[ikk157]

A brilliant tutorial @ikk157.  I've moved the thread to tutorials as I thought it stood out as one.

I'm curious.  What does your Raspberry Device look like?  Is it possible to post a printscreen of the device?   I know it can be used for a very wide spectrum of applications, but just curious why you got a raspberry and what specific applications you are using it for.  Definitely sounds like fun!

Here’s how my two Raspberry Pis look like:


The one on the left is the previous model (the raspberry pi 3B+). And the one on the right is the latest, the raspberry pi 4B (mine is the maxed out 4GB RAM option... previous models didn’t have any “configurable” specs)

As for the printscreen that you requested, look at the last picture in the tutorial. That’s how it looks like with both currently running Ubuntu Desktop 20.04 LTS.

Raspberry Pis are indeed a lot of fun... the way that you have so much control of many aspects along with the gpio pins and all the different accessories available online, it makes it suitable for just about any home (or even industrial) project you can think of. It’s sort off like an arduino but at the same time insanely different (not getting into a details here, look up the differences if you want to)

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Nice tutorial, I didn't know that for Pi 4 you need these workaround. When I installed a Linux distro on a Pi 3 it wasn't so hard, everything worked out of the box.

Are you going to use the Pi 4 as a "desktop replacement" or a home-server?
I think that with 4GB of RAM if can be used easily as a NAS server or Torrent Station.

These workarounds are mainly for Ubuntu Desktop 20.04LTS on the pi. Along with that one specific configuration for the 4GB RAM model. 

Most OSs simply just need to be flashed onto the microSD card and you’re good to go.

Currently I use both my raspberry pis as a “test stuff on the go” platform. For a matter of fact, I actually test new stuff on my raspberry pis before risking using them on my VPS 9.

They are powerful enough for just about any home server project... however, I don’t really need any sort of home server at the moment... not even a NAS.

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I really like how the Desktop looks. I used Ubuntu for fun for a while but that was long long time ago. Also did you built the raspberry pi your self or bought a pre-built one ? any either case how much did it cost you?

I built it all myself.

For the raspberry pi 3B+:

It has a clear case that covers the whole thing (with a conveniently removable top panel... which i had removed in the top picture) and two heat sinks, one for the CPU and the other for the RAM chip. It’s got a 3A power supply along with a 64GB A2 Sandisk microSD card. The HDMI cable is the same as the one that came with my PS4, so i spent nothing extra on that.

I don’t remember the exact total cost, but it was around £55-ish (~$69) reason why I’m listing the price in British pounds is because I ordered both (each a year apart) while I was at the UK.

For the raspberry pi 4B 4GB RAM:

I have a more exposed case, it’s more of a frame than a case to be honest. Along with one giant heatsink that deals with the CPU and its nearby chips, along with a fan which is controlled by a python script (I have it set up to kick in at 45 degrees C CPU Temp, and shut off once the temp is brought back to 30 degrees C). The pi 3B+ didn’t need an active cooling solution, just passive (the heatsinks) because it didn’t get that hot with general use... however, i do use a USB fan with it when it’s under load (just to stay safe, not really necessary). But the pi 4B gets insanely hot. I couldn’t even hold the board the first time I used it (before I had installed any cooling solution). It also has a 64GB A2 Sandisk microSD card, and a 3A power supply (these things are power hungry!). With the hdmi, however, the pi 4B uses micro HDMI instead of the standard sized one, and it even has two of them! Allowing you to use two monitors at once in full 4K! So I had to buy a micro HDMI cable since I didn’t have one (bringing up the cost). The nice thing about the pi 4B compared to the 3B+ is it supports 4K... and not only that, but also 4K with two monitors!!! Combined with the gigabit ethernet that the pi 3B+ didn’t have and the RAM options along with the upgraded CPU, that thing is quite the improvement!

It cost me a whopping £100 (~$125) in total.

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@deanhills as you can see above, here’s where I’m taking full advantage of auto-merge