You don't buy the Pi for its price: performance as a desktop replacement, you buy it for the incredible stability of the platform as a target, the support, and the addon ecosystem. If you want to screw around with taking a motherboard out of a laptop, go right ahead. €160 for a 16GB Pi5 that I know for sure will be available, replaceable, and supported for the next decade is more than worth the small investment.
Well I guess the iMac Pro isn't on the lucky list then. I know it's losing updates (and therefore support) this year.
Unfortunately, I looked into it, and my other options are an Asus CX54 Chromebook or a Lenovo X1. There simply aren't competitive alternatives to Mac hardware, at least not at modern Google.
> No one wants it to be anything other than what you want it to be
I wish I could agree, but the recent push for Wayland only, or GNOME deciding to deprecate middle-click paste, or further reliance on systemd, comprise a non-exhaustive list of examples of things I don't want, and which may end up pushing me off the platform again on the desktop. There are definitely opinionated agendas in Linux (and open source more broadly), and the relative instability of Linux as a target makes forking and maintaining a project + dependencies often unrealistic for a single person... which is how these big projects are able to exert so much influence.
I always had BMWs, like I only ever bought reasonably high-end BMWs, but when we bought our place in Ireland, I needed a vehicle on Swiss plates and insurance (for legal reasons) to use there when car rental in Ireland was running crazy money. I had a look on the Swiss classifieds sites for anything "rechtslenker" (right-hand drive) and found two Rolls Royces, a clapped out MG, and about 15 yellow ex-Swiss Post Renault Kangoo 2-seat car-based cargo vans. (I guess they wanted their mailmen to be able to step out onto the curb, hence RHD in a LHD country?) I bought the van. Weird config: right hand drive, but configured for right-hand traffic, meaning I had to replace the headlights and fog light and get it re-aligned to fit in. Automatic transmission, 1.6L petrol engine, no airbag, no wheel lock, no AC, knobs and switches, glass all around like the MPV version, but a cargo floor. It's insanely simple, the parts are practically free from the perspective of a BMW fanatic, and it's actually a hoot to drive. When we moved, I imported it with our stuff, and it's our only car now. Hauls firewood like you wouldn't believe, and tows a large 2.5m x 1.25m x 1.2m single-axle box trailer without complaints, meaning I can (and have done) shift all the sheets of plywood and drywall I need without buying a pickup. We live way out in the countryside, where the roads have grass up the middle and potholes down both sides, but the Kangoo's ground clearance is enough (especially when empty) that it's never been an issue. I hardly miss the BMW. A little French van is all you need.
It's a nice build, but there is a baffling discordance between putting all this time and money into making a CNC body and ripping the ports off a $1900 camera's motherboard with pliers when the soldering iron didn't do the job rather than waiting until you could get a hot air rig, which could easily have destroyed the motherboard by peeling a trace or cracking layers. I guess at a certain point you just have too much money to behave rationally.
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