{"id":12962,"date":"2025-02-09T18:18:54","date_gmt":"2025-02-09T16:18:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/?p=12962"},"modified":"2025-02-09T18:18:54","modified_gmt":"2025-02-09T16:18:54","slug":"playing-with-computers-or-machines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/playing-with-computers-or-machines\/","title":{"rendered":"Playing with Computers or Machines"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading Time: <\/span> 2<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>

How many computers do you have at hand. Years ago I used to have two computers. A Mac Book Air and a Mac Book Pro. Eventually I sold the Mac Book Air and just used the Pro. I went to an event with the Pro and it was stolen so for a few days I was without any computer.<\/p>\n

I then bought a much cheaper Mac Book Pro and since then my collection of computers has grown. My work horse from 2016 onwards was a Mac Book Pro, but during the pandemic I got an HP machine running windows. Now it’s running Ubuntu. I also have a chrome book as a spare.<\/p>\n

Cheap Pi<\/h2>\n

I then have a multitude of Pi4 and Pi5 as well as Pi3, and more. I have the Pi because they are great for experimentation with linux, but also with self hosting. I really like to experiment with Raspberry Pi because you set something up, fiddle, break it, and start again. With time you gain confidence and experience.<\/p>\n

Now I use Ubuntu on the HP machine, and I just remembered that I have Debian on a Pi5 SD card. I have Mint on a Mac Book pro and Suse and NixOS on another HP machine.<\/p>\n

Finally I have an M4 Mac Mini running MacOS but I suspect I will keep this machine for video editing.<\/p>\n

Cast Offs<\/h2>\n

Most of these machines were given to me, rather than having them recycled. I bought the Pi computers to use as learning platforms and it’s thanks to these single board computers that I re-acquainted myself with Linux after years of MacOS use.<\/p>\n

And Finally<\/h2>\n

Years ago I wanted to buy the latest Mac Book Pro but now I find that a Pi works well for blogging, web surfing and more. This is especially true of the Pi5 with 8 gigabytes of ram. We often think "I want to get the high spec machine", but a low spec machine will be just as useful for simple things.<\/p>\n

Years ago a low spec machine was a challenge to use but with technological advancements low spec machines that are not much bigger than a credit card but smaller than a wallet that is too full deliver a reasonable user experience. The barrier to entry is now lower.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reading Time: <\/span> 2<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>How many computers do you have at hand. Years ago I used to have two computers. A Mac Book Air and a Mac Book Pro. Eventually I sold the Mac Book Air and just used the Pro. I went to an event with the Pro and it was stolen so for a few days I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11292,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"federated","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[255],"tags":[6776,6491,6537,69,469,4283],"class_list":["post-12962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-swiss-walks","tag-chromeos","tag-computers","tag-desktop","tag-laptop","tag-linux","tag-macos"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12962"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12962\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12965,"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12962\/revisions\/12965"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}