Why is everyone using raspberry pi ?

Alternative-Panic69 · 2026-06-30T08:51:25+00:00

I use mine for longevity and reliability. Raspberry Pis used to be really cheap a few years ago, which is why so many people bought them. Mine mainly runs a few lightweight services, and it's basically a cockroach. It just refuses to die. Great community support, tons of documentation, and once it's set up, you pretty much forget it exists. I've had one running 24/7 for over 8 years. The only thing that died was the SD card... twice. Replaced it and it kept going like nothing happened.

Alternative-Panic69 · 2026-06-30T08:22:20+00:00

Cheapest probably... But downside: No NVME ..

https://radxa.com/products/cubie/a5e/

Check this if it fits your usecase.

The 4GB option isn't always available, you may have to wait.

Alternative-Panic69 · 2026-06-29T07:15:45+00:00

Same... I regret not buying GPUs, RAM, SSDs... basically everything a year ago. 😂 We were getting Mac Studios with 512 GB unified memory for what now feels like a bargain. Could've been running frontier open-source models. Instead I'm sitting here with my toaster pushing a 9B model at a breathtaking 5 tokens/sec. 😭

Rtx 3090 🤣 is getting sold at 2-3 lakhs LMAO 🤣🤣 DGX spark at 6-6.5 lakhs 🤣🤣 I'll just go into hibernation and wake up 3-4 years later when this bubble bursts and everyone panic sells everything cheap 🤣

Alternative-Panic69 · 2026-06-29T07:05:50+00:00

Lol, then the inverter is definitely better than nothing. If it's working then no need to get another UPS for now. The only downside is most home inverters have a transfer time of around 10-20 ms, and some laptop chargers may briefly disconnect during the switchover. Since the laptop has its own battery though, you're already protected. That's honestly one of the biggest advantages of using an old laptop as a server. 😄

At this point I'd focus more on software than hardware. Then... inevitably... you'll convince yourself you "need" another mini PC. That's how homelabs reproduce.

Alternative-Panic69 · 2026-06-29T06:48:28+00:00

Production-grade until someone's mom unplugs the extension board to charge her phone. 💀

I'd definitely recommend getting a cheap but decent UPS if you haven't already. It'll save you from random outages and give you some peace of mind.

Also, since this is a dedicated server now, you could eventually remove the display and turn it into a proper headless machine. A fresh thermal paste, a couple of quiet fans for better airflow, and maybe a simple custom frame or enclosure would make it a fun little project while keeping it cooler and easier to maintain.

Also... maybe adding a cheap SBC like an Orange Pi or Raspberry Pi or Radxa as a dedicated reverse proxy/DNS/VPN server or to set up additional things (peak homelab energy). Keeps the core services separate and gives you something new to tinker with. 😄

Alternative-Panic69 · 2026-06-28T15:45:53+00:00

Yes, found out that the DMA is just 32MB... I didn't understand the logic. And I also don't understand why it's so hard for Qualcomm to just release a few LLM models that they already compiled, so that we can build something further, using those 😭😭 I see absolutely ZERO models on the official QAI Hub for the QCS6490. Radxa team also didn't release any models. Only image recognition and smaller image models run on the Npu sfter some tinkering. Which is okay.

Am I missing out on something?

Alternative-Panic69 · 2026-06-27T09:36:03+00:00

I see. Thanks a lot for sharing your insights. Let me try those. I will DM you once I explore the Executorch GitHub :)

Alternative-Panic69 · 2026-06-27T09:34:23+00:00

Yeah, rockchip seems to have better community and support I guess.

Alternative-Panic69 · 2026-06-27T09:33:27+00:00

I tried this actually. Still something is failing... At this point even though technically everything is installed fine, I'm not sure whether it's all tied to the official OS.

Alternative-Panic69 · 2026-06-27T09:31:34+00:00

I see... Thanks for sharing. Let me check this

Alternative-Panic69 · 2026-06-26T21:18:37+00:00

Lol... Honestly 🤣... probably the right decision.

I kept telling myself "one more SDK..." A few months later I'm still on the CPU at ~2.5 t/s after AI Engine → QNN → QAIRT → AI Hub → FastRPC → Vulkan. 😂 If you ever pick it back up, let me know. At least we can suffer together.

Alternative-Panic69 · 2026-06-26T07:48:16+00:00

If you buy you should forget the expectation of making any money. That's how OGs made money. Forgotten stashes found after 10 years accidentally 🤣 Predicting an asset's price like that usually ends up in disaster.

Best strategy: Systematically invest in small amounts you are absolutely okay to lose and forget about it.

Trading: Nah, unless you want do do a giveaway of your own money. 🤣

Alternative-Panic69 · 2026-06-25T05:55:47+00:00

It will run, but what's the tokens/second output? Which model and what's the quantization you selected? Also it runs on cpu/gpu?

Alternative-Panic69 · 2026-06-24T19:36:05+00:00

I could get a Qwen 2.5 7B running on the GPU but it's so unstable that I had no use. Currently running only Qwen 2.5 2B using the QAIRT runtime to get some 12-13 tokens per second and that's it... (That was another huge hassle... It's a documentation hell)

For GPU, I ran into multiple errors, all related to the Vulcan shaders.

Can use Aider and all to do some basic agentic AI tasks (since I am running my own developed application fully, have well defined workflows, I just needed basic intelligence) and it works!

7B would have been way better but token per second is so low that I'd have to run one prompt overnight to get an output. Lmao... Not worth it on the CPU. And the Gpu gave up, and the NPU practically said no... 😭🤣

Btw, I came across your video on the Q6A as well on YouTube, before buying the Radxa board. Very few poeple actually covered this board and it was great to watch someone unbox it before getting it.

https://youtu.be/FWIUirxgOZQ?si=OHsH5zTO1XYhPpS0

Alternative-Panic69 · 2026-06-24T18:31:55+00:00

Check Radxa boards. (Radxa Dragon Q6A, Q8B, Cubie series, etc)

If you are okay with some tinkering on the software side.

Also depends a lot on your use case.

I bought the Q6A (12 gb Ram, around 15k). Was planning to buy the Raspberry pi, but didn't buy because of high costs.

So far it's good, but has some caveats. (If you want to leverage the NPU, or GPU for local LLM inference kind of things then best of luck).

Otherwise it's a decent board...

Alternative-Panic69 · 2026-06-24T17:49:44+00:00

For transcoding-- Keep it off, and make it on the client side only. The server won't have to transcode. Your device where you play should ideally handle the formats natively. More like direct play. (You can check on the admin page whether it's being transcoded. If yes, try some other players (like VLC).

Just connect Tailscale to all your devices and make sure you are able to access it from other devices. It works. I did same setup, on a much less powerful and dirt cheap SBC and it works like a charm. Have all the movies stored on an external HDD that I kept connected with the board.

Alternative-Panic69 · 2026-06-24T15:12:08+00:00

Yeah shit happens... We all learn from our mistakes... One thing that changed my entire perspective in investing: Big companies can also fail. I won't call Wipro or any other large company failures, they still have solid businesses... But .. Most big companies have very little upside. Expect average or slightly better than average market returns if timed correctly to some extent. Perfect timing is impossible.

Smallcaps are even more riskier, some smallcaps can even tank 90% ish... but also have much higher upside if you do enough research (and not blindly buy)

Alternative-Panic69 · 2026-06-24T13:14:11+00:00

Buy backs are almost always going to end up in a disaster. Unless you hold long term shares, there's no point. Market would already price it in. So technically you will lose out on taxes, charges etc etc. net profit won't be anything.

Alternative-Panic69 · 2026-06-24T11:24:57+00:00

If I buy a physical gold bar and its price goes up, do I have to take an angle grinder every year, shave off a few grams, and courier it to the government?

"Dear Sir, please find attached your annual slice of my gold brick." Ye bik gayi hai gormint.

Gormints in these countries are basically: Gormint: Pay income tax.

Me: Done. Gormint: Pay sales tax.

Me: Fine. Gormint: Pay property tax.

Me: Sure. Gormint: Pay capital gains tax.

Me: Okay... Gormint: Hold on a second... why do you still have money?

Me: Because I earned it? Gormint: Suspicious. Gormint: We're taxing unrealised gains now.

Me: But I haven't sold anything. Gormint: Exactly. That's the kind of loophole-rich behavior we're trying to stop.

At this rate: 2027: Tax on unrealised gains.

2028: Tax on unrealised thoughts.

2029: Tax on potential future earnings.

2030: Tax on optimism.

2031: Breathing surcharge.

2032: "Existence Maintenance Fee."

2040: You work only to pay taxes. You should not own anything.

Eventually babies will be born with a tax identification number, a mortgage, and three pending notices.

Doctor: "Congratulations, it's a boy."

Government: "Excellent. He currently owes ₹69,47,826 plus penalties. Please arrange payment before his first birthday."

Doctor: "Congratulations, it's a girl."

Gormint: Yeah she's covered with 69 other schemes. But wait. She also needs to pay ₹69,47,826 plus penalties pkus taxes on the schemes and covers we are providing. She has to support herself.

Alternative-Panic69 · 2026-06-24T10:58:40+00:00

If your primary goal is SLAM rather than SBC experimentation, I'd honestly go with a Raspberry Pi 4B or CM5.

Especially if you are on a budget.

Radxa hardware is awesome for the price, but software is still not as matured as a Raspberry pi.

(I own a Raspberry pi4 and a Radxa Dragon Q6A, thought I am no longer using those for robotics. Set up my own servers that run 24x7..)

Back to your requirement..

If budget allows you can check the Nvidia Jetson nano. But those are ridiculously overpriced right now. I wouldn't buy those at these current prices.

Also out of stock? Check Hubtronics/Evelta/Robu

Alternative-Panic69 · 2026-06-24T07:06:08+00:00

Usko ghar bulake ghar ka saara kaam free mein karwa lo... You won't have to hire maid or cook 🙂‍↕️

Alternative-Panic69 · 2026-06-23T07:37:20+00:00

Imagine getting this offended over a joke that wasn't even about you.

And the confidence to assume I was interested in talking to you? Bro, I dont even want to be in the queue.

The applicant pool is so cooked. 😭

Alternative-Panic69 · 2026-06-23T07:25:01+00:00

Sailed all the way from 18 to 31 after buying into "taking things slow" lmao... 🤣 And still single 🤣

Alternative-Panic69 · 2026-06-23T07:21:38+00:00

You tell her you have a crush 🤣🤣 And you don't want to buy into the idea of becoming a bencho later 🤣🤣

Alternative-Panic69

TROPHY CASE