PI 4 : The world will catch up

I spent the past week using the new Raspberry Pi 4 and overall on balance there some really good improvements. 2 USB 3 ports 1GB Ethernet 4k encoding allot more memory if you go for the 2\4GB but everyone gets LPDDR4 (low powered DDR4). Will it replace my gaming PC no of course not but it's not trying too. But it means you don't have to waste money on very cheap notepad computers.

You can use this as a “simple” computer and if you built your PI laptop you will be very happy to get any boost! There a couple of things you as the consumer need to watch out for I must point out its not all the PI's fault:

Firstly to help support the new hardware you ideally need the new updated power supply, I used the old (with a USB C adapter) which works but you have to live the lighting bolt of death in the corner of your screen. So “byte” [bite] the bullet early and get the new 5.1v 3a power supply, they don’t cost much. Or use a USB to USB C cable the micro USB has gone, see things are looking up already! People have complained about this but we already had one revolution when the the PI 2 came out and got 1 GB of RAM.

Secondly, and there is no avoiding this you need a micro HDMI to HDMI lead these are about ￡8 (around $10) give it time and ebay will be full of “alternatives”.

A case, now careful there are quite allot of auction site sellers posting cases as PI 4, all they done is taken a old image of a PI2\3 case and flipped the image so to look like a PI4, showing the Ethernet on the correct side.But you can tell, if it has the old HDMI port it’s not a PI4 case, if the middle two USB are not colored blue is another sign it is a con.

Same with some of the Fan\heat sink combo’s, not all fit in fact they don’t even fit the PI3B+ since the POE pins and the SPI port gets in the way. So buyer beware.

Due to product shortages at the start I’m using an odroid heat sink with a fan attached, you really need active cooling with the PI 4 and the PI stands proudly off the deck on 4 standoffs. During stress testing It didn’t go above 67 degrees C and didn’t freeze that is very good. On average it sits happily working at 40 to 44 degrees C. Actually I think this quickly put together combo works pretty well.

Gasos! (ref to a joke between few of my friends). The problems don’t stop there either, for the moment the only O\S to work is Raspberry PI Debian “Buster”. Not tried all of them but are the time of writing nothing else boots tried kali, Ubuntu mate. But in time I will be able to download a Gasos (sorry ref for me again) Kali or whatever arm build for the PI4 and the world will be sunny again.

Like in true PI fashion you can be up and running as fast as you down load “Buster” splat it on a SD Card and boot up your new hardware. Around 30 to 40 minutes. I’ve had to make some changes to the O\S once I did the initial setup.

Here some very brief tips and little tricks you may want to do.

Change that default password, I know it, you know it and the rest of the world knows it! Also at a terminal run sudo raspi-config go to boot options and select desktop to enable a login box.

PI’s represent a huge issue for cyber security, your system is little but yet powerful, s there are millions of them out there and can cause really serious issues if compromised. Please go do this now, stop reading this go and set it. Then you can come back and read on. Just be thankful I’m not making you create anther user and stop you using the pi account.

Oh good your back, bet you feel good about setting the log on for your PI, you have taken the first step to secure your system.

One of the first things you will notice you won’t be running at 60fps from the get go, you will be in 4K@30fps which is truly awful and it will be jjjudderyyyyy stutters like Max headroom (ask your parents or google Max Headroom, actually don’t).

For 2GB\4GB versions I set a bigger memory split and allocate 256MB to video. This is easy to do just fire up the Raspberry PI configuration app and go to “performance” and set the size. You probably have to reboot to set.

Luckily this is easy just go to the Raspberry PI configuration app and its under the first tab which is “System” select the 4K@60FPS to enable. Open the screen utility and set the Max res you will now see 4K@60FPS is available. If your going to run headless then this won’t matter to you.

For maximum performance choose the 2K@60FPS or 50FPS it works pretty well if 4K doesn’t matter to you. Videos are still a little jerky at bigger sizes but at smaller sizes perfectly OK.

Flippy flop Swap file. set yourself a useful swap file, it will be set to 100MB by default, very easy to do, setting it is not like you have to mess with swapon \ swapoff commands (Sounds like a line from The Karate Kid: swapon, swapoff).

Simply type at a terminal: sudo nano /etc/dphys-swapfile

Note: There is allot of options about the swap file you of course can do your own thing but 100MB is not going do much for you.

Scroll down and set:

For the 2GB version of PI4 to CONF_SWAPFILE=2048

For the 4GB version of PI4 to CONF_SWAPFILE=4096

(Optional) Go set the Max

For the 2GB version of PI4 to CONF_MAXSWAP=4096

For the 4GB version of PI4 to CONF_MAXSWAP=4096

But do what ever you want, whatever you do if your setting a max remove the # to un-comment the line.

Uninstall the apps you don’t want like mindcraft I won’t ever use this or leave it its really up to you, I have no idea what its about I see kids playing this. What a load of old virtual blocks. For my 4GB version I’m going M2 and dropping SD Cards.

An M2 interface board costs around ￡30 about $35 to $40 depending where our exchange rate is today. A half decent 240GB M2 is about ￡60 ($70ish of US), check out the Kingston KC2000. Note other brands are available I am not endorsing any brands I bought this with “money” my money! But if anyone one wants to sponsor me just send me your hardware and I will use it.

If you have access to even a spinning rusty sata drive 3 PC’s ago it probably still be better then using an sd card.

Good old RPI Monitor:

If you run RPI monitor as I do, you have to sort out the fact the processor is reported as BCM2835, not a massive issue and the issue is present from the PI2. But it irritates the OCD out of me.

Here’s how you do it:

Once you have RPI installed head to etc/pimonitor/templates and open the version.conf file

Find the following lines and comment them out:

static.4.name=processor

static.4.source=/proc/cpuinfo

static.4.regexp=(?:Processor|model name|Hardware)\s+: (.*)

static.4.postprocess=

Then copy and paste the lines below

static.4.name=processor

static.4.source=pinout

static.4.regexp=(?:SoC)\s+: (.*)

static.4.postprocess=

You should then have some thing like this:

#static.4.name=processor

#static.4.source=/proc/cpuinfo

#static.4.regexp=(?:Processor|model name|Hardware)\s+: (.*)

#static.4.postprocess=

static.4.name=processor

static.4.source=pinout

static.4.regexp=(?:SoC)\s+: (.*)

static.4.postprocess=

Restart the RPI monitor service, at a terminal type: sudo service rpimonitor stop then sudo service rpimonitor start.

Then refresh or reopen RPI and Bob is your uncle it now reads BCM2711 lovely.

Now you have a system that actually has some power install ClamAV or your favorite antivirus program. No excuse now that you have some hardware that won’t actually be killed by running it.

To install clam av open a terminal and type: sudo apt-get install clamav

While on the subject of installing software you can, of course string installation of apps by putting && in between the commands:

example: sudo apt-get install clamav && sudo apt-get install toilet && sudo apt-get install gparted

(Yes toilet is real program, google Linux toilet it is not what you may think I don’t make these names up but I like toilet so it gets installed).

Well that's it for now. So I hope you enjoyed this little write up, if you do follow some if all the advice and your house burns down or any other problem that results in injury or dead financial loss, starts wars or civil unrest and any other general criminal behavior, or your partner leaves you and becomes the new Prime minister of the UK don’t blame me, I’m not forcing you to do anything :-).

If you want to send me your hardware for me to use please contact me first, I more then happy to take your hardware for free and use it and I promise to give a [honest] review about whatever you send me.

Sorry about the ref to “Gasos” but it will happen I will invent “Gasos” distro one day. Its a running joke between friends. Worthy of a mention one day you will see it and you know who will be behind it.

I do however recommend getting a PI 4 but if your budget allows skip the 1GB version choose either the 2GB or 4GB you will thank me later. If your budget only stretches to the 1GB version you will be fine but don’t expect miracles.

Some notes about me. I’m a not writing this article on behalf of anyone, its my own thoughts and only based on my own experiences. I am not sponsored by anyone but more then happy to use any freebies (everyone wants a freebie now again), Dear DJI please please please send me a Robomaster S1 to review, please…….

Of course most of the issues here or ones you find on the way will be fixed (for the most part) in time, once the world catches up.

Thank you