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I have a Raspberry Pi 400. What things can I do with it? (self.chat)

submitted 1 year ago by Ignacio to c/chat

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Hello. At the end of the last year, in October or November, I had this obsession or impulse to buy a Raspberry Pi. Don't ask me why, because it was an ADHD thing of mine. Because I couldn't find any Raspberry Pi 4 out there, I went to a Raspberry Pi 400, because it was the most similar device to a Pi 4. I was happy, I had a computer which ran better than my slightly old Mac Mini 2016, despite having 4 GB of RAM too.

And, since December, almost January, it's collecting dust. I don't know why I don't use it, and I don't know why I can't take the decision to use it despite thinking about it sometimes. I can play games on my Mac Mini which I can't play on my RP 400, but those games are still old, abandonware in some cases. But it's struggling with few programs opened, including my browser, and I don't like that, so I'm eager to use my RP 400 again.

So, tell me, what other things can I do with my RP 400, besides browsing the web, listening to music or playing emulators? Or, in other words, is a RP 400 better than a Mac Mini 2016 to do the same stuff?

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[–] nromdotcom 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You may have this the wrong way round - you've got a solution in search of a problem. 'I want to use this computer what is it good at?' If you had a use-case for it, wouldn't you be using it already? What keeps you using your Mac mini instead for general purpose computing stuff?

What do you like doing on computers? That way folks responding can tailor their suggestions. If I told you the 400 exposes the GPIO pins and you can pick up a breadboard adapter for it and interact with physical components via python, would that sound interesting to you or mean anything to you? Have you searched the internet for "raspberry pi projects" and seen anything that seems interesting to you? Do you just need help whittling options down?

I have a handful of pis, none in the 400 case though. One runs pi-hole as an ad/tracker blocker for my network, one is in a little case with a 7" screen and I use it for emulation, one is a general purpose computer, one is hooked up to my a/v receiver as an mpd player (though it's been a while since I've used that).

[–] Ignacio 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

What keeps you using your Mac mini instead for general purpose computing stuff?

Mostly video games, like Steam, or other open source video games which can run on a x86/x86_64 device but not on an ARM, like OpenRCT, FTL, Daggerfall Unity, and so on. That is the only thing.

What do you like doing on computers?

Sometimes I would like to learn some programming language, but besides that, nothing substantial. Maybe in the future I can use volumio or pi-hole. Or maybe run some fediverse instance. But as for now, the regular stuff, like music, web...

I watched videos of people doing wonderful things with their Raspberries, even building small towers with info screens, and I felt amazed. I would like to do that in the future, or just do experiments with hardware.

[–] Helix 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Sounds like you already found a use for both systems. Do continue using them like you do. Maybe install some more advanced Linux distribution to learn, e.g. Arch Linux.

[–] Ignacio 1 points 1 year ago

I think I tried Arch Linux ARM with no success in the past. Or maybe it was Manjaro ARM. I can't remember right now, but I know the experience was far away from expected.