be running into limits with 4GB of memory pretty quickly. The Wiki article suggests that they are targeting the market that takes Chromebooks and converts them to complete Linux machines (without chromeos bits), and I'd say that seems to be on-par with how I see this device.

fpoling 6y ago
I used Samsung ARM Chromebook from 2012 for Java development. 2GB of RAM was enough to run couple of Eclipse instances. Properly configured memory compression made it possible.

clarry 6y ago

Whether ~$50-$100 ARM SBCs are powerful enough to make a dev machine for you depend on a lot of things. I wouldn't want one for my day job, but these would be sufficient for nearly all the coding I do on my free time. It's in the same ballpark with Raspberry Pi 4. A bit more powerful.

karatestomp 6y ago
Things that make an Rpi4 + 4GB memory unsuitable as a development machine: needing to use more than one webshit thing at a time (heavier versions of gmail, Jira, Asana, Slack), needing to use a heavy Java IDE, or needing to run more than one or two very small VMs locally. If you do need those things but can offload them to remote VMs with X forwarding or VNC or whatever, then they're still fine. A Pi4 is downright spacious and plenty capable if you can avoid that junk. Which are also the same things making old 4GB laptops "too slow" for modern development, and even 8GB machines feel cramped.
- NikolaeVarius 6y ago
  Answer is don't load those. I use a Jetson nano with 4gb RAM. Vim and Firefox has been fine for writing go and python.

gknoy 6y ago

I don't have one, but was considering buying one. I went looking for benchmarks a while back, and it seemed that it performed about as well as a several-year-old cheap laptop, from some guy's blog that I can't find right now. :-( However, most reviews I've read have said that it generally performs better than you'd expect for its price, e.g Hayden James' review [0]. He later updated to say: """Two months later, I can report that although my Pinebook Pro still sees some usage, for the most part I’ve reverted to my old laptop. It’s a very capable laptop for the price and I still strongly recommend ownership! The lack of CPU and graphics performance was the eventual deal beaker for me. At times loading email messages in Gmail would take ages.""" After reading this, I still feel like it might be a decent chromebook alternative for the kids. 0: https://haydenjames.io/pinebook-pro-my-first-impressions-and-setup-tips/ https://haydenjames.io/pinebook-pro-my-first-impressions-and...

ndsipa_pomu 6y ago

I use mine for browsing and some linux admin work (a bit of bash scripting too). The 4GB memory will be a bit of a limit and I wouldn't recommend it for serious dev work. I like the screen but I've noticed some issues with the keyboard on occasion (usually fixed with pressing harder on some of the keys). I've also had issues with one of the usb ports, but I think it might be due to me using totally the wrong power supply at one point (the connector fitted, but the voltage was wrong).