Must fight temptation to buy an overpriced raspberry pi
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No Silicon Valley are the ones throwing these things away because it costs them too much money to deal with old unreliable PCs.
Damn, I should have ended the post with /s for people like you.
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original post: https://mk.moth.zone/notes/a8zer7ypj6uv02ka
Look for refurbished elitedesk g5, it runs debian magnificantly! I splurged a bit on the memory and ssd and have a quite nice desktop (developer).
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Also, Raspberry Pi first got popular because of the size and cost. Now it's popular because it's popular. Not hating on them, I think they're cool, but they're not cheap any more. Especially with the scalping.
Getting x86_64 based systems is going to mean much less headache. Unless you truly truly need the size I wouldn't consider getting a Pi or other SBC. Just go to literally any used marketplace (Facebook, Craigslist, etc) and get anything.
but they're not cheap any more
People say this, but they really are still cheap.
The original Raspberry Pi Model B launched for £22 in 2012. The entry level Raspberry Pi 5 is £46, but adjusted for inflation that's only £32 in 2012 money. So only £10 more expensive in real terms.
Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W is only £14.40, which is only £10 in 2012 money. Compare this to the original Raspberry Pi Model A, which launched for £16.
People look at the headline cost of the high end RPi 5s (£115 for the 16GB model, £76 for the 8GB), but fail to recognise that there was nothing comparable to these in the Raspberry Pi lineup before, and these are not the only models in the Raspberry Pi lineup now.
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A RPi is going to be smaller, quieter, and 10x more energy efficient though...
There are probably a dozen things you can do to save energy on orders of magnitude higher than using a pi.
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There are probably a dozen things you can do to save energy on orders of magnitude higher than using a pi.
Then do them. It's still not going to decrease the energy use of your server.
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but they're not cheap any more
People say this, but they really are still cheap.
The original Raspberry Pi Model B launched for £22 in 2012. The entry level Raspberry Pi 5 is £46, but adjusted for inflation that's only £32 in 2012 money. So only £10 more expensive in real terms.
Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W is only £14.40, which is only £10 in 2012 money. Compare this to the original Raspberry Pi Model A, which launched for £16.
People look at the headline cost of the high end RPi 5s (£115 for the 16GB model, £76 for the 8GB), but fail to recognise that there was nothing comparable to these in the Raspberry Pi lineup before, and these are not the only models in the Raspberry Pi lineup now.
10£ more, or 50% more expensive?
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Pi’s are ARM-based, which still to this day limits the scope of their applicability.
Untrue.
Also, you should absolutely inspect a laptop before buying. Many, if not most, of old laptops will run just fine for the next few years.
Until the battery needs replacing, costing more than a pi, one key on the keyboard dies, etc.
Untrue
Which part?
Until the battery needs replacing, costing more than a pi, one key on the keyboard dies, etc.
Do you need any of that? You can remove the battery and keep it plugged, and use it as a server to which you connect over SSH, with an added benefit of having local access if you actually need it.
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original post: https://mk.moth.zone/notes/a8zer7ypj6uv02ka
It's a good idea until you consider the fact that a Raspberry Pi will be astronomically more power efficient.
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but they're not cheap any more
People say this, but they really are still cheap.
The original Raspberry Pi Model B launched for £22 in 2012. The entry level Raspberry Pi 5 is £46, but adjusted for inflation that's only £32 in 2012 money. So only £10 more expensive in real terms.
Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W is only £14.40, which is only £10 in 2012 money. Compare this to the original Raspberry Pi Model A, which launched for £16.
People look at the headline cost of the high end RPi 5s (£115 for the 16GB model, £76 for the 8GB), but fail to recognise that there was nothing comparable to these in the Raspberry Pi lineup before, and these are not the only models in the Raspberry Pi lineup now.
Inflation adjustment doesn't really tell the whole story though, it's not like salaries have gone up by the same amount. Regardless, I don't like dealing with the Zero unless I specifically need something that tiny. It's just too annoying. Don't get me wrong! They're cool! I'm just saying unless I really need a Pi Zero I wouldn't wanna work with one. I'd rather work with x86_64 than Arm. Like even just getting Java working was really tricky on Zero. Much like a microcontroller has limitations for what you can run on them but they have other benefits, Zeros aren't really general purpose.
So yeah, dirt cheap used laptop for general purpose server beats out dirt cheap Pi in my book.
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This is generally not true. A small server running on an old pi when idling will have hardly any draw. It will cost literally pennies to run for the whole year.
wrote last edited by [email protected]A rasperry pi idles at about 2 watts vs a laptop that idles at about 4 watts.
At $0.30/kwh (a very high price for electricity) you would save 5 dollars per year on electricity.
This laptop trades blows with the rasperry pi and costs half the price (55$ aud vs over 200$ aud for a brand new pi 5)
Even this second hand one costs 110$ aud which is twice the cost. With that cost of electricity it would take 11 years in order to break even.
And that's only if you consider monetary cost and not environmental cost. -
It's a good idea until you consider the fact that a Raspberry Pi will be astronomically more power efficient.
If you think in flops per watt, maybe a little bit, but not a lot. Do you have one or two good procs for almost free, or half a dozen new sbcs at $100 each? Takes a while to save back that amount in power.
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If you think in flops per watt, maybe a little bit, but not a lot. Do you have one or two good procs for almost free, or half a dozen new sbcs at $100 each? Takes a while to save back that amount in power.
My question is usually not how many flops, but how quickly and reliably those watts can give me just a few flops on demand.
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There are probably a dozen things you can do to save energy on orders of magnitude higher than using a pi.
Like: using the pi to manage your HVAC more efficiently.
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Also, Raspberry Pi first got popular because of the size and cost. Now it's popular because it's popular. Not hating on them, I think they're cool, but they're not cheap any more. Especially with the scalping.
Getting x86_64 based systems is going to mean much less headache. Unless you truly truly need the size I wouldn't consider getting a Pi or other SBC. Just go to literally any used marketplace (Facebook, Craigslist, etc) and get anything.
Pi is popular with me because it's time efficient. Meaning: when I am trying to get it to do something, it takes less of my time to make the thing actually happen on Pi hardware as compared with most of the other small / embedded alternatives. Notable recent exception: ESPHome on ESP32 hardware, but even there the more limited variation of Raspberry hardware makes it similar to those fruity phones, MP3 players and computers - since there are a limited number of variations, you can usually find information specific to EXACTLY your setup, instead of having to infer from something almost the same, but figure out little wrinkles here and there due to differences between what you are working with and what you are reading about on the internet.
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but they're not cheap any more
People say this, but they really are still cheap.
The original Raspberry Pi Model B launched for £22 in 2012. The entry level Raspberry Pi 5 is £46, but adjusted for inflation that's only £32 in 2012 money. So only £10 more expensive in real terms.
Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W is only £14.40, which is only £10 in 2012 money. Compare this to the original Raspberry Pi Model A, which launched for £16.
People look at the headline cost of the high end RPi 5s (£115 for the 16GB model, £76 for the 8GB), but fail to recognise that there was nothing comparable to these in the Raspberry Pi lineup before, and these are not the only models in the Raspberry Pi lineup now.
There was the supply shortage price spike, they really were stupid expensive then if you supported the hoarder/scalpers.
Since that has cleared... most of the Pi price increases (in inflation adjusted dollars) can be attributed to improved features like more RAM, or people acknowledging that having a good dedicated $20 power supply is preferable to dealing with the flakiness of that old phone charger you found under the bed.
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10£ more, or 50% more expensive?
Don't like the expensive version? Get a Zero 2 W which outspecs the original by a wide margin.
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original post: https://mk.moth.zone/notes/a8zer7ypj6uv02ka
Yeah... no. Old laptops idle at around 50 °C.
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I guess I am pretty far from saturating my WiFi in any way, the removal of cables with little to no impact on connectivity was far more of a priority for me. I have never noticed a WiFi related outage or performance loss.
I will say this: we had a big lightning strike a few years back and it conducted into the house via the internet cable, then spread via the ethernet cables taking out everything that was wired (over $7K in damage) - devices connected only by power and WiFi were mostly spared.
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Yeah... no. Old laptops idle at around 50 °C.
That just means they become 100% efficient in winter!
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Fake news. Modern RPis need up to 25W PSU. Even old laptops could idle lower than that, as otherwise they wouldn't be able to get significant battery life. Turning off the screen will also really lower their power consumption.
You're comparing a laptop at idle to the power supply for a pi that needs to power it at full load plus overhead and inefficiencies. That's like comparing apples to an orange tree.
