I don’t expect much but I found an old pi I bought probably 2016(may of been 2017). It was supposed to be a pi-hole but was never able to get the dns forwarding to work on my modem. It still works but wanted to somehow convert it to a regular distro(it’s based on a micro-SD and I don’t have any more microsd readers). I wanted to set it up as a basic system I could ssh into a terminal. Not expecting anything fancy or even graphic based. A lot of stuff I want to learn/practice “work” on windows but are native to Linux, like vim/neovim nmap gcc etc. Is this feasible? Am I under estimating what’s possible with it?
You can certainly install some Linux on it (Raspian is Linux) and then just tinker around. Check how much RAM it actually has and see which apps work on it.
I’ll have to check out the ram. I know it boots and network and hdmi work but will have to dig out a spare keyboard to try to log in and see what it can do
Just I’d enable ssh asap so you don’t have to connect all that stuff permanently. There’s a way to modify the boot SD card so Raspian comes up with Wi-Fi/network and ssh enabled iirc, so you don’t need to connect anything but a power cable
yeah, it’s a setting in the official rpi imager nowadays
Definately underestimating it, an old RPI can easily run a full on desktop OS, maybe not like a bleeding edge KDE with all the visuals turned on, but XFCE LXDE, etc… would run fine, libre office and basic IDEs…
but yeah absolutely zero reason to think you’d have even a wink of trouble running terminal based stuff.
I mean if it’s already imaged at some level with raspbian or something, technically it’s most likely already set up to do the concepts you are looking at without needing to set up a new distro.
So to add anything up to date you would probably need to get a micro sd reader… here in the US you can pick one up for like 5-$10 at walmart, so we aren’t talking a huge investment.
maybe not like a bleeding edge KDE with all the visuals turned on,
Wobbly windows or gtfo
Would I be able to run a gui remotely from a Windows pc? I have extra monitors(yes kinda a tech hoarder) but don’t have space to setup another full setup. It has raspbian installed(or the pi-hole version they used to have), will have to guess on the password but I think I remember it.
My initial plan was to remotely access it via ssh with putty on the windows system.
Long story, my shield decided to have its network die. I reset it. I replaced the network cable and changed ethernet ports on router but nothing would work (wasn’t even getting the lights on the ports). I didn’t know if it was the shield or the router so I found the pi and plugged it in. Network immediately worked so I know it’s the shield. I was able to find an old Asus nexus Google TV box which “solved” the shield and was thinking of using the pi for something other than just sitting in a box under a bunch of wires.
X2goserver certainly is an option there. not too complicated to set up, or VNC is another option. As always there will be a bit of screen lag when sharing a gui over network.
and yeah as someone else pointed out there is also the option to run x applications from an ssh client if you enable it. now I will admit I don’t think there’s a huge amount of utility, more pointing out though it’s most likely you are either drastically underestimating the power of a raspberry pi, or maybe overestimating the resource overhead of linux distributions.
The linux world doesn’t quite have the mysterious resource usage creep at nearly the same scale as windows a slim but still with gui setup can still run in under 100 mb of ram.
Leaning on the extreme low end assuming you were a generation behind… the raspberry pi 2b+ came out in 2015 with 1 gb of ram. So yeah, while I can’t really name any gui applications that might be desirable to use in that way. IE it could be a decent web browser station, or kodi media player if hooked up to a TV etc… I would imagine lag from using a gui application accross would easilly remove any advantage that you’d get over… well just running the probably existing version for the windows PC that you are likely remoting in from.
Single applications yes by using X11 over ssh. Needs X11 server on windows side too.
o get the dns forwarding to work on my modem
Then try again today, and if it still doesn’t work, you can set DNS profiles on your computer.
Try DietPi (Debian based ARM distro). It has an excellent set of custom CLI tools. They’ve been around for over a decade and have an active community and release cadence.
They even support Raspberry Pi 1/2 (I started with Pi 3 though):
I’ll have to see if I have a way to flash a micro SD to do that
SD card readers that plug into your USB port are still quite cheap, even if you have the misfortune of being in the US.
I believe you’ll need a reader of some sort if you want to get the Pi running and you can’t SSH into it in its current state.
I use a raspberry pi 3b for running home assistant. even though it’s not officially supported it runs quite well for my uses.
In the past when I had a public ip I had it run a small personal website and a wireguard vpn server to allow me to always ssh into my desktop at home (it was joining the vpn-connected device into the LAN, to the point where it was even getting the IP from my router’s DHCP server…).
Raspberry Pi 2B from 2015 or so. That’s my main server for personal things. I have DietPi installed on it. It’s pretty usable, if you know what you do. Or even if you don’t, you can use it quite efficiently too. DietPi allows you to easily install the primary projects. Those that are most popular.
Wow, I didn’t think it would be able to do that much. What “personal things” are you talking about? Storing files? Personal email? Video server? Actually using it as a personal computer? Don’t have to say what exactly it is just a rough idea would be nice.
It’s not super powerful. There’s no much sense to run a desktop on it. Its strong side being underpowered, it barely sips electricity. If you need a cheap desktop, there’s plenty of used hardware to fill that place.
I run it headless, with an SSD attached for storage (perhaps my power supply was underpowered, the HDD wasn’t very stable, the SSD is stable for me). I’m running: syncthing, Pi-Hole and Unbound, web server with many small sites and services I made for myself, and a huge number of bash scripts for personal automations. They do render my static websites, the local versions. Also it runs Tailscale. Perhaps I have something else there, need to check, those came to my head first.
Overall, not that you can run everything under the sun with this board, but it’s quite capable, actually. I love it that it’s the most energy efficient (or one of the most) among Raspberry Pis, and it can do a lot. Another board worked with a TV having Kodi box (I installed LibreELEC for it), it was pretty capable too. It is able to play 1080P H264 content easily. It’s not that impressive these days, but ten years ago it was pretty impressive.
Yeah, I remember having a full desktop to show videos back in the day(like pre-2005ish). I knew it was more powerful than it seemed but it appears I underestimated it.
Actually, modern Linux software not that much power hungry. In my opinion this computer is very valuable for the 24/7 use case. I have a laptop with broken screen, could be a decent server, but it looks like with the essential services that I have, Raspberry Pi is just ample. That’s not for everyone, I have a friend who needs much more, but this computer can run at least some basics. To me that’s (as I’ve mentioned the names already) network wide ad block, syncing my files, having some simple web services. I’m thinking of hosting Immich, I’d just dedicate a more powerful computer to that. Which I plan to turn off and on (perhaps even via Wake-on-LAN) when needed. Not that convenient, but manageable. So, I’d recommend to start with the services you think of essentials and see what it can handle.
DietPi was what I came here to write about as well.
I use a 400 as a NAS. Nice thing, it has a keyboard and can be shut down cleanly.
And a Rasberry Pi B is good enough as a light web server and can be powered via USB from a FritzBox, thus cheap in power.
You haven’t said what model it is, but if it’s a model 2B, it can be a pretty good 1080p media player with LibreELEC 9.2. A newer model might do well with the current LibreELEC version.
If you can find a microSD adapter, you have plenty of options. The “server” version of raspberry pi OS is a CLI OS based on Debian. If you use the raspberry pi flash tool, you can even set up the SSH login details before you flash it so you don’t need to hook up a monitor or keyboard to the pi.
Out of curiosity, I discovered there were other isos on the SD card I could install but the “noob” installer took literally hours to initialize, is that a sign the SD card is going bad?
It’s possible, but there are plenty of reasons an SD card can be slow. Not necessarily going bad.
Pi-hole is fine.
You don’t need DNS forwarding from your modem, just your router. You could also just assign clients on your network your pi-hole address as DNS to block as much as you can.
An RPi3 has been my home’s Pi-Hole for years. Works beautifully.
Probably make a legit retro emulation setup
Get an external hard drive case and pop an old disk in it. Install Rockstor on the pi, configure it and you have a NAS for backups or whatnot. I’ve heard it’s also possible to upgrade it to a personal cloud storage, but I haven’t gone quite that far.
