Enlarge / Two cheapo Intel mini PCs, a Raspberry Pi 5, and an Xbox controller for scale. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

I recently tried to use a Raspberry Pi 5 as a regular desktop PC. The experiment wasn't a failure—I was able to use a Pi to get most of my work done for a few days. But the device's performance, and especially the relative immaturity of the Linux's Arm software ecosystem, meant that there were lots of incompatibilities and rough edges.

One of the problems with trying to use a Pi 5 as a regular desktop computer is that, by the time you've paid for the 8GB version of the board, a decent active cooler and case, and (ideally) some kind of M.2 storage attachment and SSD, you've spent close to a couple of hundred dollars on the system. That's not a ton of money to spend on a desktop PC, but it is enough that the Pi no longer feels miraculously cheap, and there are actually other, more flexible competitors worth considering.

Consider the selection of sub-$200 mini desktop PCs that litter the online storefronts of Amazon and AliExpress. Though you do need to roll the dice on low-to-no-name brands like Beelink, GMKTec, Firebat, BMax, Trigkey, or Bosgame, it's actually possible to buy a reasonably capable desktop system with 8GB to 16GB of RAM, 256GB or 512GB of storage, a Windows 11 license, and a workaday x86-based Intel CPU for as little as $107, though Amazon pricing usually runs closer to $170.

(credit: Velo AI)

Whether or not autonomous vehicles ever work out, the effort put into using small cameras and machine-learning algorithms to detect cars could pay off big for an unexpected group: cyclists.

Velo AI is a firm cofounded by Clark Haynes and Micol Marchetti-Bowick, both PhDs with backgrounds in robotics, movement prediction, and Uber's (since sold-off) autonomous vehicle work. Copilot, which started as a "pandemic passion project" for Haynes, is essentially car-focused artificial intelligence and machine learning stuffed into a Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 and boxed up in a bike-friendly size and shape.

While car-detecting devices exist for bikes, including the Garmin Varia, they're largely radar-based. That means they can't distinguish between vehicles of different sizes and only know that something is approaching you, not, for example, how much space it will allow when passing.

Enlarge / Is it not a strange fate that we should suffer so much fear and doubt for so small a thing? So small a thing! (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

The business arm of Raspberry Pi is preparing to make an initial public offering (IPO) in London. CEO Eben Upton tells Ars that should the IPO happen, it will let Raspberry Pi's not-for-profit side expand by "at least a factor of 2X." And while it's "an understandable thing" that Raspberry Pi enthusiasts could be concerned, "while I'm involved in running the thing, I don't expect people to see any change in how we do things."

CEO Eben Upton confirmed in an interview with Bloomberg News that Raspberry Pi had appointed bankers at London firms Peel Hunt and Jefferies to prepare for "when the IPO market reopens."

Raspberry previously raised money from Sony and semiconductor and software design firm ARM, and it sought public investment. Upton denied or didn't quite deny IPO rumors in 2021, and Bloomberg reported Raspberry Pi was considering an IPO in early 2022. After ARM took a minority stake in the company in November 2023, Raspberry Pi was valued at roughly 400 million pounds, or just over $500 million.

Enlarge / The Raspberry Pi 5 inside its official case. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

I bought an 8GB Raspberry Pi 5 as soon as they went up for preorder, just like I have bought every full-size Pi model since the Pi 3 Model B launched back in 2016, including the Pi 3B+, with its better Wi-Fi and more efficient chip, and the Pi 4, with its substantial performance and RAM boost.

The difference is that I didn't really have anything in mind for the Pi 5 when I bought it. But years of Pi shortages made me worried about its scarcity, and I figured I'd buy first and ask questions later rather than want it later and be totally unable to get one. In the end, it will probably knock each of my other Pis down a level in my tech setup: the Pi 5 becomes the retro emulation box, the Pi 4 becomes the multi-use always-on light-duty server (currently running a combo of HomeBridge, WireGuard, and a dynamic DNS IP address updater), the Pi 3B+ joins the Pi 3B as either "test hardware for small one-off projects" or "the retro emulation box I lent to a friend which may or may not have been ruined when their basement flooded."

Before I did that, though, I wanted to take another crack at trying to use a Pi as an everyday general-purpose desktop computer. The Raspberry Pi's operating system has always included many of the tools you'd need to take a crack at this, including a lightweight desktop environment and a couple of web browser options, and the Pi 4-based Pi 400 variant has always been pitched specifically as a general-purpose computer.