
Can you use a Raspberry Pi 4 as a desktop machine? - Legogris
https://hackaday.com/2019/09/09/can-you-really-use-the-raspberry-pi-4-as-a-desktop-machine/
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ksaj
I was using Raspberry Pi 3 as my desktop (even though I have a significantly
more powerful desktop "workhorse" upstairs) and it suited me just fine in most
ways except when it comes to video streaming.

The Pi4 with 4G of Ram gets past that problem. And the dual monitor is great.
Sure there are a lot faster systems on the planet, but I tend to use GUI as a
convenient way to lay out more TUI, so the fact that there are systems with
quadrupal the cores and whatever percent more speed isn't as interesting to
me.

When I need more horsepower than the Pi can give, I just ssh into my Mac and
thar she blows. For most of what I do, I can't really tell the speed
difference despite the world of difference between them in terms of
_capability_. The rpi boots up and logs in wayyy faster than my significantly
faster (and way more memory, HD space, etc) than my Mac ever could. I feel
little to no latency on startups. Obviously I can run a lot more on the Mac at
one time, but we're talking about general desktop use, and I spend way more of
my time on the Raspberry Pi in the living room than I do on my Mac in the den.

It's nice to have the greater resources, but it is utterly meaningless for a
lot of use cases.

