Summary:Â If you’re aware of Raspberry Pi 3’s performance enhancements over its predecessors, you may wonder if it can serve as a viable alternative to your main laptop. A developer who lost his MacBook Pro opted to use Linux on Raspberry Pi as a substitute. His verdict is that Raspberry Pi is suitable for basic development tasks, blogging, and web surfing. However, trying to handle video editing and resource-intensive software compilation would be impractical.
Imagine misplacing your treasured laptop in a taxi with no means to trace it back. Assuming you can’t recall the taxi’s number plate, the chances of retrieving your laptop are slim.
A similar incident occurred to Pierre-Gilles Leymarie, a backend software engineer at BulldozAIR. After losing his MacBook Pro in Paris, he waited for about a week before realizing that his bag was lost for good.
He attempted to use the Find my Mac feature via his iPhone and secured the laptop. In the interim, he resorted to utilizing his diminutive Raspberry Pi 3 as a makeshift replacement. I stumbled upon his tale on Reddit and believed Fossbytes readers would find it intriguing.
Considering its specs, Raspberry Pi 3 surpasses its predecessors in power. It boasts built-in WiFi, runs on Linux, and is driven by a quad-core ARM chip with 1GB of RAM. Lured by these attributes, Leymarie decided to test it for a week.
To initiate his work, Leymarie installed the Raspbian Jessie Linux distro. Using his parent’s computers, he installed the OS on a 16GB microSD card. Additional components included a wireless mouse, an old USB keyboard, and a 22″ screen. For guidance, refer to our articles from the Getting Started with Raspberry Pi series.
Which tasks did Leymarie handle on his Mac?
Before delving into his experiences, let’s explore the tools Leymarie wielded on his Mac. He used it for coding the open-source project Gladys, a Raspberry Pi-based home assistant penned in Node.js. His toolkit comprised of VS Code, Node.js, and MySQL for development.
He penned articles for his Gladys blog using Markdown on his Mac and edited images using Photoshop. Video editing was executed using Final Cut Pro, while Terminal was used for dev tools and SSH. Tasks like reading news, Twitter, YouTube, etc., were performed using Chrome.
Did he discover adequate substitutes for these tools? And how efficient were they? Let’s investigate!
Further Reading: Google’s Open Source DIY Kit Transforms Your Raspberry Pi Into an AI Assistant
Is Raspberry Pi with Linux a Viable MacBook Pro Replacement?
For writing, he employed the Evernote web app within Chromium, which operated seamlessly. Lacking a decent Markdown app on Linux and ARM, he manually added markup and git pushed for publication.
When it came to development tasks, the Raspberry Pi terminal functioned without hiccups. Concerned that VS Code might strain the Raspberry Pi, he opted for Vim with a JS plugin. Although the coding process was smooth, tools like Webpack, uglifyJS, and Babel proved slow on the Raspberry Pi.
Since Photoshop was off-limits, he initially experimented with Canva on the web, which was sluggish. Subsequently, he chose to edit images within the Canva iOS app. This workaround sufficed.
Lastly, Leymarie wisely avoided attempting video editing on the Raspberry Pi.
Conclusively, considering the affordability of Raspberry Pi 3, it could serve adequately as a simple machine for basic development, writing, and web browsing. I’ve personally utilized Raspberry Pi as my primary computer for a few days for writing/publishing, and it sufficed. Nonetheless, multitasking, video editing, or juggling multiple Chrome tabs would strain the Raspberry Pi’s capabilities.
You can delve deeper into Leymarie’s full encounter here. For a head start with Raspberry Pi, make sure to peruse our Raspberry Pi guide.
