Raspberry Pi 400
Posted: Thu May 06, 2021 3:04 pm
My Pi 400 arrived on Monday and I have had a couple days to play with it. It has thus far proved to be all that I hoped it would. The SD card that ran Trinity on my Pi 3B+ worked to start the Pi 400. Well almost the video on the 400 is different so I had to login on the console and "startx" to get to the desktop.
I did a fresh install of Raspberry Pi OS Light, installed the Trinity DE, moved the home folder over from the 3B+ and I am good to go. The Pi is a hobbyist machine so there are many different OSes that can be ran. Ubuntu, Ubuntu Budgie, Ubuntu Mate, and Manjaro are major distros directly supporting the Pi 400. FreeBSD had added it as a major architecture, so there are FreeBSD images. Kodi is available to make it a media box, and lots of emulators are available as well. Lots of opportunities for playing around.
The Pi 400 itself is almost exactally the same size as an Apple Magic Keyboard, which makes it smaller than I was expecting. It has a good selection of fast I/O that provide for flexible boot options. The Pi 400 itself includes no documentation, but the Getting Started manual that comes with the kit is available as a free pdf download. It is powered via USB C and an USB C adaptor that charges a laptop works fine.
The Pi 400 does have short comings of course. It is a cheap computer. The keyboard is usable, but it is not something one would want to spend all day writing term papers with. My usage involves lots of cables which works against a neat and clean desk surface. The USB C port is for charging only and does not provide any I/O.
I did a fresh install of Raspberry Pi OS Light, installed the Trinity DE, moved the home folder over from the 3B+ and I am good to go. The Pi is a hobbyist machine so there are many different OSes that can be ran. Ubuntu, Ubuntu Budgie, Ubuntu Mate, and Manjaro are major distros directly supporting the Pi 400. FreeBSD had added it as a major architecture, so there are FreeBSD images. Kodi is available to make it a media box, and lots of emulators are available as well. Lots of opportunities for playing around.
The Pi 400 itself is almost exactally the same size as an Apple Magic Keyboard, which makes it smaller than I was expecting. It has a good selection of fast I/O that provide for flexible boot options. The Pi 400 itself includes no documentation, but the Getting Started manual that comes with the kit is available as a free pdf download. It is powered via USB C and an USB C adaptor that charges a laptop works fine.
The Pi 400 does have short comings of course. It is a cheap computer. The keyboard is usable, but it is not something one would want to spend all day writing term papers with. My usage involves lots of cables which works against a neat and clean desk surface. The USB C port is for charging only and does not provide any I/O.