12/08/2020
Cheap Computers – 1
This is going to be a series about inexpensive computes, strengths weaknesses and why you might want to buy one.
The Raspberry Pi 400
The Raspberry Pi 400 is the latest incarnation of the Raspberry Pi. These are designed and sometimes made in the UK, other countries make them under licence. They were inspired by the BBC/Acorn computers of the 1980s, designed originally for the education market but now found in a variety of other roles. All Raspberry Pi computers have a Broadcomm chip similar to that found in a smart phone. They do not run Windows or MacOS but can run a variety of operating systems largely Linux based.
Your local ‘expert’ will tell you that Linux is really weird and only true geeks can attempt to use it. This is quite frankly bull BS, you are probably running it already without noticing, its most likely in your car, wireless router and many other smart devices. If you have an Android phone, congratulations you are using Linux.
If you are new to this world get the Pi 400 get the Raspberry Pi Complete kit available (in Canada) here https://www.buyapi.ca/product/raspberry-pi-400-complete-kit/. This gives you everything you need except a display. You can use a TV or a monitor fitted with a HDMI port.
So what can you do with it? Right now I am typing this on my Pi 400, whilst listening to Google Music play “I got the Blues” by Sam Myers. I also have Chromium open with a few pages. What can’t you do? 3D detailed video games. In fact unless you like classic video games, the Pi 400 is not suitable.
Other than modern video games you can pretty much do anything a Mac or PC can do. There is a caveat, you may need to use different software, I am typing this on Libre Office not Microsoft Word, Libre Office can edit and write documents that can be interchanged with Microsoft Word.
One problem is that some Windows/Mac programs do not have a exact copy in Linux – Gimp is the Linux equivalent of Photoshop, it has a steep learning curve, but so does Photoshop.
What about support, on the web there are multitudes of helpful web sites, videos and blogs.
The Pi 400 is what it is, it only has 4GB of RAM, so no it is not as fast as a new Mac or Windows machine. If you want to surf the web, watch YouTube send and receive e-mails, edit your photos it is plenty fast enough and nearly all the software is free.
