4 ms·

I used an 8gb RPI4 as my main dev computer for a bit. The idea was that if I was wasting cycles it would become a lot more apparent earlier on using the RPI 4 t

I used an 8gb RPI4 as my main dev computer for a bit. The idea was that if I was wasting cycles it would become a lot more apparent earlier on using the RPI 4 than on my main desktop. Also because I had less stuff on the PI (No steam/games) I had less things to get distracted about. YouTube can play 1080p but because of the slowness consuming video after video is not a smooth experience which stopped me from binging content and not doing what I need to do. Overall the experiment was positive. The reason I stopped was because I ran into issues getting certain libraries to work correctly on the RPI 4 and it was getting more annoying to solve that than doing my actual work. I did a similar experiment with an RPI3 and while it is definitely slower than the RPI4 the issue was not the speed so much as the RAM. Having Emacs, a pdf manual open, the OS in the background, and the software I was working on running started getting me dangerously close to the 1Gb limit, and I had certain compilations outright fail because of that. I think 2gb definitely gives you the minimum amount of head room to make an RPI4 a viable option. The other bottleneck is the SD card. I think a 4gb RPI4 with a slight overclock, and SSD is would probably the sweet spot for this type of exercise.

MaXtreeM 4y ago
I don't know which class of SD card I used, it wasn't the top speed one, but switching to older M.2 SSD connected via USB case was night and day difference. I have RPi4 connected to a TV as a home center with full Raspberry OS because some local TV providers play only in browser. After switching to SSD the OS became snappy and playing video streams (less optimized then youtube) in browser is now non problem.
Alan_Dillman 4y ago
Right? Its so close to being wonderful, and I really like the raspiOS desktop. I think we're right around the corner from a new ARM frontier opening up. Tomorrow (today!) my experiment is a minimal systemd linux. Thanks, something in your writing reminded me of that, I had just started reading about it last night. My inspiration was the "minimum linux live" project, which of course is not really a practical start point, and would take a ton of work to build up, but none of the tiny linuxes like DSL and Puppy Linux scratch my itch. So I think a tear down is my path forward, then once I find that, start from scratch and aim for that target.
- sitkack 4y ago
  This means you can outfit a developer or student anywhere in the world with a functioning workstation for under $200, monitor, desk, keyboard, mouse, everything. We might find it somewhat anachronistic, but it really could help bring millions of people out of poverty.
  - Alan_Dillman 4y ago
    I agree!
  - godDLL 4y ago
    The average engineering disposition might make you want for bigger, better workstation -- but you could, in fact, do 97% of engineering jobs with just X11, pdf reader, browser and a terminal. Jobs don't actually require you to run 100+ chrome tabs, install Steam, webcam in a video conference, etc. Those are there to endear you to the machine, so that part of you lives at work. The whole concept is not to the benefit of the employee.
- Jaruzel 4y ago
  Arch Linux. I've recently started playing with Arch again, after being fully on the Debian bandwagon. This time around, I found getting it onto a blank HDD, and up as far as twm (with personal customisations) way more easier that I remembered. Compared to Debian on the same aging test laptop, it's SO light and responsive. I'm definitely going to invest more time into building out a good lightweight install. https://archlinuxarm.org/platforms/armv8/broadcom/raspberry-pi-4 https://archlinuxarm.org/platforms/armv8/broadcom/raspberry-...
agumonkey 4y ago
I tried this too, it was great to have a wall of slowness as reference.
SOLAR_FIELDS 4y ago
Curious- were your struggles with libraries due to armv7 or armv8 architecture? Raspbian (now Raspberry Pi OS) has started shipping an arm64 version as of a few months ago that solved a lot of those woes for me.

MaXtreeM 4y ago

I don't know which class of SD card I used, it wasn't the top speed one, but switching to older M.2 SSD connected via USB case was night and day difference. I have RPi4 connected to a TV as a home center with full Raspberry OS because some local TV providers play only in browser. After switching to SSD the OS became snappy and playing video streams (less optimized then youtube) in browser is now non problem.

Alan_Dillman 4y ago

Right? Its so close to being wonderful, and I really like the raspiOS desktop. I think we're right around the corner from a new ARM frontier opening up. Tomorrow (today!) my experiment is a minimal systemd linux. Thanks, something in your writing reminded me of that, I had just started reading about it last night. My inspiration was the "minimum linux live" project, which of course is not really a practical start point, and would take a ton of work to build up, but none of the tiny linuxes like DSL and Puppy Linux scratch my itch. So I think a tear down is my path forward, then once I find that, start from scratch and aim for that target.

sitkack 4y ago
This means you can outfit a developer or student anywhere in the world with a functioning workstation for under $200, monitor, desk, keyboard, mouse, everything. We might find it somewhat anachronistic, but it really could help bring millions of people out of poverty.
- Alan_Dillman 4y ago
  I agree!
- godDLL 4y ago
  The average engineering disposition might make you want for bigger, better workstation -- but you could, in fact, do 97% of engineering jobs with just X11, pdf reader, browser and a terminal. Jobs don't actually require you to run 100+ chrome tabs, install Steam, webcam in a video conference, etc. Those are there to endear you to the machine, so that part of you lives at work. The whole concept is not to the benefit of the employee.
Jaruzel 4y ago
Arch Linux. I've recently started playing with Arch again, after being fully on the Debian bandwagon. This time around, I found getting it onto a blank HDD, and up as far as twm (with personal customisations) way more easier that I remembered. Compared to Debian on the same aging test laptop, it's SO light and responsive. I'm definitely going to invest more time into building out a good lightweight install. https://archlinuxarm.org/platforms/armv8/broadcom/raspberry-pi-4 https://archlinuxarm.org/platforms/armv8/broadcom/raspberry-...

agumonkey 4y ago

I tried this too, it was great to have a wall of slowness as reference.

SOLAR_FIELDS 4y ago

Curious- were your struggles with libraries due to armv7 or armv8 architecture? Raspbian (now Raspberry Pi OS) has started shipping an arm64 version as of a few months ago that solved a lot of those woes for me.