The Raspberry Pi 400 guarantees to be a boon to the homeschool market. In addition to offering an easy-to-assemble workstation that comes loaded with free software program, the Pi 400 additionally serves as a surprisingly efficient videoconferencing platform. I ordered a Pi 400 from CanaKit late final 12 months and was wanting to discover this functionality.
Easy setup
After unboxing my Pi 400, which got here on this beautiful package deal, the setup was fast and simple.
The Pi 400 jogs my memory of the outdated Commodore 64. The keyboard and CPU are in a single kind issue.
The matching keyboard and mouse make this little unit each aesthetically and ergonomically interesting.
Unlike earlier variations of the Raspberry Pi, there are usually not many elements to assemble. I linked the mouse, energy provide, and micro HDMI cable to the again of the unit.
The ports on the again of the keyboard are the place issues get fascinating.
From left to proper, the ports are:
- 40-pin GPIO
- MicroSD: a microSD card is the principle laborious drive, and it comes with a microSD card within the slot, prepared for startup
- Two micro HDMI ports
- USB-C port for energy
- Two USB three.zero ports and one USB 2.zero port for the mouse
- Gigabit Ethernet port
The CPU is a Broadcom 1.8GHz 64-bit quad-core ARMv8 CPU, overclocked to make it even quicker than the Raspberry Pi four’s processor.
My unit got here with 4GB RAM and a inventory 16GB microSD card with Raspberry Pi OS put in and able to boot up for the primary time.
Evaluating the software program and consumer expertise
The Raspberry Pi Foundation regularly improves its software program. Raspberry Pi OS has varied wizards to make setup simpler, together with ones for keyboard format, WiFi settings, and so forth.
The software program included on the microSD card was the August 2020 Raspberry Pi OS launch. After preliminary startup and setup, I linked a Logitech C270 webcam (which I often use with my different Linux computer systems) to one of many USB three.zero ports.
The working system acknowledged the Logitech webcam, however I couldn’t get the microphone to work with Jitsi. I solved this downside by updating to the most recent Raspberry Pi OS launch with Linux Kernel model 5.four. This OS model consists of many vital options that I really like, like an up to date Chromium browser and Pulse Audio, which solved my webcam audio woes. I can use open supply videoconferencing websites, like Jitsi, and customary proprietary ones, like Google Hangouts, for video calls, however Zoom was totally unsuccessful.
Learning computing with the Pi
The icing on the cake is the Official Raspberry Pi Beginners Guide, a 245-page ebook introducing you to your new pc. Packed with informative tutorials, this ebook hearkens again to the times when know-how supplied documentation! For the curious thoughts, this ebook is a vitally vital key to the Pi, which is greatest when it serves as a gateway to open supply computing.
And after you turn into enchanted with Linux and all that it gives by utilizing the Pi, you may have months of exploration forward, because of Opensource.com’s many Raspberry Pi articles.
I paid US$ 135 for my Raspberry Pi 400 as a result of I added an elective inline energy swap and an additional 32GB microSD card. Without these further parts, the unit is US$ 100. It’s a steal both approach and positive to supply years of enjoyable, quick, and academic computing.
