DietPi

Peter ScargillDietPi6 Comments on DietPi

tmp8CB3Those of you who have been here for a while will recall my rants about the Orange Pi PC, a Rasperry Pi lookalike that costs around £12 if you get it from China (Aliexpress etc).

Indeed some of you have one of these and will no doubt have shared my horrors as I discovered that this neat piece of hardware which IS faster than the Raspberry Pi 2 (not the old B, the version 2).. but which ended up in a drawer as the software and support is ABSOLUTE RUBBISH.

Well, today my pal Jonathan got in touch to tell me about DietPi. I’m not going to say too much more but just give you the link.

The software is available for Raspberry Pi, Orange Pi PC and more.  

Before you go off… I suggest trying this out on a spare as I have yet to put this through rigorous testing –  I’ve not even fitted it up with Node-Red yet… but it’s the most satisfying start I’ve had so far with the Orange Pi – which may yet prove to be a winner.

Here’s the link. http://dietpi.com/

Check out the installation options, the backup options and more – I don’t know how good this is going to be but to be sure – it is POLISHED!

I should point out however that I’ve used this now with the Orange Pi Pc… and i can get no analog sound, no SerialPort for Node-Red – so it may be that there is more style than substance here – time will tell – I’ve put in a support call.

6 thoughts on “DietPi”

  1. DietPi just keeps getting better Peter, I’m still using it several years later on an OrangePI PC – and while it lacks support for Kodi, etc., it’s been utterly wonderful at a bunch of stuff that the Pi could do, but is better placed elsewhere.

    PiVPN, Fail2Ban, No-Ip and even SAMBA file sharing. Loads of useful stuff. Now the Pi is still the canonical device for this and the O-Pi-PC is laughable: but a lot of these boards must either be gathering dust or cheap on eBay and that means folks can grab a bargain and offload their Pi for something more useful (or more portable).

    1. Hi there Marc, yes we put effort into making “the script” compatible with Diet Pi and I’ve used it myself – the only problem with putting Diet Pi on a genuine Pi of course is that there is no guarantee that all software that would install on genuine Raspbian will also install on DietPi – especially where hardware interfacing is concerned though I must admit I’ve not personally put that to the heavy test as I tend to use DietPi and Armbian on non-Pi boards as it they are often the best or only options.

      I found the Orange Pi PC to be awful – but on the other hand if you read my review I found the Orange Pi Plus 2E blows the Raspberry Pi clean out of the water with multiple UARTS and a lot more – but read the review if interested. Indeed though I like the Pi3 (the 2 is ok but a tad slow – and I say that with an incredibly big Node-Red installation running on it night and day so I know it’s limits) but don’t dismiss Orange Pi Plus 2E and various FriendlyArm boards – oh, and the Odroid C2 and…..

  2. There is a Linux GPU hardware driver for the Orange Pi PC now. Does anybody know if DietPi already uses it? Without hardware accelleration Kodi is no fun on these boards.

    1. Hi Chris,

      Kodi is disabled on the DietPi for OrangePi Pc at the moment. We are still waiting for GPU/VPU hw acceleration support/drivers.

      If you can provide the link to the driver you are mentioning, I will take a look.

      Regards,
      Dan (DietPi)

      1. I have just tried DietPi on the Orange Pi PC. I could not get the Serial to work in Node-Red and of course no GPIO. I could also not convince sound to come out of the 3.5mm jack (npm install -g mpg123) Do you plan to do any work in this direction.

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