Where to start with working with Raspberry PI OS?

Also will VNC software even work on a RPi without a KB or screen connected?

I just discovered on a Windows machine that if a screen isn't connected on some devices you can't get an image over VNC, like wise things get weird if no KB or mouse is attached.
 
PsyWulf said:
You can get a Dummy Dongle for machines like that to fool them to believe a screen is connected
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Interesting, I had a look around and they are not too expensive, around R100.
Does RPi/Linux also have a need for dummy dongles for VNC or is that only needed for Windows machines?
 
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airborne said:
I might give that a try but surely there is a way to get VNC on stock RPi, it can't be that complicated?
My RPi is setup and running great now but I'd really like to be able to have VNC access, that would seal the deal.

I didn't realise installing HA was such a mission, I thought you could just install the app like any other app?

I don't need transcoding, I have Jellyfin up and running fine on the RPi, very cool.

I can see the advantage of a NAS with Docker containers but that requires an expensive NAS plus UPS to run it, a RPi is cheap and cheerful and will run off a Fibre mini UPS.
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I see you've solved your VNC requirement. Great stuff ! Once you get comfortable working via CLI, you'll find that you really don't need to work in the GUI often

HA is a mission if you don't use their image unfortunately. There are ways to install versions of it. But you end up with less features or unsupported installations. And that's if the dependancies don't give you issues <- Mine for e.g. was forcing DHCP no matter what I set elsewhere in the PI OS.

To transcoding. Remember that it happens in a variety of areas. In Plex for e.g., if the file you're playing has say a DTS soundtrack and the device / application that's trying to play that file doesn't support it or is set not to use DTS, Plex transcodes on the fly. And that's where the Pi gets hammered. But there are workarounds for instances like that ( recode the file using Handbrake ). Admittedly I haven't tried for a while. I was experimenting with the Pi at that time
 
airborne said:
Interesting, I had a look around and they are not too expensive, around R100.
Does RPi/Linux also have a need for dummy dongles for VNC or is that only needed for Windows machines?
Click to expand...
Have had a need for dummy dongles on Linux before. Actually there were work-arounds but these were more complicated than just sticking in a dongle.

Soldered my own. It is three resistors, which is really easy. You may even get away with one resistor with the legs stuck into the relevant holes in the VGA socket like some of the old bitcoin miners used to do.
 
hilt_ctn said:
I see you've solved your VNC requirement. Great stuff !
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I haven't nailed this down yet unfortunately, TigerVNC is also not so happy with Rpi Wayland
hilt_ctn said:
Once you get comfortable working via CLI, you'll find that you really don't need to work in the GUI often

HA is a mission if you don't use their image unfortunately. There are ways to install versions of it. But you end up with less features or unsupported installations. And that's if the dependancies don't give you issues <- Mine for e.g. was forcing DHCP no matter what I set elsewhere in the PI OS.

To transcoding. Remember that it happens in a variety of areas. In Plex for e.g., if the file you're playing has say a DTS soundtrack and the device / application that's trying to play that file doesn't support it or is set not to use DTS, Plex transcodes on the fly. And that's where the Pi gets hammered. But there are workarounds for instances like that ( recode the file using Handbrake ). Admittedly I haven't tried for a while. I was experimenting with the Pi at that time
Click to expand...
Ok I didn't realise it also transcoded audio but I'm assuming that's a lot less resource intensive that video transcoding?
 
I'd just drop back to the Bullseye OS. It has VNC support baked in, just needs to be enabled. I reckon you'd be hard pressed to find any real world advantage to using the Bookworm OS for your use case

I imagine that an audio transcode would be far less resource intensive than a video transcode...not that I've tried :)
 
Why do you need a GUI/VNC if you are just going to end up doing stuff in terminal anyway?

Maybe Ubuntu is a better option for you and you can just snap install Plex.

Might even be a snap for Home Assistant but quite honestly with your level of knowledge would not recommend going this route and rather dedicate a Pi to Hass.io and make it your OS.
 
airborne said:
Using a VNC is so convenient though, I have zero experience with SSH and it doesn't seem to have a user friendly GUI of any sort?
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Convenient for what though? You’ll just end up using a GUI to run terminal inside to do command line actions.

Just SSH from MacOS directly and do the things like that.
 
Nevermind even all of that, just install CasaOS ontop of Raspberry Pi OS, access everything from your browser and use the app store for CasaOS, it's basically idiot proof and it will make everything way easier and then one way when you're more comfortable with Linux and want to upgrade to a faster system you can move to Proxmox or something.

CasaOS - A simple, easy-to-use, elegant open-source personal cloud system

CasaOS is a simple, easy-to-use, elegant open-source personal cloud system
casaos.io casaos.io
 
Soul Assassin said:
Nevermind even all of that, just install CasaOS ontop of Raspberry Pi OS, access everything from your browser and use the app store for CasaOS, it's basically idiot proof and it will make everything way easier and then one way when you're more comfortable with Linux and want to upgrade to a faster system you can move to Proxmox or something.

CasaOS - A simple, easy-to-use, elegant open-source personal cloud system

CasaOS is a simple, easy-to-use, elegant open-source personal cloud system
casaos.io casaos.io
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That looks interesting what does it actually do?
 
airborne said:
That looks interesting what does it actually do?
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It's Docker but you don't have to know a thing about Docker, you want to install Plex and all the Plex goodies, go to the store and click install, you want Home Assistant, go to the store and click install.

You just go to your PC's IP from any browser and it's all right there and then you use Tailscale or set up your own Wireguard VPN now you can access your Pi and Home Assistant etc from your phone from anywhere in the world as if you're sitting in your house.
 
Soul Assassin said:
It's Docker but you don't have to know a thing about Docker, you want to install Plex and all the Plex goodies, go to the store and click install, you want Home Assistant, go to the store and click install.

You just go to your PC's IP from any browser and it's all right there and then you use Tailscale or set up your own Wireguard VPN now you can access your Pi and Home Assistant etc from your phone from anywhere in the world as if you're sitting in your house
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CasaOS is a great option

For HA however, there will still be some caveats. Learning to live without the Add-On store ( which is fully doable ) and still going to have to get feet wet in a CLI to install HACS ( if required ) inside the HA container. <- but that will only need to happen once
 
Yeah as above really the only way to experience HA fully is installing it natively.

Or (shudder) installing it in a VM.
 
Gonna jump in here. I am a total noob with linux.

We use Teamviewer, Anydesk, Rustdesk quite often. Teamviewer limits have been reached on some machines so no longer able to use it. Same with Anydesk. This leaves us with Rustdesk.

Rustdesk experienced some major outages in the last few weeks. This got me thinking of setting up my own Rustdesk server on a Pi or something.

Or on that Oracle free tier thing. Struggled with that kak so gave up.

If I were to go the Pi route how do I go about setting it up as a Rustdesk server? What device work for this?
Any pointers or guides will be appreciated.
 
backstreetboy said:
www.omglinux.com

Raspberry Pi Connect: Remote Access to your Pi from any Web Browser - OMG! Linux

Want to be able to access your Raspberry Pi from a different computer via a web browser, potentially from anywhere in the world? Using the new Raspberry
www.omglinux.com www.omglinux.com
Nice one Pi foundation.
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Mmm, not so epic thus far, slow as fk, I haven't managed to login once to the portal

Sign in with your Raspberry Pi ID – Raspberry Pi Connect

connect.raspberrypi.com connect.raspberrypi.com
Seems they went cheapo on their servers :(

EDIT. Seems it's a Firefox issue, it hangs on connecting but Brave works fine, nice!
 
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Is there anyway to modify the Alt-tab switcher so it's more useable?
I can't make rhyme or reason of the logic, it seems to randomly jump between open windows.
Is there any way to make it work like Windows and Mac where you can switch between the two last used apps with alt-tab?
 
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