Which raspberry pi should I get for linux?

[noahdvs]

3 minutes ago, mrchow19910319 said:

Hmm I think I will go with this : Snappy ubuntu core. 

It is recommended on the raspberry pi official page. 

Thanks for the microSD card recommendation. I almost go for a 32GB one. 

 

Do you know anything about snap packages? You should learn about them before using Ubuntu Snappy. 32GB is still fine and not that expensive, so I wouldn't stress out over what to get. It's better to have more than enough than too little, but you'll probably be fine with 16 GB, assuming you don't install tons of stuff.

 

What do you plan to do with your Raspberry Pi? That's the most important thing. If you need ideas, you could make it a media center, a file server with Nextcloud, a mail server, a content blocker (block ads for every device on your network) or just a low powered computer to play with.

[mrchow19910319]

15 minutes ago, noahdvs said:

just a low powered computer to play with.

Currently just this.

I have no idea what's snap packages.

 

The only thing I know about linux is I need to use terminal to do all the things. 

I just want to have a linux environment that I can customize the shit out of it. 

 

Also I want to try to Code on it. 

Can I use it to host a twitter bot?? 

 

What do you suggest? Maybe I should just install normal ubuntu on it? Start with something simple, then once I got used to it, I can nuke it and install something else on it. 

 

[noahdvs]

1 hour ago, mrchow19910319 said:

Currently just this.

I have no idea what's snap packages.

 

The only thing I know about linux is I need to use terminal to do all the things. 

I just want to have a linux environment that I can customize the shit out of it. 

 

Also I want to try to Code on it. 

Can I use it to host a twitter bot?? 

 

What do you suggest? Maybe I should just install normal ubuntu on it? Start with something simple, then once I got used to it, I can nuke it and install something else on it. 

 

If you just want something to play with, go with Raspbian or Ubuntu MATE. If you want to be a little adventurous, try openSUSE. It's one of the few distros with 64 bit images for the RPi 3's 64 bit processor. Other distros made for the RPi usually use a single image that is 32bit, but supports the RPi 2 and 3.

[Shura]

On 9/9/2017 at 10:59 PM, mrchow19910319 said:

I've been leaning back and forth about how to run linux.

Finally I decided to get a raspberry pi for it, since I have a old dell monitor laying around. 

 

Which model should I get? Raspberry pi 3? Or? 

I know nothing about this... Please link me some image or something. 

 

Is this the model I should get? 

 

If you haven't made your purchase yet, I would recommend Odroid C2, It's only $5 more than the pi3.

 

• 2GHz quad core Cortex A53 processor (Pi 3 is clocked at 1.2 GHz)
• Mali-450 GPU (Pi 3 has a VideoCore IV 3D GPU)
• 2 GB RAM (Pi 3 has 1 GB)
• Gigabit Ethernet (Pi 3 has 10/100)
• 4K video support (Pi 3 supports HD... drivers/support are usually better for Pi though)
• eMMC slot (Pi 3 doesn't offer this option)
• UHS-1 clocked microSD card slot (Pi 3 requires overclock to get this speed)
• Official images for Ubuntu 16.04 MATE and Android

[riklaunim]

If it's supposed to be very cheap then things like Raspberry or other boards will be fine - however those aren't consumer devices - you will have to prepare the SD card as well as troubleshoot problems or limitations. Those ARM chips aren't as powerful as x86 Intel/AMD chips, most of them don't have OpenGL capable GPU and you just can't install any Linux distribution - only those that provide images for given board. Odroid seems to have a solid support. Some Chinese boards not really.

 

For a fully featured Linux desktop a x86 CPU is better - on the cheap side there are motherboards with fanless low power Intel CPUs like Celeron J1900, J3160 and alike or nettops. You can test various distributions. Use it as a desktop, even dualboot with Windows and more. If you buy something more powerful - normal PC. Over ARM chips you get better compatibility and way better I/O. Raspberry doesn't have SATA support and only limited USB2 which shares bandwidth with Ethernet and that wifi/bluetooth chip on v3 board (USB3, PCIe not there either).

 

You can also use a virtual machine (like Virtualbox) to have a Linux system inside it - so that you can play with Linux to some extent while still using Windows on your main PC/laptop. Also - terminal isn't that much needed - it's used but not for day to day tasks.

 

 

[mrchow19910319]

3 hours ago, Shura said:

 

Ah,.,., item is shipped.  I think I will stick with raspberry pi 3 this time. 

[mrchow19910319]

3 hours ago, riklaunim said:

 

I see. Thanks! I am just getting it for some tinkering fun. 

[Sauron]

The pi 3 is the best model to date, however it does not add too much on top of the 2. Still, for 45$ it's probably not worth it to cheap out and go for an older version. The 3 is still faster and more functional.

On 9/9/2017 at 4:01 PM, mrchow19910319 said:

Also one noob question: can I use it as a mini pc? Like watch youtube  / web browsing and such?  

Yes, however watching youtube will require some tinkering as the browser does not allow you to use gpu acceleration on the pi.

21 hours ago, mrchow19910319 said:

Hmm I think I will go with this : Snappy ubuntu core. 

I could be wrong but I believe snappy core does not come with a GUI.

[vorticalbox]

On 09/09/2017 at 10:29 PM, mrchow19910319 said:

1. @fixitnow wait... I only have a MacBook now on my hands... how am I gonna put the OS on the micro SD card?  =.= 

sudo dd if=/path/image.iso of=/dev/r(IDENTIFIER) bs=1m