A little late to the Linux world, I now do all my web activity and office stuff on a $30 Raspberry Pi 3 Model B. It is very fast, efficient and as well as Raspbian, you can also install OSMC or Kodi to stream media from thousands of sources.
Priorly I was running Ubuntu or Windows on various machines.
It plays all youtube videos seamlessly and without commercials, skipping right over them.
Power draw is a mere 2 Watts including the wall wart, no hard drive to wear out operating from a $6 16 gb SD flash card.
It sports an 1.2 gHz quad core 64 bit ARM processor
Built in wireless and bluetooth as well as net connector, 4 usb's, audio and HDMI output.
Raspbian, a Debian based OS does everything I need including full LibreOffice suite. No ads to be found anywhere on the built in Chrome browser. A host of tools are also available as downloads on the Raspbian operating system. PDF viewer built in. Videos play beautifully and seamlessly in HD ported to an external monitor.
I even installed a schematic drawing program from the extensive library of free available programs, although I understand a free version of Eagle is available for Element 14 members (free membership).
Very easy to set up and run with NOOBS (new out of box software) which allows you to directly load your choice of OS and Media center to your device. You must first download NOOBS and copy it to your formatted flash card. Then NOOBS will prompt you for choices of OS's or media centeres to install
I purchased my first Pi 3 B unit last year, bought another this year (Microcenter) and am now experimenting with the new Pi Zero W (wireless) at $5 for an even more stripped down internet machine.
I have played with a host of other Linux based OS's on laptops and desk machines before as well as many Windows distros, but for my day to day web browsing needs this is a better overall solution. I still use the laptops and desktops for other dedicated work
I could go on and on about all the nice features but don't like typing.
Thus far my Pi experience has been extremely pleasurable. I recommend interested parties give it a try.
Regards
« Last Edit: 2018-01-15, 19:27:04 by ION »
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