Pi400 computer

I wondered whether anyone had tried, or succeeded, in putting RISC OS on to one of these?

https://cpc.farnell.com/raspberry-pi/rpi400-uk/raspberry-pi-400-uk/dp/SC15824?st=rasberry%20pi%204

The Raspberry Pi port should work fine.

It works fine. But it’s not compatible with wifi (though it can, apparently, work with insecure networks – I haven’t tried because it makes the entire wifi network insecure).

If you haven’t bought one yet, I’d consider a Pi4 desktop set instead, because of wifi.

Have you tried the ROD stack? Secure WiFi.

Asking because I saw it on sale and hadn’t come across one before. The spec sheet doesn’t say what OS it comes with – easy to assume Linux, but might have been Android. The uses suggested would fit with Android.
As such it doesn’t say how it boots – if it’s from SD card then swapping at least looks feasible, but if it’s some other way ???

The RPI400 uses a microSD Card the same as other Pi and can also be persuaded to boot RISC OS 5 from USB. It is essentially a RPi4 with slightly different networking, a built in keyboard and decent passive cooling which lets you run the RPi at 2000Mhz.

At present it is a great solution for RISC OS so long as you are using wired networking (ie not wifi).

But keep an eye on the forums etc and note that there is a RISC OS show this weekend where hopefully further developments may be announced (here’s hoping anyway).

Some comments of mine from other forum posts re the RPI400 – did a lot of testing in Jul-Aug-Sep 2024, not sure if there have been any updates since then but expect not – there has been a recent update to the ROL wifi stack but I have not tried it, finding the ROD stack more robust thus far.

“Noted today when accessing my RPi 400 with a network cable (as WiFi only works for 20-30 mins max before starting to have problems and ultimately freezing the machine – although can still be CTRL-BREAK or ALT-BREAK out) using TightVNC Viewer from the W10 machine over gigabit networking, how fast it is. Had got used to the lag when using with Wifi on the 4B. Over cabled networking I can actually watch mpeg video on the VNC viewer on W10 that is playing on the RPI 400! OK not 100%, but still impressive, previously on WiFi the picture would generally not display. (Do have the RPi 400 clocked at 2000Mhz -using the ROD stack). Think this is the same as George’s observation but going the other direction.”

““Wifi on RISCOS is a great achievement, but I must admit that so far I still use a wired connection (with the ROD stack) for performance reasons and stability.”
On the RPi 400 indeed ! On the Rpi4 i have got pretty good stability and speed with the ROD stack for WiFi.”

“Title should have mentioned WiFi as well…
Have had some success (finally) getting a fairly stable set up of RO 5.31 on a RPi4 using the ROD networking stack (7.07) and thereby being able to use RO over WiFi including headless with VNC connections.
But have not had such success with the RPi 400.
I have 2 variants, 1 a US keyboard layout and 1 a UK keyboard layout.
Loading up the working image from the RPi4 mentioned above was not successful with regards to WiFi.
The ROOL WiFi solution baked into 5.30/5.31 did not work. The ROD WiFi stack worked for short periods of time.
So I baked a clean disc image just for the RPi 400s (in case it was some module, update or program that I had also loaded that was causing issues).
The ROOL wifi implementation did not work. It would initially pick up and list 1 of the locally available wifi access points (not sure if it was the 2.4 or the 5.0Ghz one, but did not pick up both). I could not successfully connect to it. The Wifi name would change to code format ie AB:00:… etc and would not actually connect at all.
The ROD wifi stack 7-07 with network manager sees the wifi access points and will allow connection. It all works as expected but after approx 15-30 (max) minutes (varies) it will have a fault whereby the hour glass timer comes up and is an animated green colour. Obviously it stops working. The machine temporarily hangs in this state until an ALT-BREAK is pressed and network manager can be stopped. Then the machine will work again. A restart required to get WiFi working once more.
Obviously not really usable if it keeps timing out like this.
Tried the above tests on both the RPi400US and the RPi400UK machines with identical issues.
I believe the network chip in the RPi400 is different to the RPi4b and that there are even 2 variants of the chip used in the Rpi400 (reportedly due to covid period chip shortages).
I don’t know how to tell which RPi400 chips I am using but might be able to use SCRNinfo program. Don’t really want to pull them apart to read the numbers off the chips but can if needed.
Has anyone success with the RPi400s with WiFi and if yes do you know with which variant, ie older or more recent models.
Do you know how to check which one you have from serial numbers or similar ?
Would like to get these running too but am unable at present.”