I've been testing various options for an "ultra-low power" desktop computer. At the moment, I have a #Pi Zero W 2 running #Alpine OS and #dwm with WiFi enabled coming in at 0.23mA. #RaspberryPi OS is easier to setup but it runs at around 0.32mA and is much slower than Alpine.
Anyone have any more suggestions? The trick is saving power, but keeping enough power to make dwm desktop with cli apps run smoothly. I know I can turn off the LED on the Pi, but there's got to be more I can do. Less power!
PiCore is a wonderful project, and I'll keep playing around with it for some use cases, but Alpine is still my go to for ultra-low powered desktop computing.
@williamtries If you are cool with a learning curve piCore could fit your bill, or maybe Raspup for the pi. I had some fun with the second option since Puppy was one of my Live DVD go to options many years ago.
@noflcl Thanks for the tip! I will give Raspup a try. I remember Puppy Linux being really fast on old hardware. I think picore will probably win for low power, but I wonder if it has a good software repo. It will take a bit more work to setup but it may be worth it. I’ll let you know!
Okay, so #PiCore is amazing! RPI Zero 2 W with PiCore desktop (TC) (no DWM), wifi, mouse, and keyboard runs at 0.18mA! If you unplug the mouse and keyboard, you can have a Pi running with wifi at 0.10mA. Wowza!
Sadly, PiCore software repo lacks a lot of packages that I would need to run a CLI desktop on a daily basis. Also interesting, PiCore is very light weight cause it doesn't run anything out of the box. Alpine still runs and installs faster despite being slightly bigger. Conclusion...