Anybody used a Raspberry Pi 4 4GB/8GB as desktop?

There’s not m.2 slot so it would have to go through usb3, (or maybe the gpio header?) and usb3 would be your bottleneck. I don’t know much about the gpio headers and the options there

True. The new rPi compute model would have some kind of compatible interface I think. I guess it’s a lot of work and hassle for something not necessarily worth it…

ExplainingComputers did exactly what you were talking about @turbinbjorn. Check it out

For my ‘shop’ computer I’ve got a little 19ish inch monitor I salvaged on a wall mount above my workbench with a rpi4 duct taped to the back of it. Works great for light internet browsing, spreadsheets, and podcast streaming but I haven’t stress tested it. It also runs octoprint and pi-hole.

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Amazing guy! Didn’t go into the user experience though…

You have to know when/where to ask. Most of the ones I’ve gotten it was when a friend of family member mentioned getting a new laptop. I’d simply ask what they did with the old one. 9 times out of 10, the response is, “you want it?”.

The most recent one was through work. They furnished me a new laptop because mine was out of warranty. I asked if they’d be willing to sell me the old one and the IT lady just said, “keep it”. It’s a 3 year old Macbook Pro. It’s also my shop computer now.

We tend to keep and reuse our kit. If it doesn’t run Windows, it does run Linux. My current Macbook Pro is a 2013 model and I literally updated it to Catalina about three hours ago. I’ve worked in IT for four decades and I have never been offered a cheap piece of IT. Some people have all the luck.

Rob

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I also tend to keep and reuse, though this year I gave a lot of old laptops away to families having issues getting connected to school. My MPCNC is running off a 2006 era Dell laptop running Windows 10 that still gets updates that install. :slight_smile:

Smaller companies tend to give stuff away instead of paying to have it removed.

First job out of college I got 6 1-U servers after we replaced all of them. Out of the 6, I made 4 decent ones. I ended up throwing them away after a few years as my laptop I had just purchased had more power than most of them :slight_smile:

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Yup thats exactly it, and a lot of medium sized companies throw things away because it not worth the effort of trying to sell them. And if you position yourself properly they throw them into the back of your truck. Thats how I got 9 150ftlb 90’ actuators. And the enclosure i plan on putting my electronics in… along with alot of relays and terminals.

Free stuff is great!

That’s also one of the reasons I have no room to work… :slight_smile:

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