Hello. At the end of the last year, in October or November, I had this obsession or impulse to buy a Raspberry Pi. Don’t ask me why, because it was an ADHD thing of mine. Because I couldn’t find any Raspberry Pi 4 out there, I went to a Raspberry Pi 400, because it was the most similar device to a Pi 4. I was happy, I had a computer which ran better than my slightly old Mac Mini 2016, despite having 4 GB of RAM too.
And, since December, almost January, it’s collecting dust. I don’t know why I don’t use it, and I don’t know why I can’t take the decision to use it despite thinking about it sometimes. I can play games on my Mac Mini which I can’t play on my RP 400, but those games are still old, abandonware in some cases. But it’s struggling with few programs opened, including my browser, and I don’t like that, so I’m eager to use my RP 400 again.
So, tell me, what other things can I do with my RP 400, besides browsing the web, listening to music or playing emulators? Or, in other words, is a RP 400 better than a Mac Mini 2016 to do the same stuff?
Mostly video games, like Steam, or other open source video games which can run on a x86/x86_64 device but not on an ARM, like OpenRCT, FTL, Daggerfall Unity, and so on. That is the only thing.
Sometimes I would like to learn some programming language, but besides that, nothing substantial. Maybe in the future I can use volumio or pi-hole. Or maybe run some fediverse instance. But as for now, the regular stuff, like music, web…
I watched videos of people doing wonderful things with their Raspberries, even building small towers with info screens, and I felt amazed. I would like to do that in the future, or just do experiments with hardware.
Sounds like you already found a use for both systems. Do continue using them like you do. Maybe install some more advanced Linux distribution to learn, e.g. Arch Linux.
I think I tried Arch Linux ARM with no success in the past. Or maybe it was Manjaro ARM. I can’t remember right now, but I know the experience was far away from expected.