I don't know about Raspberry Pis but have you considered a tiny N100 PC? I bought one earlier in the year, they're very cheap and more powerful than Pis. There are tons of Youtube videos because so many people have been buying them.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005234838380.html

 

Yes, that's why I suggested it, it's the same thing I needed as it works brilliantly for general PC work and wathing videos while only consuming as much power as a light bulb. It's the reason so many people are buying them.

 

damn, looks cool. I want to buy one for my niece. she's been asking me for a PC

 

If you go for it make sure you select the right memory and N100 option.

 

I'm thinking of buying a Raspberry PI myself too

 

os is usually Raspbian, which is an ubuntu port,
several other version including a linux mint is available if I remember correctly. I know I've ran at least 3 different version of Linux on mine. probably more, i got a box of sd cards with various o/s.

There is a linux based amiga emulator which will put you in a full Amiga desktop.

i've owned about everyone except the latest model. The 1st ones were underpowered for any desktop use. The latest since raspberry pi4 are more than up to the task. I've used a pi zero for a streaming radio receiver, hooked to an amp.

I've got a raspberry pi 3 setup as a media streamer, and I've also used a 3 for a nintendo emulator. The 4 works great as a Batocera (unix based gaming console emulator) or as a desktop unit. The 400 works great as well since everything is in a case and ready to go with a monitor and a mouse.

The pi foundation website has images that have been tested with units and contain all drivers,
their forums are fonts of knowledge about configuring and i/o with real world devices like cameras etc.

The explaining computers youtube channel has lots of demos of every model since they began as well as speed tests and how to boot from sata devices instead of sd cards.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=explaining+computers+raspberry+pi

depending on how you feel about adding peripherals case, power supply etc. can be cheaper to buy a used i5 mini computer like the HP
hp prodesk 400 g5 or g4 - it can run linux or windows..



https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_fr...ni&_sacat=0&_odkw=hp+prodesk+400+g5&_osacat=0

ask away if you have any questions I can help with . I've been playing with the Raspberry pi's for a decade...

 

I had the version 3 Pi and it was not great really although it could play 1080p it was very sluggish and ended up not working after not using it much from new. I opted to get a HP Elitedesk 800 Mini PC, they also do Prodesk Mini which is not as good as the Elitedesk but still great and all have different specs so watch out for that if you buy one. They've done many other models I think G1 G2 G3 G4 G5 and they're great for doing everything with lots of USB ports G6 I think being their latest. I think I got the G3 and it has room for NVme too as well as a 2.5" HDD SDD. Can play 4k I think too some models. They're pretty small too for their power compared to the Pi. That is just my experience, maybe the Pi 4 are better but I doubt it can match a mini PC with Windows 10/11.
edit:
Sorry just read you don't want a mini PC but I find better to not have my big music PC on with 700w PSU and the mini PC are great on not using much power.
I still would avoid Pi and would never buy one again

 

@ArticStorm How much power can it draw, maybe 5 watts max? I also have built a powerful computer for music production, but I have a separate, energy-efficient computer for the internet stuff with Linux on board

 

I would say a pi3 or a pi4, you could try a pi zero plus or whatever the latest version of the pi zero is, its the least power consuming of all the pi family. They all use 5v power supplies. supplied over a usb connector to a dedicated power port. The pi zero doesn't have much in connectors, no cat5 and only one usb. You can add a "hat" which is a module that plugs into the GPIO pins to extend capabilites that will add more usb ports for about 10$.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raspberry_Pi

unless you really want a really tiny computer, the pizero is more of a novelty for dedicated use cases, like a watering timer or a data acquisition device.

A pi3 is cheaper, but a pi4 is more powerful and has some nice improvements including being able to boot from a sata device, like and ssd, there's no sata ports though so its sata over usb.

the Pi5 adds sata support via a connector, but its more expensive.

the pi3 is 45$ on amazon currently

the pi4 is 63$ with 4gb of ram or 85 with 8gb of ram. 4gb is enough for most people especially running linux.

The pi4 is worth the extra 15$ or so, its
Raspberry Pi 4 Model B 2019 Quad Core 64 Bit WiFi Bluetooth (4GB)

https://www.amazon.com/Raspberry-Mo...819&sprefix=raspberry+pi4,aps,267&sr=8-3&th=1

its very responsive, while the pi3 is a little sluggish especially for web browsing.
the pi4 plays video well and is a quad core cpu so it can spread tasks over different cores and does have some built in power throttling capabilities.

If I were starting out, I'd go with the pi4 or pi400 which is a p4 built into a keyboard case.



Pi400

 

explaining computers showing the pi400

 

if you prefer to use your own keyboard (and save a few bucks) I recommend a metal case that can act as a heat sink for passive cooling, although the fan models are very quiet as well

around 10-13$



https://www.amazon.com/Geekworm-Ras...refix=raspberry+pi+4+alum,aps,322&sr=8-4&th=1

 

pi forums would be helpful for specific topics, one big reason for buying Pi rather than other single board computers..

here's a discussion of using latex and obsidian, in a 64bit arm o/s
https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?p=2061568&hilit=latex#p2061568

and pi magazine is Magpi, free pdf
https://magpi.raspberrypi.com/issues

 

I still watch 720p video on a short throw laser projector, so I'm not a fanatic about resolution. I tend to pursue a good plot, told well and pixels be damned. It throws a 120 inch picture which is quite nice from 20 feet away.
LP-TW4001 LCD Laser Interactive Projector - bought mine used, these are used in schools & uni's
20,000 hour life on laser, mine had 3k hours when I got it for 250$. Ultra short throw, sits in front of you about 24 inches from wall, and makes a very big picture, that you don't have to worry about walking in front of when the beer runs out.... can watch it in full daylight without problems..