Pi 5, 16MB ram, NVMe HAT with 512GB installed, cooler case, and all the official cables and PSU. No microSD included. Otherwise, this thing is ready to go. I’ll use my 65 inch tv until I can find a decent <$200 144Hz monitor with dual HDMI inputs, and some cast-off Dell peripherals for input.
My question is about the Raspberry Pi OS. Its light, it’s the one distributed by the RPi trademark owner, but is it the best for this thing? And if I decided to change to a different one, since there’s no microSD card in the box, can I do an install from the SSD, or over the network? Or do I have to pick up a card and an SD card adapter and write the OS to it on my iMac?
I plan on using this as a general purpose PC for a while - browsing and email - but later on I’d like to try some different stuff. Media NAS server, TauDAC for my stereo, perhaps piHole to see who my apps on the other computers are calling.
Thanks for the reply. What DAC are you using? I know what Volumio is but what did you mean by “flashed Volumio”?
Regarding my project:
After a few days with no responses I muddled through it. I bought an SD to MicroSD adapter and a 128GB Samsung card, and set it up using my Mac and Pi Imager. This time around I picked KDE Plasma on (I think) Debian. It popped up in the image choices in Pi Imager and I figured “why not?”. Plasma seems neat, certainly easier and more interesting to use than RPi OS Desktop. The tools are organized well, and somewhat intuitively. It’s certainly better than dealing with the CLI.
After I booted I found instructions on how to install to the SSD and put it on there as well. I say “found” and not “learned” because the commands to do things on Linux are arcane, to say the least, and I doubt I’ll remember any of it. Which is why I’m trying out different desktops, because I can’t rely on remembering CLI stuff while I’m trying to get some use out of Linux.
For instance:
I started hearing faint voices coming out of my stereo and found out I was hearing words that I saw on my screen. I figured it was a screen reader, which meant I should look for an Accessibility section in the settings. I found “Orca” reader in there and disabled it. The voice stopped for a few minutes and then started again. I found a package manager utility that looked like it would let me delete it, but after a while the voice would start reading junk off my screen again. A brief search found others had the same problem and the only solution was something that would definitely remove the whole thing but of course I could only do it from the command line. It worked, but I’ve already forgotten what it was. Sudo apt get delete kill goodbye /r21 x:blah blah whatever.