By Phil Spalding
cambolc.co.uk, @cambolc, linkedin.com/in/philipspalding66
The Raspberry Pi 5 is the latest version of the popular single board computer. I like to buy local so I purchased my version from The Pi Hut back in September 2023, which is a Haverhill company. I can walk 200m from home to their business but still have to order online. If you would like to see the Raspberry Pi 5 up close and personal you could always visit the Cambridge Store, in the Grand Arcade.
I have decided that this particular model is now mature enough to be used as my business desktop and have been experimenting with it at the Epicentre, Haverhill.
The system works really well on the monitor which comes with the desk space rented by the half day or day. The cafe downstairs is a good place to reset away from the screen. Coffee making and microwave facilities are on the same floor as well as pods where you can work undisturbed and not broadcast your phone conversations to other users.
A little quirk of the Wifi system is that it does not work with the installed Chromium browser on the Raspberry Pi. However, the network login page is triggered by the opening the Firefox browser which also comes as standard on the Linux Debian operating system downloaded from the Raspberry Pi site. Using Chromium Browser and Google Workspace is then possible once the Wifi is signed into on Firefox.
So all in all I think that the Raspberry Pi is a going concern for a business user if you want to move away from the Microsoft environment and are a small to medium enterprise wishing to minimise expenditure.
Useful Links
Cambridge Online Learning Community 