I'm thinking of sticking a RasPi 4 behind my TV, primarily to get around it's dreadful interface to internet and stuff. TV I don't really watch, but it's a white elephant - I can't get rid of it.

So I was thinking RasPi 4 w/4G, with bluetooth mouse & keyboard, on house wifi, 1 hdmi (not 4k), & maybe some light pc tasks, big sdcard or 2.5" ssd. There's a few imponderables

• Is the ssd ok instead of the sdcard?
• Does slackware arm work with the v8?
• How does switching on work? is there power buttons? I'm sure I can get it to power off but turning on might be a big deal for someone like me. Is there wakeup functions?
• Is there some particular case I should buy?

Is the ssd ok instead of the sdcard?
Not sure of the exact question you are asking but the Pi 4 can not boot from USB yet.
https://www.raspberrypi.org/document.../booteeprom.md

Does slackware arm work with the v8?
As far as I know slackware arm is available for the Pi 4.

How does switching on work? is there power buttons? I'm sure I can get it to power off but turning on might be a big deal for someone like me. Is there wakeup functions?

It does not come with a power button but there are various "hacks" that add one with a safe shutdown mode that I would expect work with the Pi 4. It is possible to corrupt the SD card if power is pulled without doing a formal system shutdown. No WOL capability

Is there some particular case I should buy?
I have the generic plastic case. I can't recommend any particular one.

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Presently, you need to boot from a microSDHC card, no USB boot, & not every SSD will boot on RPi, it depends on the connector cable used, so the best option would be to use a small mSDHC card for the system & put all your personal data onto the SSD.

There used to be a case that would take a SSD/HDD, but it was for the RPi3/3B, not sure if there is a suitable one available for the RPi4B.

There are no power switches on the boards or cases that are presently available, I switch my RPi at the wall socket.

You could use a distro that loads to ram to prevent possible corrupting of the mSDHC card, but as long as you don't keep your personal data on it, you can do a reinstall, if it does happen.

SlackwareARM -current works on the RPi4 with a caveat (see next sentence), SlackwareARM 14.2 does not work on RPi4. An easy way to start, the way I did it, is following the instructions at http://sarpi.fatdog.eu/

Switching. At least one of the places that sell RPi kits online (CanaKit) also sells an inline switch. You have to software shutdown first to lower the chance of corrupting your OS.

Cases. Sorry, I can't tell you if one is better than another, but keep reading...

One caution: RPi4 is known to run hot, at least under some load. I would buy some kind of cooler or a heat-dissipating case. Three heat sinks and a simple fan that runs off of the RPi pins (5 or 3.3V) does the job for me, and came with the kit I bought. I'm not convinced that only heat sinks or only a fan are enough, but it depends on how heavily you use it. There are some really fancy, really pretty and expensive (relative to the cost of an RPi) coolers. Sarpi also looked into this.

Since you want to run Slackware, you might find that subforum informative.
https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...kware-arm-108/

TKS

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Thanks for the reply and the links.

So I take bluetooth is doable, heat is an issue, and a power switch is available. I know the score with heatsinks, having spent a lot of time in Electronic Hardware. The heaviest load I'm envisaging is streaming video via some javascript aware browser like firefox.

I thought of putting VB with a vm, m$ windows (probably vista as it's lighter than win10 and I don't have XP), and one x86 library thing but decided against because THAT streams video also. I know arm has come on, but I don't think it's come on that much.

Do I need the sdcard for boot, or can I use an ssd? I somehow trust the sdcard far less, even though there's a similar tech in both.

I would suggest you to boot from sd card. You can put your OS anywhere, not only onto the sd card, but the boot process itself should be started from sd. (At least I would do that way).
You can have a lot of different pi-hats (expansion boards) for power management and ssd and whatever you like. And also you can buy a nice case for it (including very good active/passive cooling).
This is just an example: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pa...-cooling&num=1

Keep the system separate from your data, that way you can re install easily, if you have to.

I don't like these mSDHC cards, they're just too small for comfort, & I prefer to boot from USB with these RPi, but the RPi4B doesn't do that yet, so why I suggested putting the O/S on the mSDHC card, & your data on an SSD.

When I was testing my RPi4B/4GB, it was plenty fast enough for online browsing using 5G, & respectable using 2.4G.
Movie streaming wasn't so good, it may have been improved since I tried it last, the hardware should be capable.

Moved: This thread is more suitable in < Linux - Embedded & Single-board computer > and has been moved accordingly to help your thread/question get the exposure it deserves.

Ok, so / on sdcard, /usr/local, /opt & of course /home on ssd. I don't know if the router does 5Ghz, but 2.4Ghz wifi download is at 35-40 Mbps which is faster than I'll get data anyhow.

Flash may have been an issue last time? It's hardly now. All the big browsers are bloated. I will try palemoon (presuming I can get it), and work up in inverse order of how much they tell Big Brother Google :-P.

What I suggested is a bit different: http://www.blogdugas.net/blog/2015/0...rd-disk-drive/
Although I do not really know if it works exactly the same way on RPi4.

Whatever NOOBS OS is, I probably don't want it. But it appears I don't want an sdcard either.

What's beginning to get upsetting about this idea is the price. I thought 'RasPi? Probably €50' But ATM is looking more like

• RasPi €50 at least
• Power Supply €15?
• Case, heatsinks
• Bluetooth Keyboard & Mouse
• SD card
• USB hd
• Micro HDMI cable
• Maybe CPU fan

That's in the order of €200+ for a not hugely powerful piece of kit, all to get around dragging a laptop about, or putting up with an interface which is beneath contempt (admittedly dragging a laptop about is a big deal in my condition).

Hi,

The mission statement at Raspberry Pi Foundation Home Page If you read on you will see that the Rpi was developed more for a system that can be used to teach and simple intro to computers. I have several Rpi and would never use it to replace my work systems but a platform to experiment with. Sure the initial purchase price of the Rpi is low but you do want to set it up properly so additional needs will increase investment.

Hope this helps.
Have fun & enjoy Rpi!

You're right. The fact is, you run a pc, run a PI, or have some box from a rip-off satellite company and all options suck to a greater or lesser degree. At €50, I was thinking "Yes, I'll do this." At €200, I'm thinking: "I think I'd better think it out again" because an embarrassment of processor power in the tv is costing me as much as the tv.


So I'll mark this solved, and go off and think it out again.

I'm a little late to this party but some thoughts, if you have the patience:

Power switch: business_kid, you'll know shutdown -h now. Were you aware that RPi supports Wake On Lan WOL ?

Well, my Pi3 does: So, you can power down your Pi from any PC on your LAN, or even your phone if you install juicessh installed, then power it up again by sending the "Magic Packet" to its IP Address. No physical switches needed. Easy!

My house has 4RPis, of different generations, doing different things in different places. I love them. They all boot from an SD card, but then they use USB HDDs or "the cloud."

I would trust my Pi's better than any modern TV (if I had one plugged in.)

I use a spare USB keyboard, mouse and a tiny TV monitor for setting them up. Thereafter I run them via ssh with key-authenticated logins, so no passwords needed on my LAN.

noobs is a simple SD card image that boots raspian (which is basically, debian.) I'm not exactly a "noob" but I use it, because it works fine to get you up and running in the minimum time. Then I can tweak my installation to my heart's content from my laptop.

I have not needed any heatsinks, or fans. The RPis run completely silently, with very low power consumption.

If you are going to put one behind your TV, maybe consider running PiHole on it? You could let it handle all your LAN's connections to the internet and banish annoying stuff.

Please don't dismiss this little piece of hardware as a toy. It is powerful enough to be seriously useful.

Have fun!.

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/Still Thinking it out again …

Thanks for the reply, tredegar, & welcome to the (slow-burning) party.
LAN is out sadly, because Cat5 is not doable and my router/server is very awkwardly positioned to get the phone line. I've glass fibre optics to the edge of my estate, and a phone line feed the 150 metres to the house. That comes in on an RJ-11 socket :-/.

My need is to stream hdmi (not 4k) via a browser from various places. If it will do that, with a browser to handle html5 & javascript, that's good.

Cheapest option so far is a secondhand Apple TV 2 for €50 +postage. Mind you, that interface sucks bad, but has an app to handle one site for me.

The hardware guy in me was buying heatsinks etc when I realised they were needed. You can get away without them but the cpu slows and the temperature cycling doesn't help longevity. Temperature cycling is how they "age" electronic components ……

EDIT: Thinking here, would an RPi 3 do it?