Since they have expressed interest in this sort of thing, i want to gift a learning pc to my nephews. I thought the raspberry pi 400 would be a good option, installing a linux distro on top of it.
Since my sister and brother in a law are not quite fluent in this sort of thing, and my nephews (6 and 7) are a little young to do the system maintenance themselves, I thought for now I’d do the maintenance myself, updating it once a week. However I have only used Arch systems like Eos updating at least every two days. Is that enough or should I expect problems on a regular basis?
So that’s the plan. Now: the pi400 ships with just 16gb sd - sure I could upgrade, but for now that should suffice, right? No swap config runs, or should I take something bigger right away?
And: Is eos even a good option for this device in general? I am open for suggestions if it is not. It has a quad core arm and 4gb of ram.
I’ve read that Kde is by now quite easy on the hardware, so Id take that. Any input and experience on similar projects would be appreciated.
Depends which OS do you chose. EnOS-arm can probably use regular updates like any other Arch-based distro. With Raspberry Pi OS (old name Raspbian) can run a month without update and nothing critical will happen (probably ). I think it has integrated an autoupdate (apt-daily-update). I am not sure how that works because it looks like it updates only security patches and nothing more.
From what I gathered it is good but maybe targeted for a different users. If the taget use is education about computers and programming in general then I would suggest official Raspberry Pi OS with all that extra fluff and bloat included. Your nephews will probably not even notice that they do not have the cutting edge system. They may find more support for RPiOS online compared to any Arch-based distro.
4 GB Ram without swap should be enough for this kind of device. 16 GB SDcard should be enough for the beginning. It should not be a problem to transfer the system to a larger card later if you want.
Just one note about 400 device. It does not have any audio output. So if you want that you have to consider separate audio module on GPIO or USB audio card. Not that it matters too much since original audio output od RPi is atrocious.
edit: Just one more oppinion from me. Do not buy pi400 but instead buy pi4 + proper keyboard (with numpad and other useful keys). It will be probably cheaper and the standalone keybord can be used later if (when) they increase their collection of hardware.
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I have a RPi 4b with 4 GB RAM, a Rpi 4b with 8 GB RAM, and a RPi 400.
That said, I agree with @vlkon except I would go a step farther and say NOT to get the RPi 4b with 8GB RAM. I think the RPi 4b with 4 GB RAM would be the way to go for this usage. The RPi 4b with 8 GB of RAM has it’s own set of problems, especially if you decide to install the aarch64 (64 Bit ) OS system. A RPi 4b (and 400) can run either a 32 Bit OS (armv7h) or a 64 Bit OS (aarch64). The last time I checked, Raspbery Pi OS was only available in 32 Bit. Arch is available in either 32 Bit or 64 Bit.
EDIT #2 Here is the Arch Linux Arm web site.
Click on packages and view the various OS versions. arm - armv6h - armv7h - aarch64
arm is for very old ARM devices
armv6h is for Raspberry Pi original
armv7h is for Raspberry PI 2
Raspberry PI 3 and 4 can both run both armv7h and aarch64
aarch64 is also occasionally reffed to as armv8 and is the only 64 Bit system
I would highly recommend an Official Raspberry Pi 4b power unit. Don’t try to skimp on a PSU.
Also, the Raspberry Pi 4b DOES NOT come with a cooling solution. Just a bare CPU.
There are a couple of really good cooling solutions available. Here is the one I use.
It is both a heat sink and a case. This one is a little inconvenient if when connecting a camera or other peripherals, but it is possible.
No you didn’t forget something, but I did. The Raspberry Pi 4 uses a micro HDMI connector. So you either need to get a micro HDMI to HDMI cable or adaptor.
I’d take the Argon-case, it seems to already have a built-in adapter mhdmi->hdmi. Good suggestion! I’m glad I asked here. Thanks again for the help, much appreciated. I think I’m all set.
Yes @Pudge, I use the Argon One case. It keeps the Pi cool and most importantly gives me a power switch. Just a note on it, they offer a new “bottom” for it that has an NVME slot built in.
Interesting. I have found it here, but it doesn’t look like it’d be that nvme-version. The store makes good prices (better than amazon) and has almost everything I need. This is my full list.
I started to do a test install on RPi 4b and realized I had forgotten one item.
Unless you have a lap top or desk top with a full size SD card reader, you will need one of these to install the base image on the uSD. Or something similar. USB or USB type C SD reader
If I were you, I would go to raspberrypi.org where there is a wealth of information on using the rasperry pi. The best operating system for newcomers to the raspberry pi is their own which is a version of Debian called raspbian.
). I think it has integrated an autoupdate (apt-daily-update). I am not sure how that works because it looks like it updates only security patches and nothing more.
They may find more support for RPiOS online compared to any Arch-based distro.
Thanks again for the help, much appreciated. I think I’m all set.