Advice for Raspberry Pi NOOB

January 12, 2019 1:46 PM

I want to try the CanaKit Raspberry Pi 3 B+ (B Plus) with 2.5A Power Supply sold by Amazon as this is complete except for the Samsung 32GB 95MB/s (U1) MicroSD EVO Select Memory Card with Adapter which is sold separately.

I believe it is not too difficult to download Raspbian from Raspberrypi.org (though I might need help with this).

I have a keyboard, mouse and VGA monitor (so will need a VGA to HDMI adapter cable).

I will be using this setup as a home office computer for browsing (Chrome), Google docs, Libre Office.
Is this a feasible idea and what else am I forgetting?

TIA!

posted by lungtaworld to Computers & Internet (10 answers total)

This is feasible, it will be at times a little sluggish. In particular, some modern websites (like horrible news sites with tons of animated advertisements) would be quite taxing for the Raspberry Pi. Install uBlock Origin in Chrome, and whitelist sites that aren't terrible that you want to support.

Would advise purchasing the SD card from a brick-and-mortar store rather than from Amazon. Amazon has serious problems with counterfeit SD cards, because they commingle inventory from many different resellers. As your whole operating system is going to live on the SD, you want it to actually be as fast and reliable as it's supposed to be.

Consider that, having downloaded Raspbian, you will need some kind of SD card adapter (probably a USB thing) to actually load it onto the card. So order one of these too.
posted by vogon_poet at 1:56 PM on January 12, 2019

If you intend to use the Pi as a "proper" desktop computer, then it will perform significantly better running from a small SSD plugged into one of the USB sockets. The 3+ will boot straight from USB - no need for an SD card of any sort if you go down this route.
posted by pharm at 2:22 PM on January 12, 2019

If a teeny tiny desktop machine is what you hope to end up with, you might be happier with something a little beefier than any of the available Raspberry Pis. The Odroid XU4 is about the same physical size as a Raspberry Pi, is built around an 2GHz octa-core SoC, has 2GB RAM, has a couple of USB3 ports for attaching speedy SSDs, HDMI out and gigabit Ethernet, sells for US$59 and is well supported by Armbian.
posted by flabdablet at 1:25 AM on January 13, 2019

I use Etcher to copy Raspbian images to the SD card. It is super easy to use.
posted by duoshao at 1:33 AM on January 13, 2019

Just a note about the VGA input, the pi doesn’t output an analog signal. (More details)
posted by defcom1 at 3:54 AM on January 13, 2019

Thank you all for your responses which are much appreciated.
I now have a whole heap of new ideas to pursue.
There are a lot of YouTube videos re the RP, I am rereading Christopher Barnatt "Explaining Computers" on it and like the SSD idea from Pharm using Etcher from Duoshao.
posted by lungtaworld at 7:29 PM on January 13, 2019

Re Defcom1's comment on analog signals can I not plug headphones into the sound port?
Re Flabdablet's suggestion of the Odroid XU4 I feel that hooking it all up is more difficult than just following "Setting up your Raspberry Pi" from Raspberry Pi.org.
posted by lungtaworld at 7:41 PM on January 13, 2019

can I not plug headphones into the sound port?

You'll need an adapter cable - the socket on the Pi provides analog video as well as audio.

VGA monitor (so will need a VGA to HDMI adapter cable)

An HDMI to VGA converter will cost you more than an HDMI monitor. You should be able to get a used HDMI monitor for minimal outlay. Alternately get one with DVI input, an HDMI to DVI adapter is a lot cheaper than HDMI to VGA
posted by HiroProtagonist at 8:53 PM on January 13, 2019

Re Flabdablet's suggestion of the Odroid XU4 I feel that hooking it all up is more difficult than just following "Setting up your Raspberry Pi" from Raspberry Pi.org.

It's pretty straightforward.

Steps:

1. Buy XU4, power supply, HDMI to whatever-your-monitor-is converter, USB keyboard, USB mouse and the crappiest micro SD card you can find.

2. Download Armbian Bionic Desktop, use 7-Zip to unpack it and Etcher to write it to the SD card.

3. Plug in all the things except the XU4's power cable.

4. Make sure the boot selection switch on the XU4 is slid to the SD card position (closest to corner of board).

5. Plug in the XU4's power supply.

6. Use computer.

At some stage: plug a decent USB3 external SSD into one of the USB3 ports and use Armbian's nand-sata-install utility to move the OS onto it. You will still need to keep the SD card installed because the XU4 doesn't have an inbuilt bootstrap loader, but once the boot loader runs the rest of the OS will then get loaded from a fast USB3 source and run quite snappily. Which is why you only need the crappiest available micro SD card.
posted by flabdablet at 12:35 AM on January 14, 2019

Honestly, if you what you want is a turn-key computer for not much money that will require very little effort to keep running, buy a Chromebook. By the time you’ve bought all the bits you need (How old is that VGA monitor? Will a Pi even drive it? Who knows.) I bet you’ll be approaching the cost of a low-end Chromebook anyway.

Alternatively, if you like tinkering, go right ahead! But I'd probably try and find a cheap HDMI monitor on eBay - there are tons of ex-corporate ones around for very little money.
posted by pharm at 2:39 AM on January 14, 2019