Using the Raspberry Pi 4 as an Everyday Desktop
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- Опубліковано 11 бер 2021
- Bummed I had to do this with some shaky camera on screen shots because I'm still figuring out this 4k capture card that just came in but I promise you all I'll figure this thing out before the next video!
- Наука та технологія
On the 4th March there was an update of the Raspberry Pi OS that has improved media playback. It may be worth a try. I found a huge improvement in responsiveness when I ran the OS via a USB3 to Sata SSD instead of a microSD card. Overclocking the Pi will make a difference to performance. The Pi400 is clocked a little faster due to it's built in heat-sink, as you run the flirk case that may be a good starting point.
I enjoyed watching. I saw a video yesterday from a guy that did a smart mirror with a raspberry pi for weather forecast, news and spotify, so there is a way to make it work, involving developer mode for spotify or somethin like that.
This was very interesting to see, especially having LR running on such a small and low budget computer.
Great job as always on sharing your experience to us :)
Btw congrats passing the 500 sub mark ;) Guess 1k will come in no time :)
Thanks for being along for the journey! I really appreciate you!
@@_stevenfoster use ubuntu-mate
Cuz its the fastest desktop os fir the pi especially with desktopify
Awesome video. I think a lot of users will revisit the Pi as a desktop solution when NVMe boot is fully supported in Raspberry Pi OS.
Is nvme boot not natively available on raspberry pie?
Can I recommend the excellent Twister OS for Raspberry Pi? It has chromium media edition pre-installed which is configured and optimized to work with Netflix, UA-cam and Spotify, a separate launcher for web apps, many gaming focused apps such as steam and lutris pre-installed and even Box86 which allows x86/x64 binaries to be executed on an arm CPU. I believe the steam preinstalled runs on this and even plays basic 2d games which would normally run on x86 like steam world etc. I think it’s well worth a look and would address some of the issues you faced in this video. It even has themes to style the Desktop Environment like Windows or MacOS if that’s your thing
Can You Tell Me How Can I Downlaod Third Party Software on Twister OS ??
Or Can you suggest me a os in which we can download Softwares Directly from browser just like Windows :/
Good honest review - much appreciated and thanks!
Week before last my Win7 desktop power supply died. It was old and was thinking of replacing it. Had a Pi4, Pi OS & 8GB ram already configured and was using it to lean Linux. That Win7 also used dual displays. Few days after using that Pi, had regular daily stuff configured and 2 things helped. 1, Pi3+ with Samba was my NAS and Win10 tablet. Had an adapter from SATA to USB and was able to get the few current files off that old Win7 ssd drive with no problem (old machine had RAID built into the motherboard). So much for Windows security and was very concerned some RAID formats were not directly usable (lucked out). Pi4 was about 1/2 the speed of that Win7 machine. Pi4 with Chrome is VERY slow with UA-cam, Vivaldi is much better. Chrome Media used for Prime movies+.
Monday expecting to install my new PC on my desk another Win7, do have some Windows apps that do not have Linux versions!
I have two RP 4B linked and use it daily as my desktop. I write code and for that purpose is works very well. I think if a added one more RP it would run streamed items with multiple browser open adequately. For me using web based apps and monitoring a security system it has worked. Compared a thousands of dollars for a Mac it fits my needs. I do have a Mac and I use it for my mobile needs which are lessening over time. Interesting project, not necessarily ideal for every user today by any means.
never understood the mac thing with folks that can install OS`s ye know mid level and up user just pricey and locked to apple killed it for me , i been still using a amd A-8 with an ssd Kde fedora Linux .big more for me a windows user till last year or so
@@overbuiltautomotive1299 it’s the apple hardware + nix environment
How is 4k playback on something like kodi? I'm wondering if the media playback is better without the overhead of the desktop
Cheers for the honest review! Thinking of getting one myself but I've been on the fence, not looking for a desktop replacement, so much as experimental stuff, maybe minecraft XD
Thanks for sharing your note! I felt the same way. Really enjoy tinkering with the Pi but with the way ARM processors are going I do believe these will continue to grow as desktop replacements especially in developing markets. And Minecraft! Yes!
is it good for google meet? or zoom?
Hopefully you can answer a question. Ive asked a few but they've not responded. Can i put music and video files on the same sd as the op system or does the op system need to be seperate from eveything else? Thanks
I just ordered one, a 4 model b with an expansion case, I’ll let you know how my experience is when I install mint Linux or Ubuntu on it and run it as a desktop/game console for a while. Thanks for making this video!
How’s it been bro
@@harwinderu59 it’s been great, I tried using it for emulators at first and it does 16-bit and below very well, n64/PlayStation not so much, it just doesn’t have the horsepower. I decided to run pi-OS lite with no GUI as a pure server role, have it working as a web server, local network file server, and DNS filter/sinkhole. That’s what I think is the best use for it as an always on aid to a home network or as a dedicated small load server. I’m sure it would be great as a daily driver Linux desktop as long as you kept the graphical workload to a minimum. I haven’t tried daily driving it like that yet as I’ve had to use Mac OS a lot lately solely for use of Logic and GarageBand.
@@nurk_barry you think it would be good enough to run google meets and google drive
@@harwinderu59 yes absolutely
Interesting video to hear your experiences. For me.. I am looking to the PI to provide a 0.2W - 0.4W power consumption general purpose web browser/email checker. My main desktop PC is a Ryzen 3800x 32GB 2080Ti PC, with 5 SSD's and 2 1TB harddrives.. basically massive overkill for just relaxing browsing the web, using discord in voice chats and so on. The power consumption even when it is basically idle or near idle is vastly greater than a Raspberry PI. Being able to turn it off, enjoy silent computing just for doing the basics sounds perfect. I also plan to use it as a perfect development tool for working with electronics and specifically Arduino devices.
Pi projects are another incredible value. Made an indoor air quality monitor with a friend a couple years back and it inspired a whole host of at home health decisions that have a huge positive impact on my life. Your main rig sounds awesome. Thanks for stopping by. My best to you!
How did that go? Getting the power results you were hoping for?
I thought I read somewhere the Pi 4 draws 6 watts at full power, which is still incredibly low but a lot higher than your stated goals...
you should've used a faster OS than ubuntu, otherwhise I really love the video. For spotify, their arm version is their android app. So, I'd say "what about installing anbox and using them" .. It might not be the most straight forward approach, .. especially for non technical users, but anbox doesn't do emulation, which means it's mostly as fast as native installed apps. and the layout is very cool, it feels like a part of your OS, and it could be a huge help to overcoming the limitation of using arm cpus since there isn't as much arm software for linux but all apps for android are arm.
I have two 4gb RP4B's that I use for UA-cam and playing media. The only way to get good video playback is to dual boot LibreElec. In LibreElec the video playback is exceptional.
Could i ask which rp 4 was it since im getting the 8 gb with the starter kit and want to make sure
Ouch,t hat's a burn, no 1080p playback!
So does it throttle down the CPU from 1.5ghz when it starts to get hot? I want to get one to use as a Cosmostreamer to convert DJI FPV digital goggles USB-C video stream into HDMI out... so yeah, now I'm worried I better get the fan model....
I think I pretty much agree with your review from my experience trying to use Manjaro Linux on a bunch of Cor2Quad 6600's... about the same capability as a Pi4. No, i don't want to use them as a dekstop computer, but if I were on a deserted island or in a prison and that was my only option, then yeah, I'd be happy with them. Otherwise, no.
I open 50 UA-cam windows...and hundreds of webbrowser windows on a 32gb FX-8350... and no way am I going to be happy on a thin PC that can struggle playing a UA-cam video at 720p.. even though I mostly watch them at 144p. The problem is, I'll have 20 others not playing in the background eating nto my CPU cycles just by being in a webbrowser window.
I don't even think I'd be hapy with this on a road in a hotel road or using it like in a vanlife scenario. Better than nothing, and that's about all you can say for it.
Sorry you had no computers as a kid... my dad ran a computer recycling charity and if you had any kind of aptitude or interest, you could of carried home as many desktop 486's or Pentium 1's running WIndows95 as your arms could carry....
The problem was always shipping. We had no money to ship anywhere. People would write to us asking always for laptops. No laptops, sorry, but all the old desktops you could ever want... as long as you don't need to do much with them...as they only had 32mb of RAM. MB, not GB. Play DOOM all you want though lol
Great Video, New subscriber here!Best way to get spotify on rpi 4 is by using raspberr pi os or twister os. BTW i would highly recommend you to retry this using twister os. Ubuntu doesn’t really take advantage of the raspberry pi very well, whereas twister os is pretty much raspberry pi os modded. Also twister os has mac os big sur themes and windows 10 themes and their pretty good. Also... Twister os performs much better than ubuntu on the raspberry pi 4.
Yeah I really should try this again with Twister after many people have mentioned it. Thank you so much for taking the time to share these notes with me. My best to you!
The issue right now with the Raspberry pi 4 is it uses completely different graphics hardware in the SoC and there exists zero non-NDA documentation about how it. The graphics hardware in the 1,2 and 3 was well understood and well documented with graphics acceleration that works. All the video playback in the Pi4 is NOT accelerated as access to the hardware docs is restricted by NDA and the graphics official binary blob is patent and royalty encumbered so can’t be included. Until someone works out the new graphics hardware and creates a patent and royalty free hardware accelerated driver for X graphics performance will continue to be crap.
It is great to use in google class?
I use mine as a second display next to my Xbox to listen to Spotify and watch podcasts while grinding in games, got chromium on it btw
I'm running a Raspberry Pi 4 with 8GBs running Raspberry Pi OS Lite with the Openbox window manager. The Pi is inside a Argon40 M.2 Case with using USB boot with the Argon script running the fan. It runs fine with Chromium web browser playing UA-cam at 720p. Next project will be to install Arch Linux with Openbox. The Argon script only runs on Debian based distros. So I ordered another Pi with active fan and Pi Cluster case so I can run Arch Linux using Openbox. The only issues I had was installing the operating system using a non-4k monitor, but once everything is set up, I can then switch to a 4k monitor. This is be problem with the Arch base distros only. No issues with Debian or Ubuntu based distros installing with 4k monitors. Hopes this helps someone who is planning on installing Arch Based distros
Thank you for sharing your notes! Im already planning another build based on all the feedback in here. Appreciate you and best to you!
you put ubuntu what on it? and your using firefox?
What os do u use
1080p even with overclocking an active Coling. Maybe in future system optimalisation first
you can use a docker image with 32-bit kernel with chromium which can install DRM
GeeekPi Raspberry Pi 4 SATA Storage, Raspberry Pi 4 Model B 2.5 inch SATA HDD/SSD Expansion Board X825 USB3.0 Shield (Only for Raspberry Pi 4B)
I got this for my pi. And a cheap 120gb ssd, best thing for day to day, massive improvement to boot times and general usage over a sd card.
Ur monitor?
Argon case is what I have. It works amazing
Solid recommendation! I might just have to pick one up for the sole purpose of moving all the ports to one side...
Good review! I was wondering if it is possible to use the raspberry for coding in Java and to connect my iPad to it like a VM. Thanks in advance!
I believe it would be possible but I would consider a few things: If you wanted to connect to a development environment over a shell connection or VNC-like connection to get access to a desktop style IDE. Might be something I'll have to make a video for in the future. Thank you for your comment and my best to you!
@@_stevenfoster oh great news! I would like to use It with VNC-like connection to get acces to a desktop IDE like IntelliJ or Eclipse. I'm software developer and I would like to use my iPad instead of a laptop. Nowadays Apple doesnt allow installing the JVM in iPadOS 😭. Thanks for your comment, hope your doing great. Best wishes!
Have you tried UA-cam music
currently im using raspberry pi with standart os but with usb ssd and also overclocked to 1.8 ghz because my want boot at 1.9 ghz for some reason but still quite fast at1.8
I have played gta 5 on this little thing:
1. Raspberry Pi 4 8GB Ram
2. Heatsink Cooler
3. Overclock to 2,1ghz
3. Use wine
4. Set game lowest resolution and lowest settings
5. Play game in 30-40 fps
get pi commander and allow force turbo with 10 v ,900 Mhz gpu , 2147 Mhz cpu but have some better colling than cheap cases this is a stable clock for 64 bit and have been using for 8 months and still learning
Person speaking honestly about their experience… rare to come by.. subscribed!
What is one improvement you want to see the Raspberry Pi 5 have over the 4?
an 8 core soc and 6gbs of ram :> im also waiting for the rpi 5
M.2 drive natively would be nice 🙂
A better gpu
I'll be happy if it had a sata Port
I absolutely, 100% have no real need or real use for a pi, but I just want one to mess with. Never had one before and they have always interested me.
I am new to the Pi thing and haven't bought one yet (soon), but if you are using Linux (Raspbian is based on Debian Linux), there are several FOSS softwares for Logitech (my favorite brand). Solaar is supposed to be one.
But, if that happens again, simply go to a friend's PC who runs Windows and has the Logitech software, bring your jmouse, keyboards, and dongle/reciever, then pare them...then you should be able to use on Pi OS - at least, thats how it works onother Linux OSs.
Also, micro is a new replacement for nano and uses the regular regular commands that other text editors use. it isn't as good as Notion or other text editors, but should be very fine for Pi and also make your CLI easier to use.
Can someone help me with something please? So, I'm a lil new to all this, but I'm thinking of using a Rasberry Pi as a desktop that runs Linux for programming. the usual stuff , web development and very light software development for uni projects. Anyone know if this will be a good idea? I have a 8GB 225 SSD Lenovo running windows. I do know a virtual machine is an option but I'm worried my laptop will get slower plus ofc, I don't wanna lose my Windows apps. I've dual-booted in the past, the classmate who did it for me isn't around anymore and im scared of messing it up. As I wont be able to get it fixed by Lenovo
Same question. Any luck?
@@bhaveshdevjani3278 So, I personally just ended up installing full Linux. But there's a solution-ish...something called a Bootable USB drive. Look it up on UA-cam. It'll allow u to run an OS on a USB flash drive
@@emmanueljr is it any usable on rpi?
@@bhaveshdevjani3278 not sure cos but it should be I'm almost 100% sure it's usable.
i liked and subbed when you mentioned getting a discord lol You got one yet? :p
Oh man I appreciate you so much! Needs to happen!
How to use Adobe softwares in Raspberry PI 4
Is the Raspberry Pi 4 B 2GB fast enough for PiHole or using as a everyday Computer?
I have friends that run even older RPis for Pihole and it works great. Depending on what you want to do with a computer there’s a lot more now you can do on an RPi4.
@@_stevenfoster Oh ok thanks I'd mostly just be using it for PiHole and a few Program's that Window's can't run that Linux can so I'll probably be fine with the 2GB Model and the Raspberry Pi 3 only had 1GB of RAM and that still seems pretty fast. I have another question too do you know what size Micro SD Card is best? Or the highest supported Micro SD Card?
I'm playing Doom 3 just fine (i.e at stable 45 fps) on my pi 4 w/ 2 GB, tho.
Use an argon case and you can overclock it.
You should test Raspbian os with that
Use widevine for UA-cam runs perfect on my pi400.
You can game actually, I'm playing Diablo 2 on the Pi4 :D
lol very funny... Diablo 2 despite it being an old game, I don't think Pi4 can handle it.
@@jotmai3630 look it up, I play it with WINE.
@@Ludanc0 A regular PC has a hard time running Diablo 2 smoothly and my Pi can barely function as a desktop. I can't play UA-cam video smoothly on my Pi. When I get a chance to get a faster and bigger flash drive I will test it out. Right now I am using the default 16GB flash drive. I forgot to buy one.
@@jotmai3630 it runs flawlessly 😁 I finished Diablo 1 and 2 on my Pi but I changed to PC in order to use Plugy.
@@Ludanc0 what is plugy
Im about to build myself a little work bench in my basement. I will be using a pi4 2GB as my Desktop down there. that way I can google information and klisten to music while I work...it's perfect. 100 Dollar 60hz 1080 monitor off amazon and boom...capable little Desktop PC for my work bench. Ain't Technology beautiful!
"you are not going to do gaming on this" well obviously no AAA gaming but there are a lot in the emulation of old consoles and amiga with true gems of games. Also you can overclock the Pi 4 and cool it with a fan, will not change what you can and can't do but will oil things up, like some 3d printing, web dev, etc. All that with very little energy compatible with solar panel and recycled battery so that is future proof passing the robocop time and even to the madmax time. Think about planting fruit trees and vegs too.
I'm pretty sure an overclocked 400 would perform a lot better.
Twister os No problem with Spotify no problem with Netflix
Waiting for new Raspberry pi that can run min 1440p UA-cam 60 fps with no fps drop :) now using Raspberry pi zero W and its ok.
Raspberry Pi 5?
the raspberry pi 4 is a very nice and capable machine, but i think still is not a replacement for a desktop everyday use computer....the fact that it cant even play 1080p videos on youtube without dropping frames makes it unacceptable at this point in time..I guess we will have to wait for raspberry pi 5
Depends on how you watch video.
For the most part I don't bother with over 480p for data reasons lol
Discord works great now
i thought there was discord and spotify web version
I wanna use it to make a robot
Yo your video sound is bit crazy. It was so loud when I opened this video. Try to fix it next time. Thanks.
Yep. I made some big investments since this video and got a proper preamp and phantom powered mic with some audio leveling tools. Quality for 2022 and onward is going to be a few steps up. Thanks for your note. My best to you!
my pi 4 8gb runs well watching movies and youtube infact i forget my laptop
Even 1080p on UA-cam?
if ur needs for everyday use is spotify, netflix and lightroom then you should review ipads :D
A raspberry pi 4 costs 60$. An iPad Air costs 650$ without the pen
meh....been waiting for a pi to actually be usable for ages. sure its usable...as all these things i dont want or need. i need it as an every day PC for under 5 so i can build my parents cheap pcs that my dad can play some old games on and my mom can have 150+ tabs open at once since...clearly for her the X button doesnt exist.
maybe when chips as powerful as the M1 from apple start being put in...because these low end arm chips they currently use are only good for random projects and not much else.
That’s because the pie isn’t meant to be your desktop replacement. Maybe an optiplex might do. Also there is a chrome extension for tabs that suspends the tabs so you can have hundreds of them without needing hundreds amounts of ram
You might be able to find a pc for your use case although things do cost a bit more right now. But the pi is for sure not what you want. The pi is good for teaching kids how to code a small server, an onboard pc. But not so much as a replacement for your desktop.
@@lukefrance9558 exactly my feelings...and i suppose thats where the dissapointment comes in because i look at apples M1 chip and wish the Pi could be on the same level of perfomance essentially neutering the prebuilt home PC market. watching tell sell the trash they sell at the premium they sell it at...is just insulting to educated buyers.
Simply install a version of Android on raspberry pi 4 ,I have android 10 installed and everything is working so smooth.In our days all day by day apps are on android! I really don't understand why you installed Linux??!!@
4:33 cloud... your files on someone else computer. admin can see all (files allready on you) there is no need give them anyone even free, but why someone pay LOL
I really want to throw away the expensive Apple device in my hand.
Thank you, your video is very encouraging. It's totally feasible
You don’t
Ur very handsome
love from Nepal