Although not wrong, and full of interesting details, this is a really puzzling article. It feels a little like writing about how you couldn't get your toaster to boil noodles. (Though not as unsafe.)
I use Linux as my main desktop and have always found it very pleasant, but if my main thing was video editing, I wouldn't try to do it with Linux on ARM64 and then grumble when it turned out not to work very well.
(Of course what makes the article worth reading is the fact that its author has tried just that, and reported on it. It's an interesting report! It's simply odd that the article seems so disappointed, since surely few readers would have expected any other result.)
I had the same feeling. Most of the article was about challenges the author has with Linux in a single day of trying. My SO could have written the exact same article about the time her work gave her an iPhone when she's been an Android users since 2011.
It's like me deciding to learn Polish and giving up at the end of the day because I'm not fluent. (I actually tried for three months before deciding the pierogi was the only word I needed).
> If your use of the computer is more oriented towards the browser, a code editor, and the command line (e.g. backend web development, infrastructure development, writing/blogging, and the like), the Pi is perfectly adequate, and with 8GB of RAM, Chromium runs just fine, even if you have a bunch of tabs open.
The author does a good job of going into the separate use-cases.
Incidentally, an (analog) toaster should have no problem boiling water if turned on and dropped into a bucket. The heating element lifespan would probably be short and it would be tremendously unsafe, but it's just a resistive heater.
You may need to cut the ground wire to the toaster if the circuit has a ground fault circuit interrupter, though.
I wish the lessons of OP's reality check were better established in our industry's collective consciousness.
Pis are great, but I can't count how many times I've seen a raspberry pi stuck in an application where its strengths have no value and its limitations have severe consequences. The "$100/hr developer waiting for a $5 computer to finish being slow" is a classic. Bonus points for "laggy $5 kiosk in a $1MM expo outing." The most damage probably comes from semi-permanent customer-facing installs where the pi gets to inflict misery on every person passing through.
Articles like this help "responsibly consume" the raspberry pi, and that's something we can all benefit from.
There was a bloke (I think it was the Explaining Computers guy) who tried editing one of his YT vids on the 4 GiB Pi 4 (with USB-attached SSD for the video data), and found it serviceable. Obviously not ideal, but it was up to the job.
In my experience, linux is (unfortunately) only good for running server apps. Ubuntu is good but it's still like 20ys in the past when compared to macos (and that's including how macos gets worse with every new release). There are so many things wrong or half-finished, inconsistent (3 ways to copy/paste, no native GUI fw/toolkit, vsync/video/browser tearing), I'm afraid to install updates because sometimes it won't boot up and I'll need to figure out what went wrong this time (instead of doing what I wanted). Linux ppl like to say it's because of HW but no, it's because they don't care or they have different goals but then I don't understand why the same people often don't understand why linux is not more widespread.
If you want to get job done, get a mac, it's still the best choice (unfortunately, I don't like it but it's the least evil - W7 was good too but W10 spy/adware is ew)
I'm not sure what the author's background is, but if he did all of this in one day as a Mac-using Linux newbie, I'm actually pretty impressed. There are references to previous posts about the Pi, but it's not clear whether he's used Linux as a desktop O/S before.
I'm using Ubuntu on a 4 GB Pi for some Docker experiments, because I couldn't get ARM64 images to work on Raspbian. Is Raspbian the best distribution for the desktop, or is there something better for a 4 or 8 GB Pi?
For what it's worth, I had luck starting with Raspbian, then changing the apt sources to Debian sid (unstable) and upgrading without issues. The default Raspbian desktop environment becomes buggy, but XFCE4 works perfectly.
If you want to run Debian on your Pi4, that's a pretty easy path.
I have had good success using Manjaro on my Pi 4 with 4 GB of RAM. It is an altogether vastly better experience than using Raspbian, in my opinion - even when using KDE. Docker, Code OSS, and a ton of tools were up and running right away with pacman and yay. But it will never be as fast as my Dell XPS 13 DE, and it's definitely not designed to replace it. I have been extremely impressed with what I can do on the Pi 4, but it is certainly not as quick or as able as a full blow i5/i7 based laptop. Apples and Oranges.
Not sure on the Pi, but I’ve found that used thin clients (specifically HP t630 and some Wyse models can be had for $60-100 and give you a low power x64 platform that works really well.
Funnily enough, to avoid all the cables and mess, I simply plug my Pi 4/8Gb straight into my iPad, then VNC or SSH into it, and instantly have a development environment. I would have to use some kind of hub to charge the iPad at the same time and plug an external monitor in, but the iPad Pro plus Smart Keyboard plus a Pi works brilliantly. (Where's my cheque, Tim?)
I'm not sure why the conclusion is, "Linux on the Desktop isn't possible," when the big blocker the author had was pretty consistently finding and installing software compatible with a small ARM64 machine. (That's not to say it's not a valid conclusion to draw in general: just that it's a bit of a non-sequitur for this article.)
> So, in summary, would I recommend the Pi 4 as a worthy general computer for anyone? Definitely no. Would I recommend it as a worthy general computer for a certain subset of computer users. Definitely yes!
I didn’t say that. I said the fabled “year of the Linux desktop” is a long ways off, in terms of being a potential option for the vast audience of users who currently own a Mac or Windows computer.
While I get that he wants things to Just Work for things the Pi's not designed to do, that's not the goal or design of the Pi in any sense whatsoever. The hypothesis that a Pi would be feasible for his workflow was set up to fail before he started doing anything.
A Linux desktop is far less “painful” when it’s on an equivalently powered device as you are used to.
I wouldn’t plug a monitor into an iPhone and claim Apple desktops are painful.
The real takeaway to me is “ARM desktops are a few years away”.
The 8GB model isn't going to perform much better on these tasks that the 4GB on that has been available forever and the $75 device is not a suitable replacement for a $1,299 device.
I do use Jeff's work to determine what SD card to buy...but the above has rattled my confidence a bit.
The title is classic click bait, looks like he's good at it since right below it he has a youtube video of the project. It's probably a hustle for some views/ad revenue and not meant to be a serious project where he legitimately thinks he's building a mac in his room.
It's a little anecdotal, but I used a pi 4 for quite a while doing dev work and 8gb would have made quite a difference when a single chrome tab can take up a gig.
And yet many years ago I was using Debian on a laptop with 32MB of RAM. I was using the "Awesome" lightweight desktop and spending 99% of the time in the terminal.
SSH to work on remote servers, Vim for development, git, IRC, text email, man and less for documentation (installed locally), rsync. Occasional browsing with Dillo.
Believe me or not, I miss the productivity of not being forced to use tons of stuff in browser.
Most of this has to do with Linux and not the Pi itself. I use a mac and a linux system side by side, desktop linux is still a tire fire. This is coming from a person who used to run a FreeBSD laptop in the early 2000s.
Well, I guess running all those favourite Electron apps simultaneously on the Pi wouldn't be a wise thing to do since it would still grind to a slow and painful halt.
I would just spare the Raspberry Pi from this Electron app stress testing torture as it evidently cannot handle many of them running at the same time.
Many of the issues and personal choices made where due to the jump between a non-linux OS to a Linux OS.
Even though the 'default' desktop environment is light weight, a tiling WM just as i3 or dwm would run perfectly on the Pi. Light weight application alternatives such as qutebrowser (instead of Chrome) and Spacemacs (instead of VSCode) would also make using a Pi a lot easier.
The lack of 4k@60Hz is pretty annoying altough it actually might not be noticable with a tiling WM due to the lack of animations.
On a general note, the RPi4 is in my opinion the most exciting computing piece of news there was in 2019, plus the recent arrival of RPi4 8Gb gives the option for even more RAM. This is a sub-100€ quad-core RISC device that can surpass desktop class machines from a few years back in many ways.
The last 64-bit RISC device with a normal desktop I could sit in front of and work, was a Sun Ultra 10 back in 2000. I think the RPi4 comes pretty sweet close to being a normal desktop class machine.
It seems to not be so much of a 4k@60Hz problem as a "this should just work" problem.
> The first thing I did—which took almost 30 minutes—was try to figure out how to get 4K (at 30 Hz—the Pi can't output 60 Hz over its HDMI connection) working with a consistent font size across all the applications and system controls.
> The settings in the Appearance preferences seemed to apply to some window chrome and buttons, but not internally in applications. So, for example, the File Manager's main window had readable text after I increased the font size at 4K resolution, but in order to make filenames and other listings readable, I had to go into the File Manager's settings and increase the font size there.
> Same for Terminal. And Chromium. And... you get the idea.
What a heck of a thing to have to worry about in 2020.
This is immensely interesting to me. This is a developer who is familiar with linux servers and infrastructure but in unaware of all the linux desktop oddities that come with it.
I'm "familiar with linux servers and infrastructure" and would have little idea how to setup linux as my working env for things like editing video. Seems completely orthogonal.
When I first bought a RPi, I used it exclusively for writing and coding for several days. Worked OK, so I was surprised about the whining in the article.
I've been using a Pi 4 4GB as a desktop for a couple months now. Considering that my other main computer is an ancient Thinkpad, I don't feel hampered by the speed. I used a Pi 3B for a desktop replacement for a while and while it was fine with my typical use (emacs+mostly command line) "modern" browsing was uncomfortably slow. It was perfectly capable of video playback in standard formats but there are problem sites using codecs which are not supported by the media decoder in the Pi. The situation with the Pi 4 is quite similar but it's just about fast enough for Youtube now.
Most any school or office could switch to the Pi 4 seamlessly these days for sure though.
I had no idea til this week the RP4-B had dual 4k hdmi output. And I love the idea of a cluster for testing microservices. But regarding graphics performance I think I would opt for NVidia's Jetson Nano.
If you have a teeny-tiny amount of money - like, $75, the cost of a Pi - and you want to get the best work computer/laptop and developer experience you can, for your buck - you'd be dumb to buy a Pi.
Instead, get a used laptop - say, a Thinkpad. Install Linux on it.
There you go: the best computer you can get, performance-wise, for $75.
It became “The year of the Linux desktop” for me when Windows10 came out.
I now use Linux for most everything.
I also have 2 MacBook Pros and a MacBook Air but I quickly get frustrated when trying to do anything worthwhile on them and go back to my ancient business class Dell running Linux.
YMMV
[+] [-] cannam|5 years ago|reply
I use Linux as my main desktop and have always found it very pleasant, but if my main thing was video editing, I wouldn't try to do it with Linux on ARM64 and then grumble when it turned out not to work very well.
(Of course what makes the article worth reading is the fact that its author has tried just that, and reported on it. It's an interesting report! It's simply odd that the article seems so disappointed, since surely few readers would have expected any other result.)
[+] [-] zwayhowder|5 years ago|reply
It's like me deciding to learn Polish and giving up at the end of the day because I'm not fluent. (I actually tried for three months before deciding the pierogi was the only word I needed).
[+] [-] _bxg1|5 years ago|reply
The author does a good job of going into the separate use-cases.
[+] [-] 1_person|5 years ago|reply
You may need to cut the ground wire to the toaster if the circuit has a ground fault circuit interrupter, though.
[+] [-] jjoonathan|5 years ago|reply
Pis are great, but I can't count how many times I've seen a raspberry pi stuck in an application where its strengths have no value and its limitations have severe consequences. The "$100/hr developer waiting for a $5 computer to finish being slow" is a classic. Bonus points for "laggy $5 kiosk in a $1MM expo outing." The most damage probably comes from semi-permanent customer-facing installs where the pi gets to inflict misery on every person passing through.
Articles like this help "responsibly consume" the raspberry pi, and that's something we can all benefit from.
[+] [-] bitwize|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fortran77|5 years ago|reply
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/kbx3dv/how-to-cook-like-a...
[+] [-] m463|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 0xCMP|5 years ago|reply
I do not use Linux as my desktop anymore, but I have, and every time I try I run in to all kinds of issues like this.
[+] [-] unixhero|5 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] cztomsik|5 years ago|reply
If you want to get job done, get a mac, it's still the best choice (unfortunately, I don't like it but it's the least evil - W7 was good too but W10 spy/adware is ew)
[+] [-] SloopJon|5 years ago|reply
I'm using Ubuntu on a 4 GB Pi for some Docker experiments, because I couldn't get ARM64 images to work on Raspbian. Is Raspbian the best distribution for the desktop, or is there something better for a 4 or 8 GB Pi?
[+] [-] hellcow|5 years ago|reply
If you want to run Debian on your Pi4, that's a pretty easy path.
[+] [-] mikepurvis|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SparkyMcUnicorn|5 years ago|reply
https://github.com/geerlingguy
[+] [-] SweetestRug|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] Spooky23|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vr46|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jdminhbg|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andolanra|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Jtsummers|5 years ago|reply
That's not his conclusion. This is:
> So, in summary, would I recommend the Pi 4 as a worthy general computer for anyone? Definitely no. Would I recommend it as a worthy general computer for a certain subset of computer users. Definitely yes!
[+] [-] geerlingguy|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AdmiralAsshat|5 years ago|reply
I don't know what this was intended to prove, exactly?
[+] [-] trynewideas|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ViViDboarder|5 years ago|reply
The real takeaway to me is “ARM desktops are a few years away”.
[+] [-] Havoc|5 years ago|reply
The 8GB model isn't going to perform much better on these tasks that the 4GB on that has been available forever and the $75 device is not a suitable replacement for a $1,299 device.
I do use Jeff's work to determine what SD card to buy...but the above has rattled my confidence a bit.
[+] [-] Avicebron|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hajile|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eeZah7Ux|5 years ago|reply
SSH to work on remote servers, Vim for development, git, IRC, text email, man and less for documentation (installed locally), rsync. Occasional browsing with Dillo.
Believe me or not, I miss the productivity of not being forced to use tons of stuff in browser.
[+] [-] sitkack|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rvz|5 years ago|reply
I would just spare the Raspberry Pi from this Electron app stress testing torture as it evidently cannot handle many of them running at the same time.
[+] [-] KingMachiavelli|5 years ago|reply
Even though the 'default' desktop environment is light weight, a tiling WM just as i3 or dwm would run perfectly on the Pi. Light weight application alternatives such as qutebrowser (instead of Chrome) and Spacemacs (instead of VSCode) would also make using a Pi a lot easier.
The lack of 4k@60Hz is pretty annoying altough it actually might not be noticable with a tiling WM due to the lack of animations.
[+] [-] aduitsis|5 years ago|reply
A 10" google search can yield https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/configuration/hdmi..., where it is all explained.
On a general note, the RPi4 is in my opinion the most exciting computing piece of news there was in 2019, plus the recent arrival of RPi4 8Gb gives the option for even more RAM. This is a sub-100€ quad-core RISC device that can surpass desktop class machines from a few years back in many ways.
The last 64-bit RISC device with a normal desktop I could sit in front of and work, was a Sun Ultra 10 back in 2000. I think the RPi4 comes pretty sweet close to being a normal desktop class machine.
[+] [-] newsbinator|5 years ago|reply
> The first thing I did—which took almost 30 minutes—was try to figure out how to get 4K (at 30 Hz—the Pi can't output 60 Hz over its HDMI connection) working with a consistent font size across all the applications and system controls.
> The settings in the Appearance preferences seemed to apply to some window chrome and buttons, but not internally in applications. So, for example, the File Manager's main window had readable text after I increased the font size at 4K resolution, but in order to make filenames and other listings readable, I had to go into the File Manager's settings and increase the font size there.
> Same for Terminal. And Chromium. And... you get the idea.
What a heck of a thing to have to worry about in 2020.
[+] [-] groby_b|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] deathhand|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] avip|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Mr_Sweater|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mark_l_watson|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MintelIE|5 years ago|reply
Most any school or office could switch to the Pi 4 seamlessly these days for sure though.
[+] [-] ArtWomb|5 years ago|reply
https://magpi.raspberrypi.org/articles/build-a-raspberry-pi-...
And: Raspberry Pi Vulkan Driver Makes Progress But Long Road Remains
https://phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Raspberry-Pi...
I had no idea til this week the RP4-B had dual 4k hdmi output. And I love the idea of a cluster for testing microservices. But regarding graphics performance I think I would opt for NVidia's Jetson Nano.
[+] [-] julianeon|5 years ago|reply
Instead, get a used laptop - say, a Thinkpad. Install Linux on it.
There you go: the best computer you can get, performance-wise, for $75.
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] varjag|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sloshnmosh|5 years ago|reply
I now use Linux for most everything.
I also have 2 MacBook Pros and a MacBook Air but I quickly get frustrated when trying to do anything worthwhile on them and go back to my ancient business class Dell running Linux. YMMV
[+] [-] Apofis|5 years ago|reply