As a complete beginner, what can I do with a raspberry pi 4b?

I’m basically completely new to networking and currently setting up a NAS. I have this raspberry pi 4b that I got but now can’t think of a use case for it…

Any ideas of something that is very useful to host or have running on the pi4b?

Edit: I’m a complete beginner, and will use trunas on another server with jellyfin so my raspberry pi gets blown raspberries atm 👎

  • normalexit@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    3 months ago

    Pihole is great, little hardware projects are fun (touchscreen calendar in the kitchen). They also make great emulators for old systems if you want to install a gaming oriented OS like retropie or lakka and get a gamepad or two.

    I personally wouldn’t use it for a server, but it’s a good learning environment to figure out how to run services.

    The beauty of the pi is it is an SD card swap away from doing a different job. You can buy a few fast cheap 16-32gb SD cards and play around with different options and operating systems.

    Or you can do what I do: get it all set up, shut it down, and forget it exists until you have some wild idea.

  • bigboismith@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    3 months ago

    I use mine as a low power server. Whenever I feel like tinkering with a website or something, I can just ssh into it without thinking about electricity usage. Jellyfin and such is also a good usecase

  • jaybone@lemmy.zipEnglish
    3·
    3 months ago

    I use mine to run RetroPi, it has a bunch of old console emulators. Get a big torrent of old ROMs and you are set for retro gaming.

      • 0_o7@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        5·
        3 months ago

        A DNS service that gets all its DNS data directly from “root servers”, without the middlemen (like your ISP, Google, Cloudflare, etc).

        • non_burglar@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          3 months ago

          Unbound is just an alternative to bind. Pihole does not handle full-fledged DNS functions like zone transfers and start of authority records.

    • mmmac@lemmy.zipEnglish
      3·
      3 months ago

      I’d recommend technitium over both pihole and adguard these days. Its an actual DNS server vs just a sinkholr, had recursive resolving out of the box, Root server mirroring at the click of a button, cluster mode etc

  • √𝛂𝛋𝛆@piefed.worldEnglish
    1·
    3 months ago
    They are nice for keeping tools around on spare SD cards that you might not want to run normally. Like that is a good way to look at Parrot or Kali Linux setups.

    Checking out how to build an OS from scratch is also handy. It can be an interesting low risk way to explore building Gentoo, Arch, or Linux From Scratch.

    The main appeal IMO, is that you have microcontroller like input, output, and serial communications already setup in the kernel with access in user space. As long as the kernel is supported by the Rπ foundation, (it is proprietary undocumented hardware that only they can support), you are getting the security updates required to keep the thing online automatically and safely. The best stuff to build is unique stuff for you that uses these aspects. Like make a little bathroom clock with a little TFT LCD display that tells you the local weather. Then set up some RSS feeds for local community stuff you do not want on your main mobile device, like maybe local political activity, library and community center events, concerts, clubs, etc.

    For server stuff, I would stick with devices with purpose built hardware. Like, a micro SD card is slow and unreliable, and the lack of nvme is bad. In most cases it is cheaper to use other old devices that already have screens unless you want to share a hardware design that is repeatable, you need something secure to keep online, or you need serial or input/output. Those are the main benefits.

    The thing is, the Rπ is what it is. It is the path of least resistance. The software support is approachable and great. The price is cheap. However, the non profit thing is a scam. The Rπ foundation is basically an arm of Broadcom. The Rπ is a chip from a set top TV box with 3/4 of the die unused. Broadcom uses excess fab capacity to make the Rπ chips and sell them at materials cost. This is not charity. It is controlling the grass roots market to make competitive scaling business ventures difficult. This is why Rockchip is not crushing them already. The Rockchip RK3588 chip is fully documented and open source. In this space, there is little to no innovation, it is only about price on ancient trailing fab nodes. This is the ladder to climb that leads to Intel, AMD, Samsung, and Qualcomm. The Rπ is the guy kicking anyone that tries to climb. So… use it for what it is good for, but in most cases, other hardware is better, and there is nothing wrong with saying so, or moving past the Rπ. I’m lying next to a RK3566 machine right now, sorting out issues with the ARM version of Fedora Workstation, looking at how to build the native WiFi module for it from source, and maybe try debugging an issue in that module’s code that is causing a memory race condition. Although that last one is past my typical pay grade. - So I’m not all fluff here.

    That is just my $0.02.

  • sic_semper_tyrannis@lemmy.todayEnglish
    3·
    3 months ago

    Keep swapping the OS (or have different memory cards) and play around with whatever software you come across that peaks your interest.

  • bonenode@piefed.socialEnglish
    3·
    3 months ago

    You can easily run Jellyfin and Immich (I disabled the machine learning bits though) on this. As an extra I also run Metube for easy downloads of youtube videos.

  • fizzle@quokk.auEnglish
    4·
    3 months ago

    what do you enjoy doing online?

    my recommendation would be to start small, without having to trust yourself with your own data, at least not in the short term.

    maybe try your own instance of photon, it’s a frontend for lemmy.

  • DonutsRMeh@lemmy.world
    English
    8·
    3 months ago

    Pihole+unbound, navidrome for your music. Tailscale for remote connection to your music. Setup your own photo library with immich. An invidious instance

  • rcmd@lemmy.worldEnglish
    7·
    3 months ago

    What’s currently running on mine:

    • 10 commodity SSDs through a powered USB hub forming a poor man’s NAS with snapraid + mergerfs
    • Podsync for converting my favorite YouTube channels to podcast feeds
    • Syncthing for generic file synchronization
    • K3s for whatever projects coming to my mind
    • Retroarch for occasional gaming needs
    • MPD with a floppy disk interface as my music station
    • CUPS for printserver
    • yo_scottie_oh@lemmy.mlEnglish
      2·
      3 months ago

      10 commodity SSDs through a powered USB hub forming a poor man’s NAS with snapraid + mergerfs

      How did you end up with this setup? Did you just already have a bunch of SSDs from over the years? That’d be cool af if you posted a photo of it.

      • rcmd@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        3 months ago

        Here we gooooo, the king of all junk setups.

        Yeah, I’ve collected some used disks over the years.

        The housing has been drafted in FreeCAD and then sliced out of scrap plywood.

        And yes, the temperature is okay.

        altr

  • fubarx@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    3 months ago
    • Ubuntu desktop - the whole shebang including office apps
    • PiHole ad-blocker
    • Jellyfin video server
    • Minecraft server
    • Local LLMs
    • On-site VPN service
    • Home Assistant smarthome controller

    So many things, and much more…

  • hardcoreufo@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    3 months ago

    Look into volumio to make a whole home music streaming solution. You can buy various pi Hats to get better DACs than the internal pi one.

  • irmadlad@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    3 months ago

    I use them from time to time. Sometimes to tinker on, or have a specific purpose. For instance one runs a display that I can shuffle through all my surveillance cams. One runs a Magic Mirror. Pretty neat little project with useful applications.

    Example Image

  • Schlemmy@lemmy.mlEnglish
    28·
    3 months ago

    I’m running Home Assistant on mine at the moment. It’s amazing. Really. Apart from being an great smart home solution I’ve found it a good solution to create dashboards for life.

    I have set up our family calendar, train schedules that change routes depending on the time. Waste collection notifications. It warns me to get a raincoat and umbrella in the morning. I get news headlines for my interests…

    Before that I’ve tried a lot. It was my first step into home labbing 2 years ago. It brought me back to my youth. Breaking the family computer and trying to fix it before anyone noticing it.

    Most of the stuff I ran used Docker.

    • Joplin notes
    • Mealie
    • Immich
    • Authentic
    • Wanderer
    • Homarr
    • pihole
    • portainer

    Within a year I grew out of my pi setup and bought a second hand mini Lenovo that now runs Proxmox. Minor investment, huge upgrade. Moved away from dockers also.

    The pi is a fun gateway drug.

    • lepinkainen@lemmy.worldEnglish
      121·
      3 months ago

      Big +1 for second hand corporate mini PCs

      They’re cheaper and better in every way than the Pi

      Only get the Pi if you need a specific HAT or GPIO. And even then get a zero.

      • AtariDump@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        3 months ago

        Only get the Pi if you need a specific HAT or GPIO. And even then get a zero.

        Or if you want to run the machine via PoE.