In prior years, this annual collection coated particular person apps. This 12 months, we’re taking a look at all-in-one options along with methods to assist in 2021. Welcome to day 16 of 21 Days of Productivity in 2021.
The Raspberry Pi is a reasonably wonderful little pc—small, surprisingly highly effective, and really simple to arrange and use. I’ve used them for house automation tasks, dashboards, and a devoted media participant. But can or not it’s a productiveness powerhouse as properly?
The reply is, fairly merely, sure.
The base Raspbian set up contains Claws Mail, which is a light-weight mail shopper. The UI is a little bit dated, and it is vitally bare-bones. If you’re a Mutt user, this may most likely meet your wants simply advantageous.
I favor to put in Geary since additionally it is light-weight and has a contemporary interface. Also, not like Claws, Geary has assist for rich-text (HTML) electronic mail by default. I dislike rich-text electronic mail, but it surely has turn out to be obligatory, so having good assist for it’s important.
The default Raspbian set up doesn’t embody a calendar, so I added GNOME Calendar since it may well discuss to distant companies (since virtually all of my calendars are on cloud suppliers).
What about notes and to-do lists? There are numerous choices on the market, however I am a fan of GNote for notes and Getting-Things-GNOME! for to-do lists. Both are fairly light-weight and may sync to one another, in addition to to different companies.
You’ll be aware that I am utilizing fairly just a few GNOME purposes right here. Why not simply set up the total GNOME Desktop? On the Raspberry Pi four with 4Gb (or 8Gb) of reminiscence, GNOME works exceptionally properly. You might want to take some additional steps to disable the default wifi setup on Raspbian and change it with Network Manager, however that’s properly documented on the web and very easy.
Included with GNOME is Evolution, which mixes mail, calendars, notes, to-do lists, and phone administration right into a single app. It is a little bit heavy in comparison with Geary and GNOME Calendar, however it’s rock strong on the Raspberry Pi four. This was shocking to me since I am used to Evolution being sort of a useful resource hog, however the Raspberry Pi four runs it in addition to my brand-name laptops with assets to spare.
The Raspberry Pi has come a great distance in the previous few years and has gone from being primarily for hacking and hobbyists to a strong selection for a small productive workstation.