Thank you for sharing your experience! This gradual migration reminds me a bit of when I transitioned out of Windows (7) into Linux (Mint), though the story is a bit more nuanced than that. I had a Dell Ubuntu laptop prior to that transition, but I used mostly for travel. The real migration was my everyday desktop PC workflow.OP checking in 8 months later... I have finally made the jump to using the Pi 5 as my daily driver. Some thoughts after a week of running on the Pi, using the 64 bit Bookworm Raspberry Pi OS:Overall I am having a great time using the Pi 5 4GB as my daily driver. Most of the articles available on this topic are using the Pi for a week and then stopping. I will be pressing on with using the Pi as my main personal computer.
- Upgrading to an NVMe SSD was a killer feature. It decreases the application launch times to be more in line with what I was used to on my Windows desktop.
- Cleaning/organizing my office was the jump I needed to truly try daily driving the Pi. My desk looks wonderful with my little Pi sitting on it instead of the massive desktop tower underneath. I have a rule that I need to figure out how to do everything I need on the Pi, and can only swap over to my Windows desktop if it's urgent and time sensitive. So far I haven't needed to.
- 4 GB of RAM is totally fine for running a full desktop environment, for most users. I have never seen it go above 2.5GB of RAM used when running a browser, office apps, password manager, GIMP, and other things at the same time as needed for my work flow.
- After spending some time swapping between Wayland/X11 I have settled on Wayland. It seems to have a built-in VSync which simply looks better when watching videos that drop a couple frames, as well as when scrolling webpages on a 60Hz monitor.
- The Pi is an excellent little machine for productivity and focus. It fosters an attitude of using computers as a tool rather than entertainment devices. The Pi 5 is a perfectly capable desktop for someone trying to practice digital minimalism. What is "enough" when it comes to a computer? Do you truly need a machine powerful enough to play modern games? The Pi will help explore these questions.
I expect to set up with an NVMe as well, why not. No longer any more expensive, and vastly more neat and compact.
As for going full-time, you did set a good rule for yourself to really get it done.
w/r/t RAM, it'll be awfully hard for me to not choose the 8GB as I have, through the years, been conditioned to believe that whatever RAM a new PC has, it'll have to be expanded before the unit's useful life to me is over.
You mentioned Wayland. I thought I read of one of my relied-upon applications which does not work on Wayland yet. I should have written it down. Guess I'll find out soon enough!
w/r/t your final point, of course it's all about use case. Mine does not stress the Pi much.
Statistics: Posted by cspan — Thu Aug 29, 2024 12:51 am