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 came up with a bold idea: on a workday, unplug his MacBook Pro and plug in the new 8GB Raspberry Pi 4 as his main work computer to see what the experience would be like after a day.
We know that a workday is not just about blogging or remote coding. If it were, any Chromebook, tablet, or cheap old laptop would suffice. Besides these, the workday content referred to by Jeff Geerling also includes:
Browsing Twitter with dedicated apps;
Using Slack (the memory used by Slack is more than most other applications 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 entire process and uploaded it to YouTube, which has garnered over ten thousand views.After a day, Jeff Geerling found that if your daily work involves a lot of command-line work, programming, using git, and occasionally browsing the web, Raspberry Pi OS is indeed a cost-effective choice.However, using it as a real work computer can be somewhat painful, so he gave up after a day (originally planning to stick it out for a few more days).He wrote a blog about his experience throughout the day. Let’s check it out.Jeff Geerling: My Day Replacing MacBook Pro with Raspberry Pi 4 8GB
Step 1: 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 a powered AmazonBasics USB 3.0 hub into the Raspberry Pi to prevent the internal bus of the Raspberry Pi from powering all devices, including:
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 can arise when switching computers.
I plugged in the official Raspberry Pi 4 USB-C power supply and a micro HDMI to HDMI adapter, which was connected to my LG 4K 27-inch monitor, and then waited for the Raspberry Pi to boot up!Step 2: ReconfigurationThe first thing I did was spend nearly 30 minutes figuring out how to achieve consistent font sizes across all applications and system controls for 4K resolution (the Raspberry Pi cannot output 60Hz through its HDMI connection at 30Hz).The settings in the appearance preferences seemed to apply to some window chrome and buttons but not inside the applications. Therefore, at 4K resolution, when I increased the font size, the main window text of the file manager became readable. However, to make filenames and other lists readable, I had to go into the file manager settings to 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, effectively doubling the size of everything, allowing the Raspberry Pi to run on the 4K display.If you want to play games or watch videos, this is sufficient, though watching videos at 4K settings may experience slight tearing. Other content on the computer will be displayed at 1080p resolution.Finally, after a long setup process, I decided to stick with the original 1080p resolution, even though it made my monitor seem somewhat outdated. I did this to:
Reduce the load on the Raspberry Pi’s GPU (thus less tearing);
Allow the Raspberry Pi’s GPU to apply anti-aliasing;
Enable a 60Hz refresh rate, which makes it more comfortable for 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 precise. It felt like the trackpad was drunk.I plugged it directly into the Raspberry Pi but still faced the same issues. So, I switched to an old Logitech mouse I used in the office, which worked better.Step 3: Workflow and appsI started looking for alternatives to the apps I use daily, with mixed results. Chromium was a decent browser, and I had no complaints using it. VSCodium was a good code editor that could replace my favorite Sublime Text 3. Sublime Text 3 has a Linux version but is not compatible with ARM64; many apps have this issue.I tried to compile Dropbox on Pi OS beta but failed. So I installed Rclone to achieve many goals.
For command-line interface tasks, Pi OS Terminal was sufficient.For chatting, Pidgin and LimeChat performed 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 handle many open-source and basic tasks.However, I also encountered many new issues.Step 4: Identifying ProblemsAt this step, I discovered an issue: many small tasks that could be done on a Mac were either impossible on the Raspberry Pi or the process was cumbersome.For example, every morning I quickly browse through dozens of RSS feeds using Reeder. To achieve 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 issues: 1) it frequently encounters transient errors during use; 2) it must be installed using Snap, so… first, you need to install snapd and then restart the Raspberry Pi.Let’s not discuss the Snap issues here. The point is, for all the software I wanted to use, I had to spend a lot of time finding versions that could run on Linux, then narrow it down to ‘running on Linux ARM64.’I usually need to spend a few minutes compiling source code and placing shortcuts in the system to directly open the programs.Step 5: Multimedia Features are Difficult to AchieveAs the day went by, I wondered if I could do some audio and video work and create a ‘Day Experience’ video on the Raspberry Pi.However, I encountered problems right from the start. 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 after selecting it, there was still no sound.I tried BlueJeans but didn’t see the camera or microphone; the only option was ‘Join by phone.’ But when I clicked that option, the BlueJeans interface froze, 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 working FFmpeg commands:
One 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, so you can extract the stream directly from the camera and save it to disk without any rendering.However, if I used 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, but it couldn’t even start recording or find any audio sources, only displaying the error message ‘Unable to set the pipeline to recording state.’ConclusionAfter all this, is the 8GB Raspberry Pi 4 worth picking up? The author’s conclusion is: if you want to use it as a general-purpose computer, then definitely not. But for some people, this Raspberry Pi has its unique advantages.If your computer usage mainly involves a browser, code editor, and command line (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 can run smoothly.All costs add up to about $250, including keyboard, mouse, monitor, external SSD, plus the $75 Raspberry Pi, which still has an advantage over low-end Chromebooks or old laptops. The author mentions 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 recommended to save up for a MacBook Pro. At least, currently, there are no similar tools that run well on the Raspberry Pi unless you are willing to sacrifice usability and stability.The author states that he may increasingly use the Raspberry Pi in server applications because the cost-effectiveness and energy efficiency of the Raspberry Pi have improved with each generation, even rivaling much more expensive computers under certain workloads.But he does not believe this year is the ‘year of Linux on the desktop.’ He states that for mainstream users, ‘Linux on the desktop’ will always be something 20 years in the future, just like nuclear fusion.English:https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2020/i-replaced-my-macbook-pro-raspberry-pi-4-8gb-day
– EOF –
Recommended ReadingClick the title to jump
1. A 530,000! Boston Dynamics’ Internet Celebrity Spot Robot Dog is on Sale
2. How bad is domestic chip manufacturing? Ten years of drinking ice, blood is hard to cool
3. Trump retweets calls for sanctions against Microsoft
Follow ‘Programmers’ Issues’ and add a star to not miss anything in the circle
