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Reasons a Raspberry Pi Belongs in Your Network Lab
- btgeekboy 4y agoAt this point, you're more likely to find an off-lease laptop running Linux. Bonus - for roughly the same price (assuming you buy a MicroSD card, power supply, case, etc), you'll get a screen/keyboard/trackpad, battery backup, a lot more performance, and a real SSD. There's nothing here that can't be done with any bog-standard Linux host.
- beebmam 4y agoYeah right now there's zero reason to buy a raspberry pi compared to what else is available for the performance. The scalpers are selling these raspberry pis at absurd prices. When new supply becomes available, I'll reconsider it.
- buran77 4y agoIf you need to use the GPIOs, have size or power consumption restrictions then the Pi makes total sense. But for general purpose computing like a run of the mill home server, a low power x86 can replace a handful of Pis more efficiently.
- aaaa4444 4y agoA $3 esp32 can do a lot for a microcontroller
- Jnr 4y agoAnd you can probably do away with a 1$ ESP8266 for your GPIO needs.
- buran77 4y agoThe idea was that a Pi makes sense sometimes, and other times it doesn't. I know people using a Pi for one GPIO pin. This can be done just fine with an Arduino or an ESP8266. I for one run a Pi with PiHole, Wireguard, Unifi controller, NVR, MQTT, etc. and a few more GPIO trinkets like Zwave. No ESP could practically handle all that, an x86 would be overkill in terms of size, noise, temperature, and power consumption. On the other hand I use ESPs for things like "smartening up" my door intercom where even a Pi Zero would be overkill.
- aaaa4444 4y ago> No ESP could practically handle all that You probably would be surprised what they can handle... See these examples: https://github.com/ciniml/WireGuard-ESP32-Arduino https://github.com/ciniml/WireGuard-ESP32-Arduino https://github.com/martin-ger/esp32_nat_router https://github.com/martin-ger/esp32_nat_router
- qhwudbebd 4y agoI much prefer working on my fast Ryzen "NUC" to a Pi4, but for electronics tinkering, I miss it having decent memory-mapped GPIO+SPI+I2C. From time to time, I search around in case someone's done a nice PCIe (or M.2?) card with a handful of I2C and SPI buses plus a bunch of GPIOs, but haven't found anything decent. Ironically, I'd be happy to pay much more than the cost of a entire Pi4 to get the same GPIO as an add-on for a fast, reliable amd64 machine.
- bmitc 4y agoI recently have sold and put up for sale my Raspberry Pis. I kept one for an embedded project, but I am in general tired of their endless availability issues and terrible performance for general computing. In place of them, I got a barebones Intel Nuc that I populated with some DDR4 and an M.2 NVMe drive I had laying around. The performance from the Core i5 is great and leaps ahead of the most powerful Pis, and the footprint and cost is only a little more than a fully heatsinked and encased Raspberry Pi. My Intel Nuc is running Linux Mint flawlessly so far.
- 2Gkashmiri 4y agothe problem for me is, intel NUC are EXTREMLY expensive. case in point https://www.amazon.in/Intel-Core-Mini-NUC8i5BEH-500GB/dp/B07JCF1LCL https://www.amazon.in/Intel-Core-Mini-NUC8i5BEH-500GB/dp/B07... (INR 52K or US$ 600) https://www.amazon.in/Intel-Performance-NUC11PAHI5-Thunderbolt-Pre-Installed/dp/B09BB9L9VR/ https://www.amazon.in/Intel-Performance-NUC11PAHI5-Thunderbo... (INR 42K or US$ 488) or you can get a celeron https://www.amazon.in/Intel-NUC7CJYH-NUC-Kit-BOXNUC7CJYH/dp/B07BTD3H5X/ https://www.amazon.in/Intel-NUC7CJYH-NUC-Kit-BOXNUC7CJYH/dp/... (INR 12K or US$ 139) https://robu.in/product/raspberry-pi-3-model-a-with-official-raspberry-pi-case/ https://robu.in/product/raspberry-pi-3-model-a-with-official... (inr 2800 or US$32) or https://robu.in/product/raspberry-pi-3-model-a/ https://robu.in/product/raspberry-pi-3-model-a/ (INR 2500 or US$29) so the NUC are being sold at obscene prices.... i am very much interested in buying old tech because 1. it is cheaper and has seen a lot so it usually isnt flimsy. 2. no need for warranty as the local repair scene is pretty good with aftermarket spares readily available. i broke 4-5 Pis last year because of a bad usb cable that was transferring data and i didnt realize until later the cause. anyway, i am stuck with pis with USB overcurrent problem.
- bmitc 4y agoAt least in the U.S., you can get refurbished Dell OptiPlex Micro and Lenovo ThinkCentre M Series PCs for just over $100. I opted for the moderately more expensive Intel Nuc because I could buy the barebones version since I had some spare memory laying around that I wanted to use up. Plus, I only needed one such computer for my server needs.
- rr808 4y agoThere is a virtually unlimited supply of old corporate PCs, the mini ones being most interesting. https://computers.woot.com/plus/microsoft-authorized-refurbished-desktops-22 https://computers.woot.com/plus/microsoft-authorized-refurbi...
- jacquesm 4y agoEspecially the Chromeboxes, some of them have i7s. Unlocking them is a bit of a hassle but once you get the hang of it it's only a few minutes.
- FeistySkink 4y agoSomething like this but for Europe?
- bityard 4y agoI just clicked and all of the computers for sale on that page appear to cost between $200 and $460, even for older ones. Better than buying brand-new perhaps but not what I would call a great deal and certainly not a replacement for a pi4 in terms of price and power consumption.
- neilv 4y agoAgreed. I recently was going to build a home K8s cluster for fun, ended up adding another old rackmount Atom server instead, and swapping in Noctua fans ( https://www.neilvandyke.org/kubernetes/ https://www.neilvandyke.org/kubernetes/ ). It takes up more space, and uses more power, but no paying scalper prices for hardware dependent on a dodgy microSD, wallwart, USB SATA adapter, improvised chassis, etc.
- Roark66 4y agoI recently started using an old Fujitsu Primergy s100 1u server with a Xeon cpu. I was supprised it usually runs on moderate load at (self reported) 35W (including two spinning hdds and a max-clocked Google edgetpu). For me this was a pleasant surprise.
- simongray 4y agoAs we learned in Europe in 2022, electricity isn't some infinite resource. When it gets rationed, the price goes way up. A raspberry Pi costs up to 1€/month in electricity to keep running as a server, while any used computer will cost quite a bit more. When suggesting old hardware for server use, make sure to consider the total cost, not just the cost of the hardware itself.
- rasz 4y agoIt isnt 2005 anymore. Old hardware nowadays is "Lot of 5 LENOVO THINKPAD YOGA 260 i3-6100U 4GB Ram 128GB SSD Cracked Screens" coming down to $40 a pop. 2x TDP (15W vs 7.5 of rpi4) but at the same time >2x CPU power, >10x GPU power. Not to mention you get real SATA SSD storage, real DDR4 sodimm slot, keyboard, and battery backup.
- FeistySkink 4y agoNot anywhere in Europe. People tend to sell used stuff for more than the new. Maybe I'm looking in all the wrong places.
- minimaul 4y agoI find that Microsoft Authorised Refurbishers are a good place to start to find cheap old corporate machines - eg I can typically get something like an Intel i5 8500T based Lenovo/Dell/HP mini PC with RAM and SSD for less than £200. I actually bought a Lenovo M910Q with i5 6500T, 256GB SSD and 8GB of RAM for ~£100 in the last year. It'll absolutely demolish a Pi 4 at CPU & GPU performance, can take much more RAM than a Pi, idles at <10W on 230V mains, you get the bonuses of easy software compatibility as it just runs any mainstream Linux distro & and it runs x86_64 code, it has real storage interfaces (SATA & NVMe), and has an Intel NIC. For home server uses, they're really nice machines.
- rasz 4y agoThe keyword here is "cracked screens".
- 4y ago
- factormeta 4y agoor get beagleboard or other open source hardware alternative. Why isn't all hardware open source (without out firmware blob)
- vbezhenar 4y agoUPS for small devices is an untapped niche. I don't understand what's going on with that. There're thousands of huge 220V UPS devices in the market and there're almost none 12V UPS devices for tiny devices like routers, raspberrys, etc. Some people use power banks for that, but that's not really proper use and some power banks don't allow seamless power switch.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- dgacmu 4y agoI've been using a little 100wh mini 12v UPS from talentcell. I own three and am happy with them. It has an important caveat though: both the USB and 12v outputs are unregulated, so the device you're feeding into must be able to handle a wider voltage range, or you can buy a fairly cheap ($15 or so) step up/down converter to put in-line with it.
- eternityforest 4y agoHow does the average consumer feel about plugging something other than the OEM adapter into a router? Things always say "Use only the original power supply", maybe they underestimate people's intelligence and think they will be too afraid to put the UPS in between? I'd really like an affordable 5v/12v UPS though. Maybe it will happen when more things adopt USB-C and there's more of a market for power banks designed for seamless switching.
- HybridCurve 4y agoBelkin makes a 12v UPS for residential gateway devices. Some ISPs here in the US have been distributing them with their equipment to consumers for several years. I use mine as power backup for devices in case of hurricanes and such.
- seba_dos1 4y agoI'm using PowerWalker 12V DC UPS (which actually is just a 18650 cell) with my routers and it works fine, keeping the connectivity up for intermittent power shortages. In fact works much better for this purpose than cheap AC UPS I tried.
- ycuser2 4y agoMy problem with old hardware is the higher power consumption.
- beebeepka 4y agoAlso space and noise
- wil421 4y agoExcept I tried that recently, thunderbolt doesn’t work properly, Ethernet adapters with no support, and no sound.
- tambourine_man 4y agoYou mean used, right? I must have a lower tolerance than most, but the idea of typing on a used keyboard seems gross. Besides, how do I know how well was it handled? That the power supply will not fry a few weeks in, just after I set everything up. I have a Raspberry Pi running nonstop for over a decade. No fans, just working.
- NikolaNovak 4y agoFwiw - I've been buying used and refurbished ThinkPads for a decade. Maybe because they're typically used for business but they've aLl been in immaculate shape (no gritty keyboards) and have them lasted for many many years. None of them actually failed me, I just eventually moved on. I still use a t420 and two t420s ThinkPads which I got used and are now coming to 11 years old. I just got a t440 which is probably 8-9 years old.
- tambourine_man 4y agoRefurbished from Lenovo itself? Or third party? First party refurbished are usually as good as new.
- NikolaNovak 4y agoBoth, plus used from Kijiji or Facebook marketplace
- jpe90 4y agoIf anyone is looking for projects/uses for raspberry pis, they are great for DIY home monitoring: https://jeskin.net/blog/raspberry-cam-home-monitoring/ https://jeskin.net/blog/raspberry-cam-home-monitoring/
- forinti 4y agoIn 2016 I got a cheap webcam (D-Link 930L) and configured it to ftp motion-triggered images to a pi B which would pass them on to me via Telegram.
- diordiderot 4y agoHow do you self host git?
- ndsipa_pomu 4y agoOne way is to run a self hosted gitlab-ce instance in docker.
- jpe90 4y agoYou run a git server on a public facing machine: https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-on-the-Server-The-Protocols https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-on-the-Server-The-Protoco... I run mine on the linode hosting my blog. The web interface is generated by stagit. https://jeskin.net/blog/self-hosting-git-with-stagit/ https://jeskin.net/blog/self-hosting-git-with-stagit/
- diordiderot 4y agoGreat post, thank you
- kobalsky 4y agoyou got some good answers, just adding this as a you-should-know. you can simply self-host git in any ssh server as long as you don't need to share access. in the remote server just "git --bare init" a directory, in your local computer "git remote add myorigin ssh://server/path/to/dir" and start pushing. you could also do the same thing for a dropbox directory adding a file:// remote. git is just some files lying around, no weird binary formats or servers needed, it's brilliant
- _cenw 4y agoThe Raspberry Pi feels a bit like reading some crypto(currency) papers these days. A lot of great theoretical benefits to be excited about, but ultimately it simply doesn't make sense to use when so many of the promises (price, availability, power, not having out of touch corporate marketing) fall short.
- eimrine 4y agoIsn't availability of any cryptocurrency 100% always?
- Havoc 4y agoThe biggest use in a lab is missing imo - as cheap kvm. Tinypilot/pikvm. Assuming you already have a pi (lol) that's a really cheap accessory upgrade. Just needs a hdmi capture dongle and usb-c power/data splitter. Around 30 bucks of gear. Commercial kvm...500+
- vmurthy 4y ago> Just needs a hdmi capture dongle and USB-C power/data splitter. Do you recommend any? The one that I saw (recommended by PIKVM DIY site) is 40+ USD just for the capture dongle
- Havoc 4y agoThis one - there are a billion knockoffs so anything on amazon that looks similar has a good chance of working https://smile.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0B6CBBP8R https://smile.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0B6CBBP8R Also got myself a hdmi to DP cable but pure hdmi seems more stable. The usb power thing was a bit more tricky. I went with this one https://www.tindie.com/products/8086net/usb-cpwr-splitter/ https://www.tindie.com/products/8086net/usb-cpwr-splitter/
- neilv 4y agoNow that the RasPi is only available at high prices, maybe Cisco will add it as a branded 1U product, at enterprise pricing. :)
- StreamBright 4y agoI am hoping this for becoming available: https://sipeed.com/licheepi4a https://sipeed.com/licheepi4a
- sampo 4y agoWhat about the competitors, Orange Pi, Banana Pi, Rock Pi and others? Now that that Raspberry Pi's are usually sold out and difficult to get. In what case would you need an actual Raspberry Pi, and a competing product would not do?
- valdiorn 4y agoI had a look at this just this week. One problem; all the io libraries out there rely on special functionality in the broadcom chips and thus don't work with the knock-off boards. Meaning anything that needs gpio/spi/i2c/serial can't run on a clone board without a code rewrite.
- rasz 4y agoSupport. All Chinese competitors are build and released into the world with no software support. What you want is retired laptop or thin client with optional arduino clone plugged into USB/serial for low level IO.
- moffkalast 4y agoMaybe something like a Lattepanda that's an x64 with an Arudino coprocessor already on the board.
- Roark66 4y agoI'm not sure why we're still promoting Rpi's. Between production issues and scalpers it is easier to buy a 35 year old vintage machine than Rpi's. Furthermore nothing listed in this article can't be done by a generic Linux box. Like an old laptop mentioned by a poster below, or a thin client pc that can be bought for $15 including shipping. I recently decided to build an old Intel e2200 based pc in an old mini desktop case as a home server. Including case and shipping it cost me around $15 to build(minus hdds). If one really wants small form factor and lower power consumption why not choose a pine64, orange pi or radxa boards? Yes, certain features like hdmi(on Quartz64), or hardware accelerated video encode/decode is only supported in older kernels, but if one needs a generic network box even fairly new Linux kernels work. So in conclusion, it is time to sell our remaining Rpi's to scalpers that want them and move to other things.
- highduc 4y agoAt current raspberry pi prices I'd just get an Odroid H3.
- sidewndr46 4y agoI picked one up recently, it's a pretty neat machine. The footprint is larger, but I doubt that matters for many people.
- PurpleRamen 4y agoYou assume people need to buy a new RPi. But many people reading such an article already have one or two at home, just searching for more use cases for their (often unused) toys.
- codetrotter 4y agoI have three Rasperry Pi. One of them is the original model that they made first. That one I don’t use currently because it’s a bit slow. Well they are all slow, but the first one especially so. The two other Raspberry Pi that I have are Model 3B+. On one of these I run Raspbian. On the other one I run FreeBSD. I would like to buy a few more Rapsberry Pi, but they are not so easy to come by. I would especially like to buy the following: - Raspberry Pi 4 - Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 (CM4) If anyone has one or more RPi 4 or RPi CM4 that they are not using, I would be interested to buy them so that I can put them to use. I have an address in Norway, and an address in Spain. So if anyone in any countries nearby (Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Spain, France, Germany, Portugal, etc) have some RPi 4 or RPi CM4 that they are not using and willing to part with for a reasonable price, please let me know :)
- omnibrain 4y agoThe article recommends ISC DHCP. If you want to follow the article please note, that "ISC has announced the end of life for ISC DHCP as of the end of 2022." https://www.isc.org/dhcp/ https://www.isc.org/dhcp/
- addingnumbers 4y agoI'm surprised they didn't recommend dnsmasq to begin with, it's a lot lighter on resources which could be important with low-end machines, and with DNS and DHCP services baked in to one process you don't need to worry about configuring hungrier services like dhcpd and BIND to read each other's state. The only reason I'd recommend dhcpd/bind over dnsmasq for a small lab is if you are trying to familiarize yourself with the former pair for use in larger networks with more expansive requirements.
- omnibrain 4y agoI think it has to do with this: "In fact, many of the example DHCP configuration guides from Cisco use ISC DHCP as the reference server". They just have 20+ years of training materials using ISC DHCP. And to be fair, the article is from march and ISC DHCP only got deprecated in october - while it already wasn't a good choice for beginners for many years.
- amelius 4y agoWhy do we need a "network lab"? Is networking too difficult to easily get right these days?
- kennethkl 4y agoyou don't need a network lab. this article is not about that. it's not targeting you if you don't have a network lab. feel free to skip it. but if you have one, this article might interest you. similarly, an article about having a snail in your aquarium is not about you, needing an aquarium. skip that too if you don't have an aquarium.
- ilyt 4y agoIt's coz people want to test stuff before running it on prod ? Why you are perplexed by that ?
- alar44 4y agoYou know what's even smaller, more compact, more reliable, and cheaper than an RPi? A fucking VM. I don't understand the obsession with these stupid things.
- ilyt 4y agoI remembered where we were preparing to migrate our core routers I loaded up the original (256MB) rPi with BIRD [1] and some Perl script to load and mangle a bit the "internet" (dump of all rotes on RIPE collector) to it, 500k something routes. Then used it as "The Internet", serving BGP to the new routers under test. I was quite surprised how not only it managed to fit, it loaded routes to Linux kernel much faster than the new shiny expensive Juniper box managed to. I have resisted temptation to put it in black box with red LED on the top. * [1] https://bird.network.cz/ https://bird.network.cz/ I'd actually love "enterprise raspberry", some small machine that we could shove 3-6 of them in 1RU, but once you add enterprise tax and all of the doodas to make it manageable (OOB management), it gets expensive enough to rival "just an old server".