Raspberry Pi 4 availability / suggested accessories like case / fan

Forums › Desktop computing › Raspberry Pi 4 availability / suggested accessories like case / fan

1 | 2 | 3 | 4

4800 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 3660

#2893609 29-Mar-2022 17:11

richms:

Is the wifi on the zero 2 as bad as the orig zero? Because if so that would mean adding ethernet by USB and all the adapters etc adding to the mess and complexity whereas the pi4 is going to be a much cleaner installation.

Same wifi, better BT. I use it with a tiny usb/lan adapter in a 3d printed case supplied via USB pwr - for me it is clean enough.

Qui nihil scit, omnia credere debet.
Firewalls do NOT stop dragons.
In effect we have everything to hide from someone, and no idea who someone is.

KiwiSurfer

1725 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 996

ID Verified

Lifetime subscriber

#2893710 29-Mar-2022 19:42

michaelmurfy:

Just FYI...

USB Flash drives do suffer from the same problem as SD cards in terms of having a limited number of writes - this is not a fix, and I have a whole lot of SBC's here too. Instead you're better to use high endurance SD cards which are cheap, and work totally fine for most applications. Since getting high endurance SD cards I have not had any issues (have a Raspberry Pi running Home Assistant and has done so for about 2 years now totally fine).

I've actually had a number of flash drives fail on me. Don't look at the size of a flash drive and think "it is bigger so must last longer" as the actual controller / storage is normally built into a single chip and is actually tiny often taking up the footprint of the USB port only - the rest is often just wasted space.

For a project at work we ordered around 30 USB flash drives to store videos on and distributed them to that number of staff around the country for them to use probably no more than 10 times a year (so basically write-once, and read only a few times, spending most of its time in storage). I was surprised to have several return back to me with complaints that the videos were not playing correctly etc. Did a MD5 checksum of the drive contents across a number of flash drives and found many files had been corrupted. I then tested a few spare flash drives (as not all were sent out so I still had a few spares to test) and found even the drives freshly loaded with the videos were corrupted so it was definitely not issues caused by e.g. people prematurely pulling out drives and such. I even reloaded a few flash drives and even drives that had the files written to 5 mins ago would then fail read checksums. We ended up making the call to recall all the drives. A test of the recalls showed many had at least one corrupted file and some had several.

I since stopped using USB flash drives to store anything important. For my Pi I just pay the extra bucks for high endurance cards which seem to work fine.

timmmay

20859 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 5350

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2893769 29-Mar-2022 20:13

Given I'm going to install home assistant, pihole and probably SyncThing (open source dropbox) on the Pi4 with a Kingston high endurance 64GB card, do people think I should:

Install both natively on Pi OS 64 bit?
Install in docker containers?
Install HASS OS and somehow get Pi Hole working? Probably not this one....
Some other option?

mdf

3566 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 1519

Trusted

#2893835 29-Mar-2022 21:27

If your objective is tinkering, learning or experimenting, then I would go with the docker option.

If Pi Hole is just for ad/parental control blocking (and you don't specifically need Pi Hole for something), there is a nice HASS add-on using AdGuard. I've not used this specific add on, but typically all the hard work is done and they are very simple to set up and manage.

nzkc

1634 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 1041

#2893972 29-Mar-2022 21:45

I'd use the 64bit version of Raspberry Pi OS (or whatever your distro of choice is) since a lot of software is dropping support for 32bit.

I also use docker & docker-compose wherever I can as its easy to script (I typically use Ansible to deploy things).

timmmay

20859 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 5350

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2894044 30-Mar-2022 06:21

Two votes for Docker - thanks. I use containers in my work and I've done the training in them, but I have engineers do the actual hands on parts. I have a good high level understanding but haven't done hands on. It might be worthwhile using Docker for the learning opportunity. For example, I know Docker containers are often ephemeral so I'd have to work out how to ensure they're permanent and backed up.

I don't specifically need Pi Hole, but I have spent quite a bit of time setting up static leases which give out specific IPs which make my life easier, so I'll probably stick with that.

Samsung

Shop now on Samsung phones, tablets, TVs and more (affiliate link).

PANiCnz

999 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 161

#2894050 30-Mar-2022 07:53

I'd go HASS OS if it were me, makes it much easier to install add-ons.

nzkc

1634 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 1041

#2894057 30-Mar-2022 08:14

There's nothing really to back up in pihole. There is a database that holds DNS query information though in my opinion it doesn't really matter if you lose that. I use docker-compose for my pihole and you can configure everything through that. As it happens I do mount some files in docker so I can view them - though thats been mostly for debugging (and getting all the docker-compose environment settings correct).

If you need to mount directories or files within your docker container that's pretty easy to do. Either as volumes or mappings to the host directories.

timmmay

20859 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 5350

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2894059 30-Mar-2022 08:26

PANiCnz:

I'd go HASS OS if it were me, makes it much easier to install add-ons.

That'd be worth testing. Can you not add add-ons using the UI if you run in docker?

timmmay

20859 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 5350

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2894060 30-Mar-2022 08:26

nzkc:

There's nothing really to back up in pihole. There is a database that holds DNS query information though in my opinion it doesn't really matter if you lose that. I use docker-compose for my pihole and you can configure everything through that. As it happens I do mount some files in docker so I can view them - though thats been mostly for debugging (and getting all the docker-compose environment settings correct).

If you need to mount directories or files within your docker container that's pretty easy to do. Either as volumes or mappings to the host directories.

I use Pi Hole for DCHP / static IP allocation, other than that you're right.

shanes

272 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 84

Lifetime subscriber

#2894066 30-Mar-2022 08:46

timmmay:

PANiCnz:

I'd go HASS OS if it were me, makes it much easier to install add-ons.

That'd be worth testing. Can you not add add-ons using the UI if you run in docker?

+one for this, I run Home Assistant OS in a VM and that includes the Supervisor add on. My first attempt at running HA was in a Docker and it was very frustrating not having the Supervisor.

You can then add Pi-Hole and Syncthing as built in integrations.

Mighty Ape

Shop now at Mighty Ape (affiliate link).

Ge0rge

2114 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 2060

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2894070 30-Mar-2022 08:50

PANiCnz:
I'd go HASS OS if it were me, makes it much easier to install add-ons.

I'm doing this as well - VM on a NUC in my case.

Just works.

timmmay

20859 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 5350

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2894082 30-Mar-2022 09:14

I had a quick Google which suggested the HASS add-ins were integrations, rather than being the product. The HASS add-on that actually adds PiHole is deprecated.

I'm not fully sold on HASS which is why I was thinking of keeping the Pi generic and adding things to the OS. I may want to add something later that HASS doesn't support. I can install them directly on Raspberry Pi OS 64 bit easily enough, so long as things like add-ons work. Docker was just a way to keep things fairly isolated.

mdf

3566 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 1519

Trusted

#2894087 30-Mar-2022 09:34

Integrations and add ons are different things. An integration is to allow HASS to talk to something - for the PiHole one you mentioned, it looks like it adds a button to your dashboard allowing you to manually disable it for a period if needed. An addon adds functionality. There are a whole lot of official and community addons that you can (now) add pretty much with a few clicks from the UI. e.g.:

AdGuard seems to be available to provide ad filtering etc.

If you're not sure and still in the experimentation stage, a good option might be to try out both approaches on separate SD cards and see what you prefer. Few second job to switch between the two. Docker is undoubtedly way more configurable, but you may well spend a lot of time configuring it. HASS + addons is pretty much plug and play.

Disclaimer: for either approach, you likely can and will spend a whole lot of time tinkering with IoT devices, integrations and scenes. But that will apply regardless of what route you use.

timmmay

20859 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 5350

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2894095 30-Mar-2022 09:44

That's very useful thanks @mdf. I have HASS in a VM on my PC now, I've just started playing with it really. I have a few weeks coming up soon where I can play, so I'll maybe put HASS on the Pi using their OS to see if I like it. If I do I can then look at add-ons, docker, direct install etc.

1 | 2 | 3 | 4