This is something I've been meaning to do for a while... but I finally got myself a Raspberry Pi 4 Model B
4GB, along with a few essential things to go with it. It's a tiny,
inexpensive Arm-based computer, designed foremost for educational use,
yet versatile enough to serve as a general-purpose Linux device.
As
someone who's had a fair bit of experience with Linux over the years,
particularly with openSUSE on both laptops and servers, the experience
is both familiar and foreign. I installed Raspberry
Pi OS (32-bit) onto a microSD card using the official Raspberry Pi Imager application on
Windows, and everything loaded up and worked just as expected. But
coming from an RPM-based Linux distribution, there was a bit of a
learning curve as I had next to no experience with the apt package
manager. The LXDE desktop also took some time for me to get used to.
While I can't say the Raspberry Pi 4 can fully replace a
proper PC, it performs surprisingly well for such an inexpensive
computer, and it can certainly serve as a basic web-browsing and
productivity device. 4 GB of RAM has proven to be plenty for a low-power
Arm-based device, even with multiple tabs open in Firefox (utilization
typically sits just within 2 GB). You'll probably find desktop
applications to be rather sluggish, and you may have to wait several
seconds to do things that a modern laptop can do in a split-second, but
it's certainly usable.
For the time being, I'm simply experimenting with the Pi as a Linux desktop microcomputer, though I do have a few project ideas for the future. While the starting price for the Raspberry Pi 4, a mere $35 for the 2GB base model ($55 for 4GB, $75 for 8GB), can be extremely tempting, the cost can rapidly balloon as you add essential supplies and accessories. Memory cards, keyboards and mice, displays, fans, cases, and other items can easily add up to well over a hundred dollars. Nonetheless, it's a worthwhile experience and you probably won't regret getting one.
I'll be sharing more about getting the most out of the Raspberry Pi 4 in later posts. Stay tuned.
Draco
