I got fooled into buying Raspberry Pie.

I was going to write a scathing reply addressing your ineptitude, deficiencies and lack of creative vision, but I don't think that will actually help you understand how you are the problem, not the device. So I'll relent and instead say:

Good job bud, good on you for trying something new.
 
Pagusas said:
I was going to write a scathing reply addressing your ineptitude, deficiencies and lack of creative vision, but I don't think that will actually help you understand how you are the problem, not the device. So I'll relent and instead say:

Good job bud, good on you for trying something new.
Click to expand...
well-thanks-i-guess.gif
 
PiHole acts like uBlock, but for your entire network, so it would effectively block stuff you couldn't normally block, like using the Youtube app on your iPad or TV.
 
The Pi is an impressive piece of electronics, for what it is. It's a low-power device that's used primarily for it's small form factor, or as an educational tool used to teach basic computing / Linux. But, that obviously isn't going to come close to the experience of a full desktop PC.

If you had expectations higher than that, I feel like that's on you.
 
What were you expecting OP? RPi is so popular.that you should have known what it can do. More or less.

I bought s Pi400 to use it as a retro gaming pc/console. And it's the best C64/Amiga emulation station i ever had.

I used a Zero 2 as a file server with ftp access. And it works great for it.

My Pi Pico is poweri g an e-ink weather station with a calendar and child doodles.

I learned while tinkering and that was the best part of it.
 
Raspberry Pis are dev toys, not mini PCs. If you know what you're doing, you can build a lot of cool shit with one. About 9 years ago I built a security camera with one that sent my phone a pic when it detected movement.
 
Download the "Bored Game Dad" Bacetora image on arcade punk, flash it to your micro sd card, put it in pi.

That's all you have to do. No setup required. Retropi is made for configuring, bacetora is easy.
 
German Hops said:
These "mini computers" will eventually fade away because they wont ever be of practical use
to most people.
Click to expand...
Yeah, that's why this device has been wildly succesfull since its introduction and has been as the catalyst for the resurregence of the homecomputer/mini PC era.

I miss the times when GAF complaint threads actually sounded as if they were valid.

Raonak said:
You do sound like a bit of a fool.

What do you expect? it's a cheap micro computer for tech enthusiasts to work on custom projects.

It's not meant to be some sort of general use computer.
Click to expand...
The fact that OP thought otherwise tells me there was zero understanding of what a Pi actually is. Sometimes a little research helps.

Its not like i would expect a Commodore 64 to play Youtube videos, even though there are hacks that allow it to.
 
Dr_Salt said:
I use them as arcade emulators.
Click to expand...

They aren't even good enough for that.

Not if you actually care about accurate emulation and low input lag.

You might get away with good enough 8bit systems emulation but more than that you need something more powerful.
 
German Hops said:
I'm simply giving up. I'm tired of googling, tired of guessing what people mean, tired of errors,
tired of things not working
Click to expand...
This encapsulates the reasons why I ditched everything "open source". Documentation is scarce and cryptic, tutorials are half assed or covering an ancient non relevant version. It's just a chore.
 
Got a Pi 400 (the one that is built into the keyboard) and got RetroPi + ES running and it is great. From Atari 2600 over Amiga and X68000 to even 3DO and FM Towns. Love to have all these exotic systems and libraries of games in one place and ready to launch with one click.
 
Depends what you bought it for, I bought it to make a retro arcade machine, and it fulfilled that purpose brilliantly......so...
 
nkarafo said:
They aren't even good enough for that.

Not if you actually care about accurate emulation and low input lag.

You might get away with good enough 8bit systems emulation but more than that you need something more powerful.
Click to expand...
The only machine capable of accurate emulation is the mister which is missing tons of games anyways. Never had any problem with input lag with my pi3 unless it is 3D arcade games which I don't play.
 
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I do tons of stuff with Pis. I use Pi micros alot since they can emulate USB devices, so they come in handy for test scripting. Emulating a USB keyboard and USB storage devices along with the i2c and other GPIO, and internal wireless AP, you can cover 90% of all test vectors for about $15
 
Last edited:
Dr_Salt said:
The only machine capable of accurate emulation is the mister
Click to expand...

That's another myth which is mostly marketing from the FPGA sellers.

Plenty of accurate software emulators exist, as long as you have a powerful enough system to run them (not the Pi).
 
I have a bunch of them sitting around doing various things. Ad blocking, Plex server...used to run reddit and discord bots I wrote on them when I did reddit and discord stuff. Raspberry Pi is a great platform for general purpose computing and home automation. You have to be literate with Linux to use them, though. I just found a new in box Pi 4 4gb that I thought I lost and it felt like Christmas.
 
Raonak said:
You do sound like a bit of a fool.

What do you expect? it's a cheap micro computer for tech enthusiasts to work on custom projects.

It's not meant to be some sort of general use computer.
Click to expand...

That's not how Raspberry PI promotes their products. Browsing their product pages you'd think these things would be perfect for everyone, especially children.

RIvRj2L.jpg


tNa6ULq.jpg
 
kurisu_1974 said:
Got a Pi 400 (the one that is built into the keyboard) and got RetroPi + ES running and it is great. From Atari 2600 over Amiga and X68000 to even 3DO and FM Towns. Love to have all these exotic systems and libraries of games in one place and ready to launch with one click.
Click to expand...

I have a regular RasPi and decided to go with Batocera instead of RetroPi, but otherwise my experience was also very good. The vast majority of Amiga, SNES, ZX Spectrum games work very well, there's ScummVM, I can use Dualshock 4 wirelessly, I can download additional free content directly, and there are also some dedicated homebrew implementations of Diablo 1, Doom, Quake, Crusader, Cave Story etc.

After holidays, I'm going to dig into Kali Linux as well and see if I can sniff WiFi passwords of my neighbours
 
kruis said:
That's not how Raspberry PI promotes their products. Browsing their product pages you'd think these things would be perfect for everyone, especially children.

RIvRj2L.jpg


tNa6ULq.jpg
Click to expand...

The official OS is well suited for children. It has a lot of educational software installed by default.
 
18 months ago raspberry was already in shortage

Anyway the rise of mini pcs and android vox made your casual use irrelevant.
 
i used one as a desktop for months, even got intellij running on it

video playback on websites like youtube was kinda fuckedup due to some weird driver problems (not being able to access hardware to accelerate it)
 
German Hops said:
I get confused by the plethora of flavors.
Click to expand...
I've based my advice on the systems that stand out for specific features, the amount of features/tools and apps, stability, performance, security and general quality.

Easy and for AMD/Intel/Nvidia users: mageia, Mint, Nobara Project, Rosa, Neptune, openKylin, GhostBSD, siduction
Average difficulty and for AMD/Intel users: Devuan, Void Linux, OpenBSD, Clear Linux, DragonFly BSD, openSUSE, FreeBSD, Alpine Linux
Average difficulty and for Nvidia users: Void Linux, openSUSE, FreeBSD, Artix Linux

If you learn to work smoothly with Linux and BSD systems, I think you would have a very different experience with the Raspberry Pi.

The Orange Pi 5 has gained a lot of extra performance that has increased the number of use cases for the device many times:

Orange Pi 5 Is A Great & Very Fast Alternative To The Raspberry Pi 4 - Phoronix

www.phoronix.com www.phoronix.com

What Apple proved with the M2 chips is that you can match the speeds of the i9-13900k with ARM processors, and with much lower power consumption.

For that reason, I would like to see the processor of the Raspberry Pi made much faster, then you have a system suitable as a desktop system, and very low power consumption.
For example, if you make the Orange Pi 5 twice as fast, then you have a reasonably good and cheap desktop CPU.
 
Mahnmut said:
This encapsulates the reasons why I ditched everything "open source". Documentation is scarce and cryptic, tutorials are half assed or covering an ancient non relevant version. It's just a chore.
Click to expand...
If I may be honest, the 'windows documentation' made available by Microsoft is less numerous and remarkably lower quality than that of FreeBSD.

99% of the things you need to know are explained in the handbook:

openSUSE has good documentation.

Gentoo documentation is a lot better than MS windows own documentation.

Arch Linux has top-notch documentation.

Fedora has very good documentation.

There's many books published about Raspberry Pi OS.

Void Linux has top-notch documentation.

NixOS has top-notch documentation.

mageia documentation: https://www.mageia.org/en/doc/

GNU Guix Reference Manual: https://guix.gnu.org/manual/en/guix.html

OpenBSD handbook: https://www.openbsdhandbook.com/
 
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Lets talk some more about the PI-HOLE....do I need more HW in the loop in order to have a PI-HOLE?

I have a Ubiquiti dream machine. And I would just like to be able to set everything up on it. But I have no idea where to begin.
 
FateTrap said:
I've based my advice on the systems that stand out for specific features, the amount of features/tools and apps, stability, performance, security and general quality.

Easy and for AMD/Intel/Nvidia users: mageia, Mint, Nobara Project, Rosa, Neptune, openKylin, GhostBSD, siduction
Average difficulty and for AMD/Intel users: Devuan, Void Linux, OpenBSD, Clear Linux, DragonFly BSD, openSUSE, FreeBSD, Alpine Linux
Average difficulty and for Nvidia users: Void Linux, openSUSE, FreeBSD, Artix Linux

If you learn to work smoothly with Linux and BSD systems, I think you would have a very different experience with the Raspberry Pi.

The Orange Pi 5 has gained a lot of extra performance that has increased the number of use cases for the device many times:

Orange Pi 5 Is A Great & Very Fast Alternative To The Raspberry Pi 4 - Phoronix

www.phoronix.com www.phoronix.com

What Apple proved with the M2 chips is that you can match the speeds of the i9-13900k with ARM processors, and with much lower power consumption.

For that reason, I would like to see the processor of the Raspberry Pi made much faster, then you have a system suitable as a desktop system, and very low power consumption.
For example, if you make the Orange Pi 5 twice as fast, then you have a reasonably good and cheap desktop CPU.
Click to expand...
Boy do I have a thread for you:

www.neogaf.com

|OT| - GAFs big house of Linux |OT| for gamers, ricers, newbs and greybeards - because it's free as in freedom!

Does any of this sound appealing to you? - Do not trust MS or Apple to always have your best interests at hand - Go beyond the mandated corporate owned walled gardens - Want to PC game but don't want to be under Microsoft's watch - Rehabilitate and repurpose "outdated" hardware - Want a user...
www.neogaf.com www.neogaf.com
 
Mahnmut said:
This encapsulates the reasons why I ditched everything "open source". Documentation is scarce and cryptic, tutorials are half assed or covering an ancient non relevant version. It's just a chore.
Click to expand...
Why is the OpenBSD documentation so good?

Solene'% : Why is the OpenBSD documentation so good?

In this article, I'm trying to understand what makes the OpenBSD documentation that good.
dataswamp.org dataswamp.org
The OpenBSD operating system is known to be secure, but also for having an accurate and excellent documentation.
In this text, I'll try to figure out what makes the OpenBSD documentation so great.

openSUSE: https://doc.opensuse.org/documentation/leap/reference/html/book-reference/index.html

Void Linux: https://docs.voidlinux.org/

Gentoo: https://www.gentoo.org/support/documentation/

Arch Linux: https://wiki.archlinux.org/

Fedora: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/fedora/latest/system-administrators-guide/

NixOS: https://nixos.org/manual/nixos/stable/index.html

AJUMP23 said:
Lets talk some more about the PI-HOLE....do I need more HW in the loop in order to have a PI-HOLE?

I have a Ubiquiti dream machine. And I would just like to be able to set everything up on it. But I have no idea where to begin.
Click to expand...

Overview of Pi-hole - Pi-hole documentation

Brief overview of Pi-hole
docs.pi-hole.net docs.pi-hole.net
 
FateTrap said:

Overview of Pi-hole - Pi-hole documentation

Brief overview of Pi-hole
docs.pi-hole.net docs.pi-hole.net
Click to expand...

I appreciate it. But do you mind talking to me like I am a 5 year old. Can I just put it on my Dream machine without another piece of HW? Do you want to come over and help me.

This seems like a good guide.
nathanielinman.com

Pihole On-top of UDM Pro

There's no reason to buy a Raspberry Pi 4b if you're already leveraging a UDM Pro. Here are some concise steps on how to block ads on your network with pihole's DNS-level ad blocker ontop of UDM Pro.
nathanielinman.com

But I just want to make sure.
 
AJUMP23 said:
I appreciate it. But do you mind talking to me like I am a 5 year old. Can I just put it on my Dream machine without another piece of HW? Do you want to come over and help me.
Click to expand...
Your device doesn't really mention how much storage it has on the official page:
store.ui.com

Dream Machine - Ubiquiti Store

All-in-one UniFi Gateway and access point designed to support LAN and WiFi networks.
store.ui.com store.ui.com

In terms of RAM, it won't be a problem, but you will need free space:

Pi-hole is very lightweight and does not require much processing power
Min. 2GB free space, 4GB recommended
512MB RAM
 
FateTrap said:
Your device doesn't really mention how much storage it has on the official page:
store.ui.com

Dream Machine - Ubiquiti Store

All-in-one UniFi Gateway and access point designed to support LAN and WiFi networks.
store.ui.com store.ui.com

In terms of RAM, it won't be a problem, but you will need free space:

Pi-hole is very lightweight and does not require much processing power
Min. 2GB free space, 4GB recommended
512MB RAM
Click to expand...

store.ui.com

Dream Machine Pro - Ubiquiti Store

10G Cloud Gateway with 100+ UniFi device / 1,000+ client support and 3.5 Gbps IPS routing.
store.ui.com store.ui.com

I have a Dream machine PRO. should have been more clear. You are an effort poster and I appreciate it.
 
AJUMP23 said:
store.ui.com

Dream Machine Pro - Ubiquiti Store

10G Cloud Gateway with 100+ UniFi device / 1,000+ client support and 3.5 Gbps IPS routing.
store.ui.com store.ui.com

I have a Dream machine PRO. should have been more clear. You are an effort poster and I appreciate it.
Click to expand...

In that case it will work.

By the way, there are several good alternatives to Pi-hole:

FreshPorts -- dns/void-zones-tools: Prepare a list of void zones that can be readily fed into Unbound

Tool to prepare a list of void zones that can be readily fed into Unbound. Void zones are the most straightforward way of blocking ad, tracking and other malware domains.
www.freshports.org www.freshports.org

FreshPorts -- dns/dnsmasq: Lightweight DNS forwarder, DHCP, and TFTP server

Dnsmasq is a lightweight, easy to configure DNS forwarder and DHCP server. It is designed to provide DNS and, optionally, DHCP, to a small network. It can serve the names of local machines which are not in the global DNS. The DHCP server integrates with the DNS server and allows machines with...
www.freshports.org www.freshports.org

Block ads malware, porn and other unwanted content with DNS

Block ads malware, porn and other unwanted content by switching to our DNS servers
dnsadblock.com dnsadblock.com
adguard.com

AdGuard — The world’s most advanced ad blocker! Get the best ad-free experience

AdGuard is the best way to get rid of annoying ads and online tracking and protect your computer from malware. Make your web surfing fast, safe and ad-free
adguard.com adguard.com
adguard-dns.io

AdGuard DNS — ad-blocking DNS server

Create your ad-blocking DNS server that will protect your personal data, prevent tracking and allow you to control access to specific content on the Internet.
adguard-dns.io adguard-dns.io
 
FateTrap said:
In that case it will work.

By the way, there are several good alternatives to Pi-hole:

FreshPorts -- dns/void-zones-tools: Prepare a list of void zones that can be readily fed into Unbound

Tool to prepare a list of void zones that can be readily fed into Unbound. Void zones are the most straightforward way of blocking ad, tracking and other malware domains.
www.freshports.org www.freshports.org

FreshPorts -- dns/dnsmasq: Lightweight DNS forwarder, DHCP, and TFTP server

Dnsmasq is a lightweight, easy to configure DNS forwarder and DHCP server. It is designed to provide DNS and, optionally, DHCP, to a small network. It can serve the names of local machines which are not in the global DNS. The DHCP server integrates with the DNS server and allows machines with...
www.freshports.org www.freshports.org

Block ads malware, porn and other unwanted content with DNS

Block ads malware, porn and other unwanted content by switching to our DNS servers
dnsadblock.com dnsadblock.com
adguard.com

AdGuard — The world’s most advanced ad blocker! Get the best ad-free experience

AdGuard is the best way to get rid of annoying ads and online tracking and protect your computer from malware. Make your web surfing fast, safe and ad-free
adguard.com adguard.com
adguard-dns.io

AdGuard DNS — ad-blocking DNS server

Create your ad-blocking DNS server that will protect your personal data, prevent tracking and allow you to control access to specific content on the Internet.
adguard-dns.io adguard-dns.io
Click to expand...

Do you have a recommendation and know of a great tutorial.
 
I'm rocking one pi3 and three pi4's. One is running logitech media server (with my music on a ssd) and pihole, a second with transmission and a second instance of pihole (so if one goes down I dont lose the internet). The other two are running max2play for playing my music, both of these have the pi touch screens, whilst one of them also has a 4x20 lcd screen to display music and pi info, such as bitrate and ram usage. For the one with two screens I built a custom case and have it on my hifi rack. Wouldn't be without them now.
 
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I bought the latest 400 whatever version built into a keyboard. I just wanted a headless PC for bittorrent, plex, and pi-hole. It was the biggest waste of time. The amount of troubleshooting, research, and frustration I had over three days was immense. I was using the default Pi OS, but there was always something going wrong. Permissions alone on that goddamn thing was a nightmare. Even when I got it to work, it was too weak to handle the plex server without buffering. I went back to my 2012 Mac mini.

It a hobbyist toy, not a PC.

PS: pi-hole barely made a dent in the ads.
 
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People complaining about a device because they were too stupid to do some basic research into what they're suitable for And what they're not.
 
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