Linux Mint Mate low end Celeron vs Raspberry PI

[BwingBob]

So,
I was looking to purchase another Raspberry Pi 4, because I cannot help myself. This time I wanted an 8gb model 4. None of the normal distributors had any PI4s available and the scalpers wanted $220US on E bay. I decide to give one of the cheap Intel Celeron mini PC a try. I found a Bee Link Mini S Celeron 5095 with 8gb ram and 256gb SSD for $139 us. A little cheaper than the PI4(normal price $75) + Power supply, SSD and case.

Sine this machine is a low end machine I decide to try it with Linux Mint Mate 21.latest. The installation was uneventful, everything went perfect.

Man am I super impressed, The Mate developers have done an excellent job putting this distribution together. I run Mint Cinnamon on my primary machine and I feel right at home in Mate. I have yet to feel like I am missing anything. I am pretty sure this machine would run Cinnamon just fine, but Mate is working so well for me that I am going to stick with it on the new Mini S.

The Machine itself runs circles around the Raspberry PI 4. VSCode maxes the processor on the PI4. On this machine VSCode is using < 20% of the CPU and that jumps up to around 50% if I start watching(listening to) a video while I am working. I could never watch a video and run VSCode on the PI.

The plan for the new PI was to replace a Raspberry PI on my sailboat that I built using Open Plotter. The new plan is to install the Open Plotter Apps on Mint Mate and use this new snapper machine to drive my chart plotter.

Good job guys.

[Petermint]

The Beelink device looks good until I see the fan. How much noise do your get when working hard?

I would use the Beelink if mounted behind a big screen as shown in some advertising.

I have an old notebook that would sell for AU$100 if I could find a buyer and it has an Intel notebook processor with about double the speed of the one you mention. It easily beats a Pi 4 for speed. The fan noise is incredibly low when fresh cleaned and the processor is not working at maximum power. The disk is mSATA instead of NVMe but the latest generation of mSATA can maintain speeds similar to NVMe when continually writing. For my use, the notebook with free battery for UPS, keyboard, and screen beats the Beelink.

I find MATE and Cinnamon run about the same when Cinnamon has effects off.

My Pi projects will run mostly run in hot weather without aircon and from a solar battery mix, making the lower power a win.

[BwingBob]

The Beelink device looks good until I see the fan. How much noise do your get when working hard?

The fan is not noticeable, you have to pick the unit up and hold it close to you ear the hear it. The PC will be mounted behind the door of the Instrument panel inside my boat, so I don't think the fan noise will be a problem.

The increased power usage is a concern, everything on the boat runs on batteries and solar. The beelink is maxing out at about 12 watts, the pi ~7 watts so pretty big change.

My project is using a gnu radio SSB receiver to collect and decode HF weather information from the Coast Guard Weather Fax, NAVTEX, and Voice. The DSP required to digitize the analog signals really pushes the PI to it's limit so I think the extra watts will be put to good use. I spent a good deal of time in the beginning messing around with sample rates and decimation settings to get CPU usage below 30%.

Bob

[Peter Linu]

Hi Petermint,
"I have an old notebook that would sell for AU$100 if I could find a buyer."

I am that buyer. Please contact me privately.
Peter Linu

[Peter Linu]

Petermint,
Why don't you contact me?

[Peter Linu]

Petermint,
You needn't trouble yourself any more.
I just picked up a Lenovo Celeron w new SSD 256Gb & 4Gb ram.
Works fine.