This article is about 3125 words, recommended reading time is 7 minutes.This article introduces a blogger named Jeff Geerling who had a bold idea: on a workday, unplug his MacBook Pro and plug in the newly purchased 8GB Raspberry Pi 4 as his main work computer to see what it feels like after a day.
About two weeks ago, the Raspberry Pi 4 announced its latest upgrade: a new 8GB memory version priced at $75. Is this new Raspberry Pi worth it? To answer this question, a YouTuber named Jeff Geerling had a bold idea: on a workday, unplug his MacBook Pro and plug in the newly purchased 8GB Raspberry Pi 4 as his main work computer to see what it feels like after a day.
We know that a workday is not just about blogging or writing code remotely. If it were just that, any Chromebook, tablet, or cheap old laptop would suffice. In addition to these, the workday content referred to by Jeff Geerling also includes:
Using dedicated apps to browse Twitter;
Using Slack (Slack uses more memory than most other applications that Jeff Geerling runs combined at any given time);
Recording and editing audio and video;
Using Docker, Ansible, and Kubernetes for some infrastructure automation.
He recorded the whole process into a video uploaded to YouTube, which has received over ten thousand views.At the end of the day, Jeff Geerling found that if your daily work involves a lot of command line work, programming, using git, and occasionally browsing the internet, Raspberry Pi OS is indeed a cost-effective choice. However, using it as a real work computer is a bit painful, so he gave up this idea after one day (originally intending to stick with it for a few more days).He wrote a blog post detailing the steps he took during that day, let’s experience it together.Jeff Geerling: A Day Replacing My MacBook Pro with an 8GB Raspberry Pi
Step One: Plugging in the DeviceThe primary task of the day was to unplug the MacBook Pro from my CalDigit TS3 Plus Thunderbolt 3 hub and figure out how to plug everything needed into the Raspberry Pi.I plugged in an AmazonBasics powered USB 3.0 hub into the Raspberry Pi. I chose a powered hub to prevent the Raspberry Pi’s internal bus from having to power all the devices, which include:
A Kensington 240 GB SSD in an Inateck USB 3.0 SATA enclosure.
Apple Magic Keyboard.
Apple Magic Trackpad.
Behringer U-Phoria USB 3.0 audio interface.
Logitech C920 webcam.
You might not realize how much clutter of cables comes with switching computers.
I plugged in the official Raspberry Pi 4 USB-C power supply and a micro HDMI to HDMI adapter, which was plugged into my LG 4K 27-inch monitor, and then waited for the Raspberry Pi to boot up!Step Two: ReconfigurationThe first thing I did was spend nearly 30 minutes figuring out how to get a consistent font size for 4K resolution across all applications and system controls (the Raspberry Pi cannot output 60Hz through its HDMI connection at 30Hz frequency).The settings in Appearance Preferences seemed to apply to some window chrome and buttons but not to the internal applications. Therefore, at 4K resolution, when I increased the font size, the main window text of the file manager became readable. However, to make file names and other lists readable, I had to go into the file manager’s settings and increase the font size.Next, I enabled the “Pixel Doubling” feature so that the original 1 pixel would be built with 2×2 pixel blocks, allowing all content to be precisely double in size, making the Raspberry Pi run on the 4K monitor.If you want to play games or watch videos, this is sufficient, although watching videos at 4K settings can have some slight tearing. Other content on the computer will be presented at 1080p resolution.Finally, after a long time of settings, I decided to stick with the original 1080p resolution, even though it made my monitor look a bit outdated. This was done to:
Reduce the load on the Raspberry Pi’s GPU (thus less tearing);
Allow the Raspberry Pi’s GPU to apply anti-aliasing;
Allow for a 60Hz refresh rate, making it easier on my eyes when watching 60fps videos.
During this time, I also had to give up using the Apple Magic Trackpad because even after adjusting many settings, the tracking was not very accurate. It felt like the trackpad was drunk.I plugged it directly into the Raspberry Pi but still encountered the same problem. So, I switched to an old Logitech mouse used in the office, which worked better.Step Three: Workflow and AppsI started looking for alternatives to the apps I use daily, with mixed results. Chromium is a decent browser and works just fine. VSCodium is a good code editor that can replace my favorite Sublime Text 3. Sublime Text 3 has a Linux version, but it does not work for ARM64, which is a problem for many apps.I tried to compile Dropbox on Pi OS beta but failed. So I installed Rclone to achieve many goals.
For command-line interface tasks, the Pi OS Terminal is sufficient.For chatting, Pidgin and LimeChat work well on the Raspberry Pi.At this point, aside from not being able to find pre-built arm64 Docker images for some of my projects, I was able to smoothly do many open-source and foundational tasks.However, I also encountered many new problems.Step Four: Discovering IssuesAt this point, I discovered a problem: many small tasks that can be done on the Mac cannot be done on the Raspberry Pi, or the process is cumbersome.For example, every morning I quickly browse dozens of RSS feeds with Reeder. To do this, I had to use a painful web UI because I couldn’t find a Feedly reader that could be compiled on ARM 64.Moreover, most people frequently use Twitter. On the Raspberry Pi, you can install Cawbird, but there are two problems: 1) it frequently has instant errors during use; 2) you have to install it using Snap, so… you have to install snapd first and then restart the Raspberry Pi.Let’s not discuss the Snap issues here. What I want to express is that for all the software I want to use, I have to spend a lot of time finding versions that run on Linux and then narrow it down to “running on Linux ARM64”.I usually need to spend a few minutes compiling source code and placing shortcuts to directly open programs in the system.Step Five: Multimedia Functionality is Difficult to AchieveA day passed, and I wondered if I could do some audio and video work to create a “day experience” video on the Raspberry Pi.However, right at the start, I encountered problems. I couldn’t get the audio and video devices to work properly.I opened Zoom, which recognized the Logitech C920 webcam as the video source, but I couldn’t select the microphone as the audio source. I saw the Behringer USB audio interface, but there was still no sound after selecting it.I tried BlueJeans, but I didn’t see the camera or microphone, and the only option was to “join by phone”. But when I clicked that option, the BlueJeans interface locked up, and I had to refresh the interface!Google Hangouts Meet recognized the webcam for video but also had no audio.Later, I used aplay -l to list my audio playback devices, and then the Behringer interface appeared. arecord also listed the webcam and Behringer as valid input devices:
$ arecord --list-devices
**** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
card 2: U192k [UMC202HD 192k], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 3: C920 [HD Pro Webcam C920], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
So I spent 30 minutes trying to record using either the webcam’s microphone or the Behringer audio interface. After several attempts, I came up with the following two valid FFmpeg commands:
One more thing to note about recording video: the Raspberry Pi’s processor cannot transcode and encode 1080p in real-time. Fortunately, the Logitech C920 has built-in hardware H.264 encoding, allowing you to extract the stream directly from the camera and save it to disk without any rendering.However, if I were using another camera without a built-in encoder, the Raspberry Pi could only record at 5-8 fps at 1080p/30fps. If I set it to 480p/30fps, the Raspberry Pi would record well and save it in mp4 format.For pure audio recording, I tried gnome-audio-recorder and found that it couldn’t even start recording or find any audio sources, only displaying the error message “Failed to set the pipeline to recording state”.ConclusionAfter all this, is the 8GB Raspberry Pi 4 worth it? The author’s conclusion is: if you want to use it as a general-purpose computer, it definitely won’t work. But for some people, this Raspberry Pi has its unique advantages.If your computer usage mainly involves browsers, code editors, and command lines (like backend web development, infrastructure development, writing blogs, etc.), then the 8GB Raspberry Pi 4 is completely sufficient. Even if you open a bunch of tabs, Chromium runs well.All costs add up to about $250, including keyboard, mouse, monitor, external SSD, plus the $75 Raspberry Pi, still advantageous compared to low-end Chromebooks or old laptops. The author mentioned that he is considering using the Raspberry Pi 4 as his child’s first computer.However, if you frequently use media editing software like Final Cut Pro or iMovie, it’s better to save up for a MacBook Pro. At least, there are currently no similar tools that run well on the Raspberry Pi unless you are willing to sacrifice usability and stability.The author stated that he might increasingly use the Raspberry Pi for server applications, as the cost-effectiveness and energy efficiency of the Raspberry Pi have been improving with each generation, even being able to match computers that are much more expensive than it under certain workloads.But he does not believe this year is the “year of Linux desktop”. He stated that for mainstream users, “Linux on the desktop” will always be a thing of 20 years later, just like nuclear fusion.Original link: https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2020/i-replaced-my-macbook-pro-raspberry-pi-4-8gb-day
