Must fight temptation to buy an overpriced raspberry pi
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original post: https://mk.moth.zone/notes/a8zer7ypj6uv02ka
Some are talking about power consumption in this thread and I've had similar ideas. Gone are the days where I can run a beefy spec'd desktop in good conscience, it's just such a resource hog. I have a laptop that stays in hibernate mostly. My other idea for a low power consumption home computer was to get a Le Potato single board and pair that with an e-ink monitor (there's some really nice ones out there) which I think was sitting at maaaaybe ~5kwh. I think the more we can limit our power consumption, the better, all that electricty directy translates into coal being burned and additional CO2 being created. I'm no luddite, but it has impacted how I consume media which is now very mindful of the impact watching a few episodes/playing a couple hours of games versus just one or two hours of content on any given day.
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I dislike posts like this. Technology moves quickly. PIs are great for hobby electronics where you need a little computer. Want a cheap computer to run a few things 24/7 and know what you're doing? Pi it is. You don't need to run containers on a pi because you have the skills to install the dependencies manually. They cost pennies to run 24/7.
I think of pis as beefed-up calculators. I have made lots of money using a pi zero running code I needed to run 24/7. Code I developed myself.
Having an old laptop with outdated parts taking up lots of space, weighing a lot, and having components like fans, keyboard, and mousepad most-likely soon dying and needing replacing is an additional concern you don't want.
Someone below saying use an old laptop if you're living with parents and don't pay the electricity bill is a bit lame. Do your part for the world. Someone will be paying for it.
Ultimately, use what you want but if you're just starting with servers, use a virtual machine on your computer and log in to it. You can dick about with it as much as you want, and reset back to a working state in seconds.
I think this really depends on the model they're eyeballing because the Pi5 is frankly ridiculous for the price and has absurd power requirements (5V5A USB?). I wouldn't recommend one of these unless you have a specific need like a certain hat or the GPIO pins. You can get a Dell micro Optiplex for less money and have a full fledged i5 or i7 processor with similar power usage.
Plus the RPi Foundation exposed themselves as the greedy bastards they are during COVID which is yet another reason to turn your back on them.
For something like a Pi Zero, maybe go for it, but there are similar devices out there from other companies too.
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Add use of gpio to reasons to use pie.
While gpio adaptors are available for pc. The software architecture is not as well rounded and documented.
So for any complex hardware project development. Gpio based SBCs are often essential.
So space, low power and gpio development.
Otherwise yep old laptop or even desktop can be cheaper and more able.
But overall. The wide software support and documentation for hardware connectivity is a bloody good reason to keep pie supported.
I'm setting 2 up to control the hot water and solar dump system on my shared little boat. As I want to link 12v Lifepo4 batt charging with the solar dump and visually impaired control for AC and diesel heating of the water.
Pies really are the best option to play with. While low power and easy to design a unique low vision interface.
Also UK boat safty. Is issuing warning about permanently connected li ion batts on boats. So it is likely setting up a laptop to manage this while not on the boat. Will be banned in the near future.
Only an issue for UK boating but worth considering the risks of leaving laptops to run when not observed.
I bet you could instead use an ESP32 for GPIO and just connect it remotely to whatever Pi alternative you use (if needed at all). Turning some switches on and off while monitoring input values doesn't sound very computationally intensive.
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original post: https://mk.moth.zone/notes/a8zer7ypj6uv02ka
wrote last edited by [email protected]Power consumption is a massive reason to really not do that. Its cheap for a reason, its takes a shitload of power to be shit and you will pay more in energy than you save in hardware unless its only powered on for short periods of time - a server typically isn't.
This is actually something that applies to cheap products too. Was in Asda a little while ago and saw 2 LED bulbs with the same lumen rating. Cheaper one used 3w more and you only saved £1. Running it for 8 hours a day for a year would cost double that saving in electricity. For a server you are looking at almost £2 per watt each year. Does that ewaste look so good to you now?
Some things are absolutely worth getting second hand, but you really should be careful considering the power cost as well.
Quick edit: If you don't need it running 24/7, consider something like AWS too. I love selfhosting but if its not running much it might be cheaper to not bother buying hardware.
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I now have a stack of Thinkpads laying around. Right next to my two RPis
I really should pick up another used thinkpad.... I've got one for my wife, one for me for work, and I would really like to have a personal in the mix to make my life easier.
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Where are these cheap e waste laptops with gpio and actually low power?
The market is about to be flooded with them with Windows 10 going EoL in October.
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I dislike posts like this. Technology moves quickly. PIs are great for hobby electronics where you need a little computer. Want a cheap computer to run a few things 24/7 and know what you're doing? Pi it is. You don't need to run containers on a pi because you have the skills to install the dependencies manually. They cost pennies to run 24/7.
I think of pis as beefed-up calculators. I have made lots of money using a pi zero running code I needed to run 24/7. Code I developed myself.
Having an old laptop with outdated parts taking up lots of space, weighing a lot, and having components like fans, keyboard, and mousepad most-likely soon dying and needing replacing is an additional concern you don't want.
Someone below saying use an old laptop if you're living with parents and don't pay the electricity bill is a bit lame. Do your part for the world. Someone will be paying for it.
Ultimately, use what you want but if you're just starting with servers, use a virtual machine on your computer and log in to it. You can dick about with it as much as you want, and reset back to a working state in seconds.
Yeah, theres a lot of old old laptops which make no sense to run. But there's a growing crop of more recent used devices that are only being sold off because they don't support Windows 11, and the power efficiency story changes there. The OOP mentions "8.1 lappies"; my main laptop has a 15W 8th gen which is only in the last year starting to feel less appropriate for desktop use. (And honestly, a RAM and storage bump will probably get me another couple years.)
For environmental concerns, youve got to tax new devices with manufacturing costs as well.
100% agree about VMs though.
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original post: https://mk.moth.zone/notes/a8zer7ypj6uv02ka
wrote last edited by [email protected]And for some (including me) that's our only computer (other than phone). I just can't afford anything, so all I have is a shitty laptop from 2010 that barely plays 1080p video. I deeply want something better, especially a steam deck, but doesn't look like that'll happen anytime soon (or ever).
And then you see people have steam decks that just sit there, unused, gathering dust.... fuck. -
Everyone here thinks their shit tier 2018 laptop is made of gold or something.
Same here in México, a lot of people think their dual core Intel from 2011 (and even older than that) is still worth more than +$100USD. Even worse, companies usually want to resell devices to recover some of the cost, so even that option is kind of expensive. I'm waiting for some friends that can buy company devices for cheap so they can resell them to me for cheap too lol
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And for some (including me) that's our only computer (other than phone). I just can't afford anything, so all I have is a shitty laptop from 2010 that barely plays 1080p video. I deeply want something better, especially a steam deck, but doesn't look like that'll happen anytime soon (or ever).
And then you see people have steam decks that just sit there, unused, gathering dust.... fuck.You want a steam deck to replace your only computer?
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l a p p i e s
Strong Bad vibes
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That's only start up cost. What about ongoing 24/7 costs after 2 years?
Probably not much of a difference. These mini PCs can run at single digit wattage too and you won't be buying new SD cards every 6 months.
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original post: https://mk.moth.zone/notes/a8zer7ypj6uv02ka
The day i can fit the power of a computer capable of emulating the switch 1 in a gameboy shell will be glorious.
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You want a steam deck to replace your only computer?
Why not? especially when it's a laptop from 2010
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original post: https://mk.moth.zone/notes/a8zer7ypj6uv02ka
Rockchip boards are way more efficient than Pis
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That's only start up cost. What about ongoing 24/7 costs after 2 years?
The power usage will be a bit higher, but it will also have higher performance. They can have 2.5G ethernet and a couple of NVMe SSDs. The Raspberry Pi 5 only has one lane of PCIe 2.0, so it will be very bandwidth limited if you use a PCIe switch to connect a 2.5G NIC and an SSD.
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Power consumption is a massive reason to really not do that. Its cheap for a reason, its takes a shitload of power to be shit and you will pay more in energy than you save in hardware unless its only powered on for short periods of time - a server typically isn't.
This is actually something that applies to cheap products too. Was in Asda a little while ago and saw 2 LED bulbs with the same lumen rating. Cheaper one used 3w more and you only saved £1. Running it for 8 hours a day for a year would cost double that saving in electricity. For a server you are looking at almost £2 per watt each year. Does that ewaste look so good to you now?
Some things are absolutely worth getting second hand, but you really should be careful considering the power cost as well.
Quick edit: If you don't need it running 24/7, consider something like AWS too. I love selfhosting but if its not running much it might be cheaper to not bother buying hardware.
There's lots of ways to make existing hardware more efficient at the cost of performance. Under-volting the CPU and RAM (or just putting them in "efficiency" mode) can probably save more electricity than you lose in generational improvements. Considering how much more powerful PCs are compared to SBCs, you'd probably still have better performance than an SBC. Also, a more powerful CPU that takes double the power but as a result can idle for more than 50% of the time would be more efficient than a less powerful CPU never idling.
There's a lot of other variables (like idle power draw, efficiency at various power levels, idle latency, etc), but in general I think your statement would be inaccurate at least 60% of the time.
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The day i can fit the power of a computer capable of emulating the switch 1 in a gameboy shell will be glorious.
We must be pretty close on that by now, I can emulate a number of Switch 1 games surprisingly OK (not amazing, just OK) on my S21!
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The day i can fit the power of a computer capable of emulating the switch 1 in a gameboy shell will be glorious.
You probably could with a phone
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I bet you could instead use an ESP32 for GPIO and just connect it remotely to whatever Pi alternative you use (if needed at all). Turning some switches on and off while monitoring input values doesn't sound very computationally intensive.
Yep that can work. But ignores all the well documented and supported development community comments I pointed to while also indicating other options exist.
As for.
Turning some switches on and off while monitoring input values doesn’t sound very computationally intensive.
You realise IO wise that describes your keyboard and mouse interaction on the most powerful gaming PCs.
It's what you do with the results that matters.
GPIO supports a fair bit more then the on and off input and output. It's slow compared to other systems. But has multiple serial protocols of differing types. Simple GUI displays can also be run via gpio connections. Low Res Lidar devices are available connected via the spi connections with all the data processed on that host PC.
So no gpio use can require all levels of processing power post connection. It is after all designed for experimentation and prototyping.
For my project. You clost to correct. I just use a simple GUI displays with xorg. So a pie 0 is plenty. And way lower power then the other options. It links to a pwm controller to power 2 12v 200w water tank heaters a relay for a 750w AC heater. Bluetooth connection to a BMS and solar MPPT. While operating multiple temp sensors measuring at different levels. And warning of legionaries risk. If the tank has not been over 65c in 14 days (actually 10 days but I'm over careful given the health status of my brother and I).
So much less then the tiny Pie 0 would not be able to cope but mainly due to the need for the vision impaired interface. Speaking functions dose not take much. But doing so without being unusably slow is about the limit of a pie 0.
