The lightweight, Britishmade Pi is perfect for everyday desktop duties. Nik Rawlinson explains how to get started
The new Raspberry Pi is here, and it’s better than ever, with a big boost in processor power and enhanced peripheral support. What’s more, the price is still absurdly low. It’s hardly surprising that when the first shipment of Raspberry Pi 5 boards arrived in October, they sold out almost immediately – although that might also have something to do with the post-pandemic chip shortage, which for the past few years has made most Raspberry Pi models almost impossible to buy.
Happily, more Raspberry Pi 5 boards are already hitting the shelves via suppliers such as Pimoroni (pimoroni.com) and The Pi Hut (thepihut.com), so you should have no difficulty getting hold of one. And perhaps for the first time, we’d encourage you to consider one not only for hobbyist projects, but as an everyday desktop computer.
Can you really use the Raspberry Pi 5 as your desktop PC?
If you’ve tried using an older Raspberry Pi board, you might question whether it’s fast or flexible enough to use as a regular, general-purpose PC. But recent versions of the hardware have already proven themselves viable for a desktop role: when the pandemic struck, Raspberry Pi said it saw a rapid increase in the use of Raspberry Pi 4 for home working and studying, and in November 2020 it unveiled the Raspberry Pi 400, with a compact keyboard inspired by classic single-box machines such as the BBC Micro and ZX Spectrum.
The new hardware in the Raspberry Pi 5 takes things to the next level, with all the power you need to be productive. It also comes with upgraded USB support, meaning you can connect fast external storage and other peripherals: you can even ditch the microSD card and boot from an external SSD.
Software support keeps getting better, too. The official operating system goes from strength to strength, while free software such as LibreOffice allows you to collaborate effortlessly with people using Microsoft Office. The bundled version of Firefox is now optimised for Raspberry Pi, with particular attention paid to desktop sharing and video-call performance – ideal for working from home on your Pi. And if you’re running Ubuntu elsewhere, you have the option of installing the exact same OS on the Raspberry Pi hardware.
Perhaps there will always be particular use cases and programs that work better in Windows or macOS. But the Pi is maturing, and at the same time more appli
