Only the Pi500+ is not some sort of building; It comes with OS pre-installed, so similar to a MACmini, plug in power and attach HID (monitor) and it should work.Plus points for Pi OS on a Pi are that a lot of people are using that distro on the same range of hardware. Some expert, some not. Buying from a specialist distributor the components that would either be inside or in the box with a laptop or desktop - Pi branded items if available - takes away many of the issues that come up here (dodgy PSUs, SD cards, HDMI cables, idiosyncratic USB adapters).
That worked for me (OK, I've been at this since 5-hole tape and when core meant core - but I have never built a computer).
All others/older mean building, although rather simple like writing a floppy disk, fix the PCB it into plastic case. But also people seem to want a fan instead of just a case that also is large/good enough to be heatsink as well. And what about flatcable for PCIe, the NVME adapter itself. Half of the USB3-SATA chips have a UAS/trim problem with RPI4 (but mostly OK for PC/MAC). Maybe you never experienced that. There is no Pi-branded USB3-SATA adaptor for example.
I have another experience, I upgraded for example my RPI1 always in-place from Stretch release already, so more than 7 years the same SD-card and powered on, only reboot a few times per year. Not yet upgraded to Trixie from Bookworm, but all other RPi's are done already in August/September.Sure, you need to learn about things that you don't need to know about for a Mac or Windows computer and be (or become) comfortable on a command line some of the time. But if those are an issue forget Linux. My main caveat is that Pi OS is not stable between releases so anything you find on the web, including here, may already out of date.
The thing is, RPiOS cannot be installed the normal way like for a PC where you want to install Debian Linux for example. Because Raspbian is proprietary, it always needs tweaks and non-standard kernel/firmware before it can run. But that issue is masked, because the only option for the avarage user is using pre-installed 'image' of your storage device. If that pre-installation would be too generic, it would mean security risks, so things like password and ssh access need to be done by end-user. And currently that is buggy. But if you do in-place upgrades, you avoid all those problems.
Also note that vanilla Debian (major release in summer every other 2 years) runs on way more diverse hardware/platforms and it is being tested continuously the 2 years before by people who want the latest/greatest Linux and are OK with a flaw here and there every now and then. More diversity means testing better. So the problems do not stack-up during Xmas for example.
Statistics: Posted by redvli — Tue Dec 30, 2025 1:06 pm