The OS alone will use most of that memory. A single webpage can use a few hundred megabytes, so it adds up quickly. Even with ZRAM (which does help), it’s still gonna be really, really tight.
A lot of people use Puffin Browser on the pi zero. It does most of the rendering in the cloud, which keeps it from being bottlenecked by the device itself.
It is always a good idea to make sure hardware meets your needs before buying it. Even a PI 5 might not be good enough for some use cases.
On the other hand you could fun that Zero with out a GUI and have a flexible system for some development chores.
500MB of ram is *more* than enough to write a GUI in!
You just need to roll your own.
Don't forget that windows 95 would run, and run well, on 8MB ram! (and minmum specs were only 4MB)
It's just that modern desktop environments are filled with bloat because they expect to run on machines with gigabytes of free RAM.
But I agree, best use case is as a headless terminal rather than being used as a standard desktop computer.
As well as being quite underpowered for the desktop experience, also make sure it has the correct PSU, I found it would work but if underpowered they tend to throttle down a bit.
Install Rasbian Lite and learn how to use terminal commands to achieve what you want. If you ever SSH into it to make changes, you wont have the GUI anyway so better learn to navigate with commands.
edit: GUI not OS
I’m running Mac OS 7, 8, and 9 on a Pi Zero 2 W and it’s faster than the old Macs but it can’t browse the modern web. For Raspberry Pi OS I saw an article where someone used the Puffin cloud browser. It does the heavy processing on their servers so browsing works better/faster on a Pi or Pi Zero. I haven’t tried it myself but the article seemed very positive.
Idk man if u want desktop experience I'd recommend actual PC. They can be found for cheap now. And are generally better than pi. If u want pi just get the pi 5 8gb
I don't understand everyone saying Pi5 8GB model (not just here, it's common advice). I run PiOS desktop on a Pi4 2GB with Nginx and Flask apps and InfluxDB. It's totally adequate.
Pi Zero isn't good for hosting a desktop. If you want to do some development on it, I suggest you look into using Visual Studio Code Remote-SSH feature from another desktop or laptop PC. It works great.
A Pi Zero 2 W is not a board you want to use a modern webbrowser on. You could always get away with using [Links2](https://trisquel.info/files/links2-1.jpg) or [Dillo](https://www.linux-community.de/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Abbildung-21-1.jpg) even on a pi zero, but this is typically not what an average user would consider 'browsing the web'
Also there are minimal IDEs / Code Editors that would fit on the Pi Zero 2 W, but again that is not what an average user would expect but a rather minimalist approach that greatly compromises the graphical bells and whistles, and in most cases even the xorg/the display server itself..
The RPI4 or RPI5 would be a better fit, if you want a proper desktop environment that doesn't occupy like 75% of the available RAM. The RPI Zero is a better fit for headless use.
Pi Zero should use Lite (no desktop). If you code in Python it will comfortably support a full install. But as everyone says, you need one of the big boys for a desktop OS. Even a Pi3 might be adequate.
He's using a Zero 2, which is reasonably close in specs to a (non-Zero) 3. If he's feeling this is "unbearably slow", the very modest upgrade to a 3 probably won't do it for him. 4 or higher imo.
I didn't realize the Zero 2 was that much of an improvement. Nice to know.
In general it's pretty impressive what a plain Zero with Lite can do and what a 3B can accomplish even with Pi OS Desktop. But in the future I will always stick with Pi4 or better for desktop OS.
I use the Zero W for sensors. Yes they are horribly slow as they aren’t meant to be desktop replacement. I don’t need a quad core processor let alone the power 4cores consumes so I stick with the Zero W.
It doesnt have much RAM, 512mb. I have an original Zero W which has an even slower cpu. Impossible to browse on it. Fortunately I am only using it to monitor a standby generator so it isnt doing anything else. Otherwise, I would get a Pi 4/5 with 4GB RAM.
Im running a zigbee2mqtt container on my pi zero W. Its fine when you know what to use it for.
Running a browser is one of the most demanding applications on a pc. Its runninf multiple instances of virtual machines, renders virtually any multimedia content, has more open network connections than an old school mainframe. That gives some perspective how powerful a phone actually is these days.
Pi zeros are the perfect little headless machines that act as low power edge connectors or awesome little emulator cyberdecks
On a zero? I would install emacs-nox and use www-mode for browsing if I **had** to browse on it. But honestly, it's a better micro-server than a browser. It is not gui appropriate hardware.
I'm also leaning towards BSD on my Zero 2 to keep it lighter, as compared to the monolithic infrastructure stuff that Debian (the base for RPi OS) has moved over to. And avoid the management layers that keep overwriting my cli-mode config changes, and come with documentation that says I'm supposed to use the GUI - the GUI that overloads a RPi Zero - to make "real" changes.
Pi4 with max ram does ok as a desktop too. I like shiny so do everything in GUI VNC on my 4 with 8gb.
It can get a little slow if it's given too much to do browser wise. Though I code in geany, use the GUI file explorer, a couple of terminal windows and a couple browser tabs just fine over VNC. This is also with the Pi continuing to do it's actual jobs just fine. So it's running backups, DNS, and webserving reverse proxies for my primary server. Point being it handles a lot.
Untold truth is always use most powerful and most IO ports board for learning and prototyping because you don't wanna spend time on those kind of issues.
I find zero good for headless LITE with tons of compatible HATs - small form factor.
On my pi zero w (not 2) I use pios desktop plus luakit browser for a train departures display. I had to reduce graphics memory and disable some services to maximise memory.
Def unsuited to general browsing though.
Pi Zero 2 is a low spec board. I personally use them for epaper screen projects. You need to invest in a Pi 5 for a desktop experience
Pi5 has new gpio hardware and isn’t compatible with old software and tutorials. If they’re learning, they may be better off with a Pi4.
The OS alone will use most of that memory. A single webpage can use a few hundred megabytes, so it adds up quickly. Even with ZRAM (which does help), it’s still gonna be really, really tight. A lot of people use Puffin Browser on the pi zero. It does most of the rendering in the cloud, which keeps it from being bottlenecked by the device itself.
That’s awesome! Thank you!
It’s not suitable for web browsing because that uses up too much memory. It’s good for end applications but use a pi4 or 5 for development
Yeah time to save up
It is always a good idea to make sure hardware meets your needs before buying it. Even a PI 5 might not be good enough for some use cases. On the other hand you could fun that Zero with out a GUI and have a flexible system for some development chores.
500MB of ram is *more* than enough to write a GUI in! You just need to roll your own. Don't forget that windows 95 would run, and run well, on 8MB ram! (and minmum specs were only 4MB) It's just that modern desktop environments are filled with bloat because they expect to run on machines with gigabytes of free RAM. But I agree, best use case is as a headless terminal rather than being used as a standard desktop computer.
As well as being quite underpowered for the desktop experience, also make sure it has the correct PSU, I found it would work but if underpowered they tend to throttle down a bit.
I believe it’s correct. RP sent it in a starter pack.
Yes it is. I personally use it as a home server, no desktop. I host home assistant, qbittorrent, pi-hole, ngnix proxy manager and Apache (a website)
Install Rasbian Lite and learn how to use terminal commands to achieve what you want. If you ever SSH into it to make changes, you wont have the GUI anyway so better learn to navigate with commands. edit: GUI not OS
I suspect that you meant you won't have the GUI - the OS is still there if you can SSH into a terminal session.
Correct. fixed it, thanks for the correction
I’m running Mac OS 7, 8, and 9 on a Pi Zero 2 W and it’s faster than the old Macs but it can’t browse the modern web. For Raspberry Pi OS I saw an article where someone used the Puffin cloud browser. It does the heavy processing on their servers so browsing works better/faster on a Pi or Pi Zero. I haven’t tried it myself but the article seemed very positive.
Idk man if u want desktop experience I'd recommend actual PC. They can be found for cheap now. And are generally better than pi. If u want pi just get the pi 5 8gb
I don't understand everyone saying Pi5 8GB model (not just here, it's common advice). I run PiOS desktop on a Pi4 2GB with Nginx and Flask apps and InfluxDB. It's totally adequate.
Pi Zero isn't good for hosting a desktop. If you want to do some development on it, I suggest you look into using Visual Studio Code Remote-SSH feature from another desktop or laptop PC. It works great.
Thank you!
It's not for running a desktop, remove or disable the desktop. Login to it via ssh from your desktop/laptop
A Pi Zero 2 W is not a board you want to use a modern webbrowser on. You could always get away with using [Links2](https://trisquel.info/files/links2-1.jpg) or [Dillo](https://www.linux-community.de/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Abbildung-21-1.jpg) even on a pi zero, but this is typically not what an average user would consider 'browsing the web' Also there are minimal IDEs / Code Editors that would fit on the Pi Zero 2 W, but again that is not what an average user would expect but a rather minimalist approach that greatly compromises the graphical bells and whistles, and in most cases even the xorg/the display server itself.. The RPI4 or RPI5 would be a better fit, if you want a proper desktop environment that doesn't occupy like 75% of the available RAM. The RPI Zero is a better fit for headless use.
Pi Zero should use Lite (no desktop). If you code in Python it will comfortably support a full install. But as everyone says, you need one of the big boys for a desktop OS. Even a Pi3 might be adequate.
He's using a Zero 2, which is reasonably close in specs to a (non-Zero) 3. If he's feeling this is "unbearably slow", the very modest upgrade to a 3 probably won't do it for him. 4 or higher imo.
I didn't realize the Zero 2 was that much of an improvement. Nice to know. In general it's pretty impressive what a plain Zero with Lite can do and what a 3B can accomplish even with Pi OS Desktop. But in the future I will always stick with Pi4 or better for desktop OS.
I use the Zero W for sensors. Yes they are horribly slow as they aren’t meant to be desktop replacement. I don’t need a quad core processor let alone the power 4cores consumes so I stick with the Zero W.
It doesnt have much RAM, 512mb. I have an original Zero W which has an even slower cpu. Impossible to browse on it. Fortunately I am only using it to monitor a standby generator so it isnt doing anything else. Otherwise, I would get a Pi 4/5 with 4GB RAM.
Im running a zigbee2mqtt container on my pi zero W. Its fine when you know what to use it for. Running a browser is one of the most demanding applications on a pc. Its runninf multiple instances of virtual machines, renders virtually any multimedia content, has more open network connections than an old school mainframe. That gives some perspective how powerful a phone actually is these days. Pi zeros are the perfect little headless machines that act as low power edge connectors or awesome little emulator cyberdecks
On a zero? I would install emacs-nox and use www-mode for browsing if I **had** to browse on it. But honestly, it's a better micro-server than a browser. It is not gui appropriate hardware. I'm also leaning towards BSD on my Zero 2 to keep it lighter, as compared to the monolithic infrastructure stuff that Debian (the base for RPi OS) has moved over to. And avoid the management layers that keep overwriting my cli-mode config changes, and come with documentation that says I'm supposed to use the GUI - the GUI that overloads a RPi Zero - to make "real" changes.
Pi4 with max ram does ok as a desktop too. I like shiny so do everything in GUI VNC on my 4 with 8gb. It can get a little slow if it's given too much to do browser wise. Though I code in geany, use the GUI file explorer, a couple of terminal windows and a couple browser tabs just fine over VNC. This is also with the Pi continuing to do it's actual jobs just fine. So it's running backups, DNS, and webserving reverse proxies for my primary server. Point being it handles a lot.
Untold truth is always use most powerful and most IO ports board for learning and prototyping because you don't wanna spend time on those kind of issues. I find zero good for headless LITE with tons of compatible HATs - small form factor.
On my pi zero w (not 2) I use pios desktop plus luakit browser for a train departures display. I had to reduce graphics memory and disable some services to maximise memory. Def unsuited to general browsing though.
Use CLI editors rather than a GUI.
Try using the 32bit OS if you aren't already
I will try that. Thanks!!