Re: Raspberry Pi5 versus other cheap Intel based boxes for general computing

On a sunny day (Wed, 3 Apr 2024 10:24:00 +0100) it happened Martin Brown
<'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote in <uuj77i$3r4ca$1@dont-email.me>:

On 03/04/2024 06:21, Jan Panteltje wrote:

 
What someone learned when he replaced a cheap Pi 5 PC with a no-name Amazon mini desktop
  https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/04/what-i-learned-when-i-replaced-my-cheap-pi-5-pc-with-a-no-name-amazon-mini-desktop/
 
All that said, I post this from a Pi4 8GB, it is sometimes really slow,
but I like and use the GPIO port.

>
I was quite surprised how sprightly my Pi 5 was. I opted for 8GB more
expensive entirely passive cooling so that it can be used as an
entertainment streaming system when not being used for other things.
(whole thing cost about £120 and is the size of a bar of soap)

Yep, only passive cooling in this Pi 4 8 GB
on this  GPIO now my IR camera module.
But I do have an 8 port Sitecom USB hub and a 4 TB Toshiba harddisk connected.
On the USB hub a rtl-sdr stick I can use as spectrum analyzer, or stereo radio receiver, or AIS ship traffic receiver,
or follow airplane traffic with dump1090 (made that draw on a map from a server I wrote running on a very old Raspberry
  https://panteltje.nl/pub/boats_and_planes.gif
  https://panteltje.nl/panteltje/xgpspc/index.html

I have an other Pi 4 4 GB, it is in a metal case with a fan, also has a USB hub and 4 TB harddisk, and records security cams and radiation and what not
is not net connected to the net and  WiFi is disabled (dos not work anyways in a metal case).
Proved to be extremely reliable over the years.
All Raspberries (several more here) are on UPS.
That helps o prevent reboots / restarts as mains dips seem to be the normal here.

In part I got it for the portability and free Mathematica license that
comes with it.

Yes, that was nice too.
Linux has Octave too for math, some more.

I haven't found the Debian environment too tiresome
despite being a Windows user with a smidgeon of Ubuntu and Android.

Have not used MS windows for many years now, Debian is OK,
I did modify Debian on all my Raspberries to have xfm as file manager and fvwm as window manager,
gives me 9 virtual screens, most run a terminal, one chromium browser (dumped firefox a few weeks back when it started behaving suspicious),
in one window alsamixer, and some windows with music notes, some other GUI utilities such as my media player, xosview to see what is loading  things, etc etc.
 

I reckon its performance single tasking isn't far off the venerable
i7-3770 from a decade or so back (and still pretty capable today).

My laptop now > 10 years old now runs Ubuntu.
At least everything works, put a Huawei 4 G stick in it and internet all over Europe.
This Raspberry  has the Huawei 4 G stick in it now so I am online in a flash with one click
and offline after that with one click so no hacking and a dynamic IP address to make hacking even more problematic.


Did you have a P4 before the Pi5? If so what's the main difference in experience?

I was tempted by an N100 based toy PC at Xmas but managed to resist.

Yea, we will see were it goes...

Just typing all this in 'joe' text editor with ispell as spell checker in the NewsFleX Usenet reader I wrote now ported to Raspberry..
that port needs some work, as the libforms library was ehh well, maybe I should write my own graphical library.
I did sort of for some other application I wrote, like that xgpspc thing.
The annoying thing about all those new 'versions' is that you need to re-write your stuff all the time as the libs change, some times not for the better.
My 20 year old PC upstairs still runs xfree and the old audio system (before Alsa), and works still perfectly with my satellite stuff.
Is an AMD 486.