The latest firmware for the pi significantly reduces the heat on the Pi4. I can’t remember the specifics but it was something to do with the power that they tweaked. You can try it out with “sudo rpi-update” but I wouldn’t suggest it for deployment. I have been looking at doing new images with it, but I noticed on the pi3 the system doesn’t properly power down among other things like segmentation Faults with Kiwix-serve ( that may also affect the 09/26/2019 image as well ). Hopefully a stable release is coming soon with USB booting.
@ jamesk
The PI 4 server on the microsd was up for 176 days. I periodically downloaded a new module, watched vidoes and pulled up books without any issue. However, I did notice Kolibri would not load. I did a reboot on the server and it restarted it. I pulled the times to see how long it was up since I was needing to use the PI4 for another project.
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That’s awesome @SHOMI. Kolibri is unfortunately mostly out of my control, but I think 176 days up is great and unexpected for a Pi. Great temperature as well. Thanks for sharing.
Hi, I’m very new to Rachel. I want it on the 4B for the 4gigs of ram for more people to be able to use it at the same time.
Is it simple to set up on the 4b? I just set it up on the 3b. Is it a different image file?
Hi @dsh,
The image you’ll need to use for the 4B is rachel-pi_kolibri-09_26_2019.7z as it’s based on Raspbian Buster which the 4B requires. The setup is the same but you won’t be able to use USB booting with the 4B as that isn’t supported for the Pi4B yet so you’ll have to use a MicroSD. If you’re already using that image and a MicroSD with your 3B you can try putting it into the 4B and it should work.
I’m not sure if there are any statistics on how many more users a 4B can provide RACHEL to than other Pi models yet. It may not be worth the added price to get a 4B with 4GB of ram until the USB3 port can be used.
James
Hi James,
Thank you for your reply. I saw that link above, I was wondering if there was a pure Rachel without Kolibri that would work on the pi 4B.
You’re welcome @dsh. There aren’t separate images without Kolibri, but you can remove it using the command “sudo apt-get remove kolibri” . You can then just delete the module from the admin interface or at /var/www/modules/en-kolibri-index.
Thanks jamesk! Very helpful. I’m going to try and dockerize Rachel and have it run on rpi4b.
You’re welcome. Good luck with docker. I’m not really a fan of it. Is there a reason you’d rather run a docker instance than just have it installed directly to the device?