It should be and is decent, but when we tried we ran into numerous paper-cuts:
- Needed to set up NTP to set the clock, it was always wrong.
- It can't power down through software, so you have to shut down and then hit the power switch like it's 1990.
- Audio was a mess and had to spend hours researching how to write and edit a bunch of config files to make it predictable.
- The weird set up program means you need to do a lot of googling on how to fix issues in a non-standard to linux way. It mostly works however.
- Raspbian feels not quite "finished." Was much happier with Ubuntu Mate, as they fixed 99% of the paper cuts like audio already, but it doesn't support the 4 yet.
In short, it is a bit too cheap. I would have definitely spent another dollar to see these hardware issues fixed. Or dropped the CPU speed a hundred MHZ, whatever it takes.
In the end, a friend gave us a ten-year-old used iMac for free. I installed Ubuntu Mate on it and it had none of the above problems. It's even a touch faster.
A touch faster? The slowest 2010 iMac is the 21" with an i3-540 Dual core CPU, Geekbench 4 is 2211 single/4466 multi. The Pi 4 is around 970/2000, less than half the performance.
The Pi 4 has come a long way in speed since the lowly original Pi, but its still not even close to a 10 year old desktop PC (or iMac).
More people (even in 2010) used laptops than desktops, and the Pi is in line with the numbers from the cheaper MacBook Airs at the time (I still have one that runs... though it’s getting some weird green lines on the display).
But I can say that working on the 2010 MBA is not fun; one of my webcams doesn’t even work with it (choppy at 30p), zoom is... slow at best, and web browsing is a bit choppy even with ad blockers. Even then, it is a smoother overall experience with that hardware and macOS than when I was testing 64-bit Pi OS on the 8 GB Pi 4 a few weeks ago: https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2020/i-replaced-my-macbook...
Just run Windows 10 for the Pi and call it a day. Linux for desktop is still a disaster and no surprise Windows 10 for the Pi actually works out of the box.
- Needed to set up NTP to set the clock, it was always wrong.
- It can't power down through software, so you have to shut down and then hit the power switch like it's 1990.
- Audio was a mess and had to spend hours researching how to write and edit a bunch of config files to make it predictable.
- The weird set up program means you need to do a lot of googling on how to fix issues in a non-standard to linux way. It mostly works however.
- Raspbian feels not quite "finished." Was much happier with Ubuntu Mate, as they fixed 99% of the paper cuts like audio already, but it doesn't support the 4 yet.
In short, it is a bit too cheap. I would have definitely spent another dollar to see these hardware issues fixed. Or dropped the CPU speed a hundred MHZ, whatever it takes.
In the end, a friend gave us a ten-year-old used iMac for free. I installed Ubuntu Mate on it and it had none of the above problems. It's even a touch faster.