RPi 5 as a desktop daily driver?

[ejolson]

To be honest, it is underwhelming even with the overclock and all. In 2023, it should be made to run 1080p60 at stock clock speed with no problem.
Hope with ARM investment in Raspberry Pi Limited, something good will come in the next iteration.

Counting in all the factors, it is not an underwhelming upgrade. Not at all. Compared to its older brother, iteration 5 is really overwhelming i should say.

When the Pi was released in 2012 the PC on my desk was a first generaton Intel i3-550.

According to the Pi chart computations

viewtopic.php?p=2150327#p2150327

that desktop was

43.17/1.0=43.17

times faster in 2012.

Today the desktop is an AMD Ryzen 4650 and the ratio to the Pi 5 is

232.8/58.3=3.99

times faster in 2023.

It looks to me like single-board computers such as the Pi are catching up.

[Gavinmc42]

It looks to me like single-board computers such as the Pi are catching up.

When my first Pi4 1GB showed up it replaced a Intel Celeron Core Duo that had 2 GB of DRAM.
I increased the 100MB swap file to 1GB and browsing was better.
When the 2GB Pi showed up the swap increase was not need, that was replaced with a 4GB Pi4 then later this Pi400.

My daily drivers for years have been a succession of four Pi computers.
For me, Pi's caught up to my Desktop needs 4 years ago.
I suspect the Pi5 will be my next daily driver for some years to come, when I get one
I am in no hurry for a Pi5 as this Pi400, apart from the wearing out keyboard should last into 2024.

The OS, Kernel and GPU drivers and latest Blender, Godot etc are all in early days of Wayland/Wayfire/Vulkan support so a few more months of debugging will be useful.
I see the Bookworm updates coming through on this Pi400, making it smoother.
By the time a Pi5 shows up here I don't expect major issues for me.
Just unplug the Pi400 SSD and install/compile the latest version of apps that don't quite work on the slower Pi400.

Those complaining about YT HiRes playback get no sympathy from me, buy a better($$$$) computer.
Or just use a Smartphone, even a cheap $$ works
Paid $129 for a 8 core, 2 cameras, 1600x720 LCD, 2GB ram 32G flash, I use that for yt watching mostly.
Unless it is yt coding vids in this Pi400 second monitor.

Hmm, Android 14 on Pi5, anyone know if the YT app works?

The Pi computers are $$ or $$$ computers, they work fine for most other things.
I spent just as much $$$ for my ZX81 with 8bit CPU and 1K of memory.

[tpfkanep]

To be honest, it is underwhelming even with the overclock and all. In 2023, it should be made to run 1080p60 at stock clock speed with no problem.
Hope with ARM investment in Raspberry Pi Limited, something good will come in the next iteration.

I gotta check out the news about the ARM investment - sounds good.

I do agree 100% with your signature: In this day and age, optimisation trumps overclocking. But even with optimisations, the P5 apparently lacks the hardware desperately needed to decode YT 1080p60 and above. If the design goals and philosophy of the Foundation stays the same for the future, I can see the P6 and beyond having more than four cores, which is not a bad thing I suppose.

One thing that has been bugging me about P5: it looks to me that a cooling solution is a must if you want to use it to do anything meaningful like running a desktop... ... ?

[BrotherOrchid]

It looks to me like single-board computers such as the Pi are catching up.

Those complaining about YT HiRes playback get no sympathy from me, buy a better($$$$) computer.
Or just use a Smartphone, even a cheap $$ works
Paid $129 for a 8 core, 2 cameras, 1600x720 LCD, 2GB ram 32G flash, I use that for yt watching mostly.
Unless it is yt coding vids in this Pi400 second monitor.

Hmm, Android 14 on Pi5, anyone know if the YT app works?

The Pi computers are $$ or $$$ computers, they work fine for most other things.
I spent just as much $$$ for my ZX81 with 8bit CPU and 1K of memory.

No need to spend too much more money.

My Orange Pi 5 8gb ($112 on Amazon), performs better at Chromium YT 1080p60 and 4k60 playback. The downside of the RK3588 chipset is the lack of software support. That may change in the next year or two as mainline Linux support is added.

[ame]

The downside of the RK3588 chipset is the lack of software support.

Pretty much.

[lurk101]

The downside of the RK3588 chipset is the lack of software support.

Pretty much.

Software support for what? Have you had any problems with orange pi5 software?

[ame]

The downside of the RK3588 chipset is the lack of software support.

Pretty much.

Software support for what? Have you had any problems with orange pi5 software?

No, but lack of software support is very much a downside in any environment.

[Gavinmc42]

My Orange Pi 5 8gb ($112 on Amazon), performs better at Chromium YT 1080p60 and 4k60 playback. The downside of the RK3588 chipset is the lack of software support. That may change in the next year or two as mainline Linux support is added.

So basically it only gets used for watching yt vids?

I need to get a 4K screen to see why people want that feature, but I am too busy learning to code than watch stuff I can see on any Smart TV these days.
I do watch Adam Savage's Tested and other maker chs on my second Pi400 monitor but I don't need 1080 or 4K for that.

[AkulaMD]

I gotta check out the news about the ARM investment - sounds good.

Getting Mali for the next iteration would be a very good news. Hope it's going to happen.

[cjan]

Mali GPUs.
https://www.phoronix.com/news/Panthor-DRM-Newer-Mali

[BrotherOrchid]

My Orange Pi 5 8gb ($112 on Amazon), performs better at Chromium YT 1080p60 and 4k60 playback. The downside of the RK3588 chipset is the lack of software support. That may change in the next year or two as mainline Linux support is added.

So basically it only gets used for watching yt vids?

I need to get a 4K screen to see why people want that feature, but I am too busy learning to code than watch stuff I can see on any Smart TV these days.
I do watch Adam Savage's Tested and other maker chs on my second Pi400 monitor but I don't need 1080 or 4K for that.

Yeah, but I also use it for emulation, large downloads, and lossless screencapture. Unlike the Pi4, it has an M2 slot onboard that I can boot an NVME SSD from. The Pi5 needs a hat to do the same thing, which I believe will be coming out soon.

[BrotherOrchid]

The downside of the RK3588 chipset is the lack of software support.

Pretty much.

Software support for what? Have you had any problems with orange pi5 software?

Yep, the Ubuntu OS image on the Orange Pi site is a customized version of Armbian Ubuntu that doesn't have the latest patches.

The best and most updated Linux OS option for the chipset is Ubuntu Rockchip, customized specifically for the chipset. Even though it's the best distro currently, it uses an old Android kernel. I can't run kdenlive on it without crashing.

[AkulaMD]

I can't run kdenlive on it without crashing.

If I'm not mistaken, Explaining Computer did a kdenlive speed test comparison on it. And it is almost 3 times faster (more like 2.5, to be exact) than RP5 in that particular kdenlive test

[BrotherOrchid]

I can't run kdenlive on it without crashing.

If I'm not mistaken, Explaining Computer did a kdenlive speed test comparison on it. And it is almost 3 times faster (more like 2.5, to be exact) than RP5 in that particular kdenlive test

Good to know. I'll check out the other distros (Orange Pi official, Armbian, etc) again. I don't mind tinkering to get some programs running, but IME the Raspberry Pi SBC's tend to need less of it.

[Gavinmc42]

I don't mind tinkering to get some programs running, but IME the Raspberry Pi SBC's tend to need less of it.

One advantage of Pi's software support is it works and there are many options.
The second advantage is learning how to compile stuff from source, including kernels on the Pi.
Handy for knowing how to DIY complex stuff on other SBC's.

[lurk101]

I don't mind tinkering to get some programs running, but IME the Raspberry Pi SBC's tend to need less of it.

One advantage of Pi's software support is it works and there are many options.
The second advantage is learning how to compile stuff from source, including kernels on the Pi.
Handy for knowing how to DIY complex stuff on other SBC's.

The meaning of support is ambiguous. If you mean help with difficulties or misunderstandings, then yes Raspberry is better due to this forum. If support as in runs many different applications, then no difference.

Amrbian for the orangepi, and for all boards it supports (including the Pi4), has an excellent kernel build and image preparation system. Uses uboot, a common (preferred) open source boot loader.

[ejolson]

I don't mind tinkering to get some programs running, but IME the Raspberry Pi SBC's tend to need less of it.

One advantage of Pi's software support is it works and there are many options.
The second advantage is learning how to compile stuff from source, including kernels on the Pi.
Handy for knowing how to DIY complex stuff on other SBC's.

The meaning of support is ambiguous. If you mean help with difficulties or misunderstandings, the yes Raspberry is better due to this forum. If support as in runs many different applications, then no difference.

Amrbian for the orangepi, and for all boards it supports (including the Pi4), has an excellent kernel build and image preparation system.

My impression is a continuing difficulty with the Linux desktop on ARM is performant GPUs with upstream video drivers in the kernel.

On x86 the AMD, Intel and the Noveau drivers all load firmware from the blob collection. For me the fact that the blob runs on the GPU is not as important as the video driver being supported by the team of Linux kernel developers. On the other hand, the fact that the code running on the CPU is open source may be what makes this type of support possible.

Having the driver included upstream means new releases of the kernel don't break the driver and moreover that developers of desktop operating systems can build a generic kernel and focus more of their efforts on the usability aspects of their computing environment. This cooperation where no one group has to do everything is what makes Linux on x86 unique.

Said another way, third party distributions are an important part of the Linux desktop ecosystem; however, it's no fun to maintain a third party distribution that runs on a bunch of ARM SBCs.

[twilightened]

I just ordered my second Pi. That is how much i loved it. I am selling my 4s.

[keyboardman]

I just ordered my second Pi. That is how much i loved it. I am selling my 4s.

Hey, let other people buy it too.

[twilightened]

I just ordered my second Pi. That is how much i loved it. I am selling my 4s.

Hey, let other people buy it too.

Tell this to the mega corporations which buy in the thousands And i am returning my Pi4s into the market so i am equalizing

[jamesh]

I just ordered my second Pi. That is how much i loved it. I am selling my 4s.

Hey, let other people buy it too.

Tell this to the mega corporations which buy in the thousands And i am returning my Pi4s into the market so i am equalizing

Megacorps are not buying 5s yet.

[Gavinmc42]

Megacorps are not buying 5s yet.

Probably waiting for 6.6LTS and those Wayland/Wayfire niggles to get fixed.
Will take 6 months for them to get comfortable with the new hardware and software.
Then they might prefer the CM5 so it will probably be 2H24 before those get out in number.

It could be into 2025 before megacorps are happy to buy large numbers.
The difference between the Pi4 and Pi5 is bigger than Pi3 to Pi4.
That RP1 changes how things will be done for next gen Pi's and that is still mostly undocumented.

None of this stops us from using it as a much better daily driver.
What megacorp needs Pi5 as a daily driver? The Digital Display mob
The Thin Client crowd probably have a wish list for the Pi500.
The Embedded CM crowd will want a peak at the CM5 before opening their wallets.

Plus Eben promised us makers will get Pi's for Xmas.
Or probably New Years for us further away.

[redvli]

Tell this to the mega corporations which buy in the thousands And i am returning my Pi4s into the market so i am equalizing

Mega corporations develop their own SoC and hardware. I don't know what you mean with mega, high stock value or a lot of employees in need of a screen (and a computer somewhere attached, usually inside).

The latter will stick to the usual fully integrated products Intel/AMD/Apple SoC laptop or Iphone/Android for mobile. If they want Linux, you as employee hit a wall of unwillingness, IT personnel who more or less see you as a betrayer or security problem. That is at least my experience. Whole teams had to use CygWin. When that IT personnel was on holiday, some MS high guy sneaked in and a year later all Sun workstations were replaced by many more Windows boxes that of course offered no easy remote login, multi-user, etc.

At home I always did shrink the Windows partitions and put Linux on additional partitions to dual boot. Not great when HDD as end of disk is slower, but for modern SSD flash storage no problem if Linux is put on /dev/sda5 or whatever. Nowadays I have Linux at the start of the SSD and bought a 20 euros Windows 10 license that runs in a virtual machine (it is for scanning paper letters mostly, then OCR).

[ejolson]

Tell this to the mega corporations which buy in the thousands And i am returning my Pi4s into the market so i am equalizing

Mega corporations develop their own SoC and hardware. I don't know what you mean with mega, high stock value or a lot of employees in need of a screen (and a computer somewhere attached, usually inside). The latter will stick to the usual fully integrated products Intel/AMD/Apple SoC laptop or Iphone/Android for mobile.

From the rest of the sentence the term mega corporation appears to refer to any which buys thousands of Pi computers. While I would have called that a kilo corporation and reserved mega for those who buy millions, the meaning seems clear enough.

[twilightened]

Tell this to the mega corporations which buy in the thousands And i am returning my Pi4s into the market so i am equalizing

Mega corporations develop their own SoC and hardware. I don't know what you mean with mega, high stock value or a lot of employees in need of a screen (and a computer somewhere attached, usually inside).

The latter will stick to the usual fully integrated products Intel/AMD/Apple SoC laptop or Iphone/Android for mobile. If they want Linux, you as employee hit a wall of unwillingness, IT personnel who more or less see you as a betrayer or security problem. That is at least my experience. Whole teams had to use CygWin. When that IT personnel was on holiday, some MS high guy sneaked in and a year later all Sun workstations were replaced by many more Windows boxes that of course offered no easy remote login, multi-user, etc.

At home I always did shrink the Windows partitions and put Linux on additional partitions to dual boot. Not great when HDD as end of disk is slower, but for modern SSD flash storage no problem if Linux is put on /dev/sda5 or whatever. Nowadays I have Linux at the start of the SSD and bought a 20 euros Windows 10 license that runs in a virtual machine (it is for scanning paper letters mostly, then OCR).

Why do you limit your definition of mega-corporations to just "tech" companies. Think broader. Think of automation. Think agriculture for example. Think vending machines, think ad screens and stuff. The options are endless. Go to reddit page "pi in the wild".



This one is from Ikea