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heresie-dabord

N100 is inexpensive, has impressive performance, and can support 16+ GB RAM.

That said, I do also use an R.Pi 4 and an R.Pi 400.

The significant advantages of the R.Pi 4 and R.Pi 5 are

= R.Pi is a learning-first platform

= current Debian supported "out-of-the-box" with a custom D.E. and Wayland

= excellent community for software and hardware

= the R.Pi 400 (and the expected R.Pi 500) "keyboard computer" are unique in the marketplace, with all the community and support

= R.Pi is not an X86 platform, which may be favourable depending on your project requirements

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> current Debian supported "out-of-the-box" with a custom D.E. and Wayland

I’m not sure I understand the point, because Debian supports N100 PCs natively, too. Or is a custom DE the advantage?

> Or is a custom DE the advantage

Yes, as a learning-first (teaching) platform, the custom DE is an advantage.

But further, the R.Pi does not need to be an over-sized solution or lead a benchmark with a top score. It just needs to be fast enough for learning and hacking with GPIO.

A computer doesn't need to have a gigahertz burst mode just to run an efficient little OS for coding.

As for Wayland, it only recently became the default WM. But it is nice to have.

> A computer doesn't need to have a gigahertz burst mode just to run an efficient little OS for coding.

If efficiency is your goal, you should prefer the N100 which is built on a 7nm class process compared to the Pi 5's 16nm.

> = current Debian supported "out-of-the-box" with a custom D.E. and Wayland

Effectively the same thing for basic desktop use, disregarding wayland, as doing a basic bare bones debian x86-64 CLI only install (totaling something like 1.2GB disk space used) and then "sudo apt install xorg xfce4 xfce4-goodies libreoffice gimp thunderbird firefox-esr gthumb nautilus konqueror", or whatever other list of applications one wants to install along with xorg and the desktop environment.

> N100 is inexpensive, has impressive performance, and can support 16+ GB RAM.

Yep runs 32 GB just fine, even if not advertised. Also great Software support as usual on the PC Platform. Also more I/O, esp. PCIe than a Pi and you actually can buy boards with standard connectors. Also at least for server type use cases x86 is most of the time probably still a lot less painful than ARM.

> for server type use cases x86 is most of the time probably still a lot less painful than ARM.

This isn't true if Debian is supported.

As for the architecture per se, we should consider what Apple has accomplished with its switch to ARM.

With the appropriate license, there is no particular reason Apple's team couldn't have built a good x86 processor. Switching to ARM was a matter of necessity, not due to a superior architecture.

Architecture largely doesn't matter these days, just how you implement it and what fabrication you build it with.

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