4 ms·

I would be prepared to be underwhelmed at using a rpi as a desktop. Graphics drivers still need work. This is where I think Apple can do it right. They can tun

by Klinky 6y ago

I would be prepared to be underwhelmed at using a rpi as a desktop. Graphics drivers still need work. This is where I think Apple can do it right. They can tune drivers and fully optimize system performance, since they basically own the whole stack, and won't be stuck with proprietary broken blobs or reverse engineering a 3rd party design.

eikenberry 6y ago
> This is where I think Apple can do it right. While Apple has open sourced a few things, I doubt they will open source their graphics drivers. Though one can hope.
- Klinky 6y ago
  I don't expect them to open source anything. I expect them to produce competent drivers for macOS and provide the first truly decent and performant desktop experience for an ARM SoC.
gorgoiler 6y ago
I’ve watched a lot of YouTube videos of, ironically, people using Raspberry Pis to watch YouTube videos. The UI seems snappy, and I can live without full screen 1080p — the only thing that seems poor is full screen full resolution video. Is there anything else I should be looking out for? Raspberry Pi 4 is now OpenGL ES 3.0 certified, so I’m expecting it to only get faster with time. My main concern is a Pi5 being released and my “old” hardware becoming obsolete.
- simcop2387 6y ago
  I wouldn't expect a pi5 any time soon. Maybe another revision of the pi4 or a new compute module system that allows a proper pi4 compute module (apparently not enough pins on the sodimm form factor they use currently to give the pcie lanes and other things the processor supports).
- geerlingguy 6y ago
  Here was my experience a few weeks ago: https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2020/i-replaced-my-macbook-pro-raspberry-pi-4-8gb-day https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2020/i-replaced-my-macbook... Just as a helpful data point.
  - gorgoiler 6y ago
    Thanks! That’s very helpful. For reference, my day is spent: • editing code, markdown, and asciidoc for classes; • managing pupil work in repl.it, GitHub, and Google Classroom; • managing pupil reports and records of work in custom school IT web applications; and • emailing with colleagues and pupils with outlook’s webmail. If I can get a snappy and correctly scaled terminal and browser — which I think you’ve managed after some effort — I hope it will work out well. I have a 4k LG display at home which might be the biggest pain point. Rest assured though it’s good ole 1080p all the way, at school: HDMI1 for my private desktop and HDMI2 for the 80” class display. I am optimistic this is a workload that an ARM desktop can handle.
  - gorgoiler 6y ago
    Followup: this was very helpful, thank you. As much for the technical content as the inspiration that it could be viable. No, it didn’t really work out for you. Yes, it’s working out great for me! Konsole with Terminus is an aesthetically pleasing environment in which to work, 8 hours a day. i3 in 4k, even at 30Hz, looks great. Vim renders fast (66-80ms keyboard latency.) eog, evince, and gimp let me fiddle with materials. gnome-screenshot copies to the clipboard for rapidly sharing notes with others, based on what I have on screen. davmail transparently connects dumb IMAP clients to the corporate email, address book, and calendaring systems. I have an XBiff alerting me to incoming Outlook emails! REPL.it is slow in Firefox but fast in Chromium. It’s going to work just fine for managing pupils’ class work. My home directory is encrypted and mounted on login. Mutt and offlineimap let me handle last term’s mail in bulk. Python and git and tmux let me prepare and mark work from the students, or at least they should do come next term. I have all my little tools working to give me an excellent markdown environment for note taking on classes and pupils and meetings. Asciidoctor for the more typographically demanding class materials. Absolutely all of this was a breeze to set up because all of these technologies just work in Raspbian/Debian on armhf. It has, so far, been unbelievably clean and pleasant. I even have LXC working locally, for running Unix and IPv6 experiments with multiple little Alpine “VMs”. χ!
- Klinky 6y ago
  It doesn't matter if it's OpenGL ES 3.0 certified if the drivers don't expose it, and OpenGL ES isn't really well supported on the desktop compared to standard OpenGL or Vulkan. Android is a better environment for OpenGL ES. In general it does not feel there is a concerted effort to make mobile SoCs first-class citizens for desktop distros. The open source graphics drivers for rpi seem to be nowhere near getting to a polished state anytime soon, and those provided by Broadcom seem hacky. I think there is better effort going on with getting Mali GPUs supported, but that's not what the Raspberry Pis use.

by Klinky 6y ago

eikenberry 6y ago

> This is where I think Apple can do it right. While Apple has open sourced a few things, I doubt they will open source their graphics drivers. Though one can hope.

Klinky 6y ago
I don't expect them to open source anything. I expect them to produce competent drivers for macOS and provide the first truly decent and performant desktop experience for an ARM SoC.

gorgoiler 6y ago

I’ve watched a lot of YouTube videos of, ironically, people using Raspberry Pis to watch YouTube videos. The UI seems snappy, and I can live without full screen 1080p — the only thing that seems poor is full screen full resolution video. Is there anything else I should be looking out for? Raspberry Pi 4 is now OpenGL ES 3.0 certified, so I’m expecting it to only get faster with time. My main concern is a Pi5 being released and my “old” hardware becoming obsolete.

simcop2387 6y ago
I wouldn't expect a pi5 any time soon. Maybe another revision of the pi4 or a new compute module system that allows a proper pi4 compute module (apparently not enough pins on the sodimm form factor they use currently to give the pcie lanes and other things the processor supports).
geerlingguy 6y ago
Here was my experience a few weeks ago: https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2020/i-replaced-my-macbook-pro-raspberry-pi-4-8gb-day https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2020/i-replaced-my-macbook... Just as a helpful data point.
- gorgoiler 6y ago
  Thanks! That’s very helpful. For reference, my day is spent: • editing code, markdown, and asciidoc for classes; • managing pupil work in repl.it, GitHub, and Google Classroom; • managing pupil reports and records of work in custom school IT web applications; and • emailing with colleagues and pupils with outlook’s webmail. If I can get a snappy and correctly scaled terminal and browser — which I think you’ve managed after some effort — I hope it will work out well. I have a 4k LG display at home which might be the biggest pain point. Rest assured though it’s good ole 1080p all the way, at school: HDMI1 for my private desktop and HDMI2 for the 80” class display. I am optimistic this is a workload that an ARM desktop can handle.
- gorgoiler 6y ago
  Followup: this was very helpful, thank you. As much for the technical content as the inspiration that it could be viable. No, it didn’t really work out for you. Yes, it’s working out great for me! Konsole with Terminus is an aesthetically pleasing environment in which to work, 8 hours a day. i3 in 4k, even at 30Hz, looks great. Vim renders fast (66-80ms keyboard latency.) eog, evince, and gimp let me fiddle with materials. gnome-screenshot copies to the clipboard for rapidly sharing notes with others, based on what I have on screen. davmail transparently connects dumb IMAP clients to the corporate email, address book, and calendaring systems. I have an XBiff alerting me to incoming Outlook emails! REPL.it is slow in Firefox but fast in Chromium. It’s going to work just fine for managing pupils’ class work. My home directory is encrypted and mounted on login. Mutt and offlineimap let me handle last term’s mail in bulk. Python and git and tmux let me prepare and mark work from the students, or at least they should do come next term. I have all my little tools working to give me an excellent markdown environment for note taking on classes and pupils and meetings. Asciidoctor for the more typographically demanding class materials. Absolutely all of this was a breeze to set up because all of these technologies just work in Raspbian/Debian on armhf. It has, so far, been unbelievably clean and pleasant. I even have LXC working locally, for running Unix and IPv6 experiments with multiple little Alpine “VMs”. χ!
Klinky 6y ago
It doesn't matter if it's OpenGL ES 3.0 certified if the drivers don't expose it, and OpenGL ES isn't really well supported on the desktop compared to standard OpenGL or Vulkan. Android is a better environment for OpenGL ES. In general it does not feel there is a concerted effort to make mobile SoCs first-class citizens for desktop distros. The open source graphics drivers for rpi seem to be nowhere near getting to a polished state anytime soon, and those provided by Broadcom seem hacky. I think there is better effort going on with getting Mali GPUs supported, but that's not what the Raspberry Pis use.