Re: Just got a Pi1B. What can you actually do with it these days?

The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:

On 06/06/2025 10:22, Theo wrote:

 
Agreed, I'd suggest they're best as a 'one function' appliance.  I just used
an original Pi Zero to bridge between a USB OBD-II device and wifi, that
allow phone OBD-II apps to connect to the USB OBD cable I already had.
Installed OpenWRT and a few minutes of setup and that was it.  Similarly I
have a Pi 1 to bridge between Modbus and ethernet, and another Pi Zero as a
VPN endpoint.
 
I'm sure I could do something similar with an ESP32 or a Pico or similar
microcontroller, but the setup with a full-fat Pi is quicker and easier.
 

I think that is my conclusin with the SZero
 
A Pico can run a single function, but once it gets more complicated -
like a web server, a pi zero running linux is just *easier*

My main reason to pick a Pico over a Zero is reliability: I can be sure a
Pico will boot up every time, but I find it a lottery whether a Pi will
successfully boot or whether it's corrupted its SD for some reason or
another and won't boot.  I thought PiOSs was supposed to automatically
fsck the disc and reboot with everything clean if a problem was detected,
but for whatever reason this doesn't work - I have to keep pulling cards and
fscking them before the Pi will boot again.

Anyone have any insights into why this is?  These Pis are getting power
pulled from them rather than a proper shutdown, but in the case where
they're sensors or whatever it's just a fact of life they get power
interrupted without shutdown sometimes.

One of my Pis has OpenWRT which I thought would help the corruption issue as
it's designed for routers which don't modify their flash very often, but
even that's got to the state of not booting - I need to investigate further.

Main irritation is the Pi 1 doesn't have wifi, but a $5 wifi dongle fixes
that if you need it.
 

Or an ethernbet hat

Pi1B has 100M ethernet, but things get more awkward if you're on a Zero or a
1A without.  You might need an ethernet or wifi HAT to keep your single USB
port free for something else, especially if your Pi needs to be a USB device
rather than a host.

Theo