Andrew Cunningham wanted to take another crack at trying to use a Pi as an everyday general-purpose desktop computer. The Raspberry Pi operating system has always included many of the tools needed to do this, including a lightweight desktop environment and web browser options.

To my surprise, the Pi actually did fine! Not great, but fine. I listened to music. I researched and wrote a few articles. I paid some bills. I installed Audacity (a nearly year-old version, but a functioning native app, at least) and edited, exported, and uploaded some podcasts with files with three or four audio tracks in them. I SSH’d into the Pi 4 as I configured it to take the place of my Pi 3 as a general-purpose network-service box. I bought a few things. I took a couple of Zoom calls. I chatted with friends and coworkers.

In other words, I did manage to use the Pi as a general-purpose multi-monitor computer, and I got by fine for a few days.

Check out his results in the article here.