Bluetooth

I HATE bluetooth the vast majority of the time. I find it unreliable and just tedious. I was pleasantly surprised when I turned on my Creative Stage Air bluetooth speaker, and was able to connect to it in a matter of seconds under Pop!_OS. I can't remember ever having less trouble with bluetooth. It just worked and I have some awesome tunes to work to. Under Raspberry Pi OS, I gave up on bluetooth after multiple failed attempts to connect and stay connected. I consider this a huge win as I begrudgingly use bluetooth quite often. Well done System76.

Pop!_OS and System76

This has become my favorite OS of all time in just a few days. It just makes sense to me and gets out of my way while I'm working. My second favorite is still Linux Mint, which is where I started with Linux. I run it on my other laptop, which is due for replacement anyway. I finally decided on my next laptop: System76 Pangolin. The one I want comes in at $1,500+ with an 8 core AMD CPU. I have never owned a nice computer like that in my life, so I think it's about time. I already have my every day PC(this Pi), but I plan to travel and make adventure videos and need some proper power. System76 is all about the linux and so am I. As soon as I heard of them, I started researching and decided they were a great fit for me. I hate Intel and Microsoft these days. Too much drama and expense. I built a PC for a graphics designer friend years ago with an AMD FX8350 CPU if I remember correctly. It was the first 8 core desktop CPU. It was affordable and very powerful. It has aged a bit, but is still perfectly usable to this day. I have been a huge fan of AMD since. They started innovating a while back and never stopped. Same with System76. A System76 laptop with Pop!_OS and AMD CPU is perfect for me. I just like what they do. I'm picky.

Video Encoding Test

I finally put the poor Pi 400 through a video encoding torture test last night. I encoded a 2.7GB HD video file from h265 to h264 last night. I don't think the h265 hardware decoder was working, nor do I think the h264 hardware encoder was in play either. The Pi did it with CPU power. It took almost exactly 7 hours to encode this video, but I ended up with a beautiful 2.1GB file that plays and looks great on the Pi, which is the target system. I can't wait for the GPU to be fully supported under Pop!_OS. That shall be a glorious day.

Overclocking Test

I overclocked the Pi a few different times yesterday, and ran into stability issues. I settled o 2GHz and left it there. I left the initial_turbo=60 setting as it forces max clock speed for 60 seconds on boot to speed up the boot process. I love that this is an option. The overclock did get me a few more frames per second on the video encode last night, but wasn't too noticeable. I've had this Pi running stable at 2.4GHz on accident after a typo in the config.txt. That was under Raspberry Pi OS and I didn't keep it there very long as the Pi sits in a dock that keeps it toasty. I'm happy with the current overclock and will push it harder when I get some good fans going on inside the Pidock.

Other Thoughts

I'm surprised by the lack of Pi 400 projects out there. It's been out a year already and not much is going on. I was surprised to see this project page pop up under "Trending Projects" over at Hackaday yesterday. Pleasant surprise, but makes me wish there was more going on in the Pi 400 world. It's a fantastic machine. I'm about to switch to a new job that will give me set times off and more time off. I'll be able to take side jobs, work on my projects, sleep, and get more done. I have a massive adventure coming up and need to get stuff done. Having this Pi laptop is helping me tremendously. I've got to take the tow truck in for new brakes today, and am going to take it with me and work in the truck, running the Pi off the truck's 12 volt power outlet. It may not have a battery, but it's still the most convenient way to take a Pi on the road. I love that the Pidock 400 is completely free of branding. I love simple and practical. I doubt anyone in public will think twice abut my laptop until I start plugging weird wires and circuit boards into the back. When the PiCarts are ready, they may even go unnoticed. That reminds me: I need to design a way of connecting them to the Pidock without an extension cable, which is the current solution. I'll worry about that later. I still need a working prototype.