Cheap desk top

For anyone who may be interested.

Last night I set up the new 8 gb Raspberry Pi 4.

In terms or performance it is a massive leap forward when compared to the Raspberry Pi 3 - so much so that my old laptop has finally been retired.

The Raspberry Pi 4 can now easily replace a 'normal' desktop pc - and at a fraction of the price.

Very pleased with it .

 

Sounds good, though only tried a 3+.

Assume you have added some form of Hdd or Sdd ?
Raspberry Pi 4 With an SSD: Dramatic Speed Improvements, Higher Price | Tom's Hardware

Have looked at Linux before, but too many programs we run are Windows only.

 

Hi Ricky,

2 of the 4 usb sockets are now usb 3 - so I have a usb 3 nano flash drive plugged in - there is a wireless keyboard and mouse nano dongle in another port - so there are 2 spare usb ports.

The wifi has also been upgraded from 2.4 to 5 Ghz.

The OS itself is still run off the micro sd card - I've found that Sandisk offer a fast yet reasonably cheap sd card.

The current stable OS is 32 bit - there is however a 64 bit OS in beta stage - which will allow access to the full 8 gb ram.

My retired lap top only had 4 gb.

I had the same issue - I was reluctant to move away from Windows due to our use of Microsoft Money - but I did find a free Linux alternative with the same interface called KMyMoney.

The other thing is that I don't worry about being hacked - as the majority of hackers concentrate on the Windows platform.

The pi also runs Libre Office - which IMHO is just as good as the Windows offering - and opensource.

I was becoming increasingly frustrated with Windows - having to upgrade fairly frequently - and each upgrade dragging down pc performance. None of this with Raspian or indeed any of the Linux flavours.

 

Hi,

Not sure if there is a difference between the typical usb sticks which have not been known as the most reliable devices and the larger usb Flash drives, assume they use the different and more reliable memory like the bigger SSD drives ?
Assume you mean one of these drives -


Seems there are plenty of good looking case to finish things off and make it look like a proper pc.

Was suggested I use the Samsung Evo 32gb class 10 SD card with the pi 3+ which seemed almost as fast as the old laptop, but when doing a backup, it copied the full 32gb rather than just the data ?!

Must confess never had a problem with W10 updates, though my desktop is an i3 so it has a good bit more power than an old laptop like our L300 Toshiba, which does stuggle speed wise, though still like its keyboard and screen.

Despite asking around, no one could really convince me that Linux is not subject to hacking/ malware etc, some say you do not need anything other that its inbuilt Firewall enabling, others say you do need an AV.
Seems many of the worlds servers are Linux based , just the home user than mostly use Windows... ?

Sophos do offer a free AV suite for Linux users.
Free Linux Virus and Malware Removal Tool | Sophos

Yes, its free software all the way like Libre Office, its just the students who are more or less forced into thinking they have to have MS Office to be compatible with the college /uni courses.

 

Yes that what the nano flash drive looks like.

I also have a pi 3 - it did provide a useable desktop - if you are willing to put up with it being a bit sluggish (which I was because I was skint). The pi 4 runs like Flash Gordon's rocket cycle in comparison.

The case I use was printed for me by a friend - it bolts onto the back of the monitor using the VESA mountings - a neat set up. The only things on the table are skinny lcd monitor, keyboard and mouse.

I can't see the point of splashing out on a high spec pc - this new pi does everything I want it to do and at a blistering speed.

I take your point about hacking - but just look at the number of Linux home users compared to those who use Windows - which system would you spend your time hacking .

I could never get my head around why the Council would spend £1,000's on Microsoft products when there are equivalent products out there for nowt. The IT people afraid of incompatibility issues I suspect.

 

Hi,

Thats a really neat idea hanging the pi on the back of the monitor.

I use the Pi and other micros more for running other hardware projects so need it on the work desk to keep the gpio port accessible etc.

Ah, why do they buy MS, well a friend in Canada once sent me ( a good few years ago) a genuine licence for MS Office, and as he explained ...
When the big orgs want such a system its all about the money, they are talking about running 100s or more like 1000s of PCs that need a common system and equally important support/maintenance, so MS have open field.
Some employees even get 'perks' like a free licences, like I was given, as part of the deal, a real gravy train.
Afraid Linux stands little chance in such cirumstances though you do hear about some places with management and technicians who are prepared to use it.

The only thing that really stops me using it, is though something like Mint or Ubuntu come with a mega install package of software, once you try and start loading new programs it becomes rather difficult with the relatively 'raw' methods needed.

Thought the Pi would help me learn Linux quicker but even loading in Python and other similar stuff, meant I was constantly using the Windows PC to search for tutorials on doing so.
Must be getting too old ...

 

I never quite understood how people can become proficient on Linux purely as a hobby or a curiosity. I tried for several years, installing from time to time different distributions in dual boot or as virtual machines.
I would learn a bit but soon I would also forget it.

Then one day Win7 failed to boot. I spent hours and hours googling with my phone for solutions, to no avail. Reinstalled it all from scratch a few times, even wiped the HD entirely, nothing.. It was late evening, I had urgent work to do the next morning, it was holiday time and I was abroad. The only solution I could think of was buying a new laptop, but I was pennyless and anyway shops were closed.

I had Ubuntu on a thumb drive, which had come handy to backup my files.
Out of desperation, I installed it and set up my work tools and a windows VM for some software which would not run otherwise.
From then on I used exclusively Linux for a few years, and I learned for real.
Frankly I hated it the first 3 weeks and then loved it to bits. There was never a problem I could not find already solved on some forum, and it would normally take seconds to fix.
Compare to Windows forums, which are normally a source of endless frustration and hours and hours lost.. On Windows 7 the only solution which worked for me was cloning the OS and simply zapping it back at the smallest sign of problems.
And with Linux my tiny laptop was flying all the time. KDE gave me a great working environment with multiple workspaces. This is stuff that we see now, partially implemented, in Windows 10.

So, I think for some the only way of learning Linux is to be stuck with it for practical reasons.

Nowadays I am back on Windows, for work reasons.. Like you say, companies are not bothered with supporting Linux. Windows 10 is more stable than anything which came before, but it is also a rubbish OS in many respects, it spies on everything I do and eats so much resources..
It kind of breaks my heart to think that, after having finally bought a decent laptop, 25% of its resources are constantly taken by Windows sitting there idle.
I do still use Linux on a VM though for quite a few things..

 

At one time this was true because there was a lot less Linux around and why go after the minority when you could hit the majority more easily. These days I think some form of protection would be sensible.

The NHS trust I work for is Windows only and we are currently switching to Windows 10 and I suspect that goes for most of the NHS.

Like Aldo I played around with Linus a bit a few years ago. I had a dual boot system, still tended to use Windows for most things as work was Windows based and most of the games and other programmes I used were not available for Linux. I did get my head round the basics of Linux though and could have used it if necessary. One of the problems with Linux, I think, is that there are a lot of different distributions available all slightly different, but at the root of it they all run off the same kernel. Some were better supported/maintained/stable than others.
If I was to try Linux again I would run it on a separate machine so I could still access help if I hit problems and probably get Linux for Dummies or similar.
Having been looking at updating the phone from a c2000 Nokia to something more modern I was intrigued to discover that Android is essentially based on a Linux kernel; so if you want you can access the root directory and have complete control of the device, just make sure you have a complete backup.

 

That's exactly whats frustrated me the number of times we have tried to get into Linux, always left us thinking we must be the original Dummies !!

Have just loaded and dual booted Mint again, and it does seem to be very slick these days.

 

A bit of an update - pun intended

I'm now booting the pi using the beta 64 bit os (which seems stable and comes with 64 bit versions of some software - eg chrome) but from a usb3 drive - so it's even faster.

I was surprised to find out the the sd slot on a pi3 runs at max 25mb and a pi4 at 50mb - which means as far as I can see that splashing out on a class 10 sd card is a waste of money.

The usb3 flash drive I use runs at 80mb - so well within the max speed of the usb slot.

Treated myself to a 30" lcd monitor as well - running at 2560 x 1600.

 

Interesting. Just found out that the msd card slot still works - so you can insert a msd card - it will boot off the usb and the msd card will be available to the system as any other external storage media.

 

Last update.

Just increased GPU memory to 512mb and set up an auto start 4gb ram drive. The bottle neck is now my internet speed. The only way to increase speed further is a ssd drive - but I'm a bit of a purist and a large periperhal hanging off the pi sort of defeats the purpose of a cheap small form pc.

 

Because it is all linus based, you can actually install modded android versions optimized for speed, with no google spyware/apps, or simply able to run the latest android on older, unsupported phones.
I did it years ago (clockwork mod, if I am not mistaken) and it worked ok, but it was a bit clunky to install and keep updated.

 

I normally use mint, with KDE as a graphic interface, and I quite like it.
Osboxes.org has plug&play virtual machines to try different distributions without even installing them.

Regarding malware and viruses, personally I still think Linux is pretty much safe.
There are many well known malware apps which target Linux, meaning that an hacker determined to target you specifically would have plenty of options.
But in the end the real risk, statistically, is to run into generic attacks devised to target automatically as many people as possible, often through web apps.
And those are still prevalently Win/Mac only, because it is just not cost effective to target the most diffused Linux distro as well.

 

At my local hospital. They are still using Windows XP. Seems the authority have come to some arrangement over this.
As I admit, I am way out of my depth with computers and computing. My first desktop was an Amstrad. O/S was on 3.5 " FDS. Screen gave you white or green text on a black background. I still have XP Pro on my laptop, but as I haven't used that for some time, it's not firing up properly. I did have Win 7 on my Acer desktop, then upped that to Win 10. I lost loads of photos, so reinstalled Win 7, everything returned. I still prfer XP.