rufik Posted February 14, 2020 Share Posted February 14, 2020 I was using OPI3 as my home automation server for many months, very stable for me with Armbian. But now I've migrated to more powerful machine and my OPI3 got nothing to do So I'm thinking about connecting it to my TV and use as light linux desktop: web browser mainly. Does anyone use OPI3 2GB RAM like that? Is it powerful enough to handle browsing with 10 tabs for example? Or I should go for some cheap RK3399+4GB RAM (under $50) instead? What's your experience? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TRS-80 Posted February 14, 2020 Share Posted February 14, 2020 (edited) Unfortunately nowadays "web browsing" != "light desktop usage" due to castles of Javascript and huge web pages that so many of these sites like to load... also multimedia (video sites), etc... The biggest determining factor will likely be how impatient you are. For me, I want pages to load instantly. You may be more forgiving / patient, especially on some hardware you "just had laying around anyway" (i.e., essentially free, assuming you have some monitor(s) and keyboard, mouse, etc. also "laying around" or go find some at a garage sale or local free classified site (Craigslist, etc.) for few bucks). For example, I own a few old Classic ThinkPad T60 which I love for their free (as in freedom) bootloader, nice keyboard and 4:3 FlexView screens. They are great for terminal, text, coding work however having only a dual core Yonah ~1.5-2 Ghz and 3GB of RAM makes many "modern" websites (and especially watching videos) slightly painful. I much prefer to do multimedia stuff on my big powerful desktop (where I also have huge 20 30 20 PLP display setup). Anyway, back to OP, I have no direct experience with that hardware, but it seems it would be only a small investment of your time to simply give it a try... especially as you say if the thing is lying around unused anyway... Perhaps you could return and share your finding then, like a mini-review, for others maybe even considering purchasing in future (which is slightly more of a commitment). I did not search forum, but maybe someone has done such review already (I would check that first if I were you, in fact I would have done so before posting (and maybe you did, I dunno...)). One minor note, I do like XFCE (which I believe is the default DE). It is very lightweight yet still has plenty of options for customizing those little niggling details. I have standardized on it across all platforms (including much more powerful machines like my main desktop workstation). Edited February 14, 2020 by TRS-80 clarify, grammar Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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