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Cloud services and hardware alternative (lemmy.world)
submitted 6 days ago by manualoverride@lemmy.world to c/buyeuropean@feddit.uk
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I was under the assumption that Raspberry Pi was a US based company, but I just found out they are European and almost all made in Wales.

It’s probably the most European computer you can buy, with a massive following of enthusiastic developers creating alternatives for all the cloud services we are trying to stop using.

This has confirmed my choice to try and replace the US based cloud services my family and I are currently using.

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[-] manicdave@feddit.uk 35 points 6 days ago

There's an annoying meme that Europe doesn't do tech things and it's infuriating. The world would be a very different place were it not for companies like Raspberry pi, ARM, Arduino and Prusa.

Unfortunately the press and politicians seem to think it doesn't count unless the company is headed by a complete arsehole determined to enclose other people's property.

[-] Flisty@mstdn.social 14 points 6 days ago

Goes hand in hand with stereotypical attitudes of the US v Europe, imo: the land of lone wolf "entrepreneurs" goes hard on big branding and [social] media platforms whereas Europe is a bit more likely to respect back-office bureaucracy and a lot of its technical prowess is in "stuff that goes inside something else to make it work"

[-] Witziger_Waschbaer@feddit.org 3 points 5 days ago

ASML. Dutch company and the one and only supplier of EUVL machines, requiered by TSMC to make their most advanced chips.

[-] Pirata@lemm.ee 6 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

There's an annoying meme that Europe doesn't do tech things and it's infuriating. The world would be a very different place were it not for companies like Raspberry pi, ARM, Arduino and Prusa.

Believe me, I was guilty of this. I think the US propaganda as the best tech creators ever is strong (or maybe ours is too weak/nonexistent).

This trade war started by Cheeto President has been a wake up call on many levels, this being one of them.

So far I've managed to get rid of pretty much all US tech (including adopting Linux and a mostly deGoogled phone). Better late than never.

[-] grue@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago

determined to enclose other people's property.

I appreciate this succinct way of phrasing the problem.

[-] grue@lemmy.world 26 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

I was under the assumption that Raspberry Pi was a US based company, but I just found out they are European and almost all made in Wales.

What a weird assumption. The Raspberry Pi was originally conceived as a spiritual successor of the BBC Micro, a tool to teach computer literacy to children. That's why it's made by a non-profit foundation and why they go so hard on having good documentation and showcasing projects and whatnot. That's also how it became such a success and almost a "standard," setting it apart from being just another random single-board computer.

I guess it's an indictment of how far the Raspberry Pi Foundation has strayed from its purpose that it's possible for people to be aware of Raspberry Pi but unaware of that history.

(By the way: ever wonder why they picked ARM for the CPU? At least in part, it's because it's British: "ARM" originally stood for "Acorn RISC Machine.")

See also:

[-] BeardedGingerWonder@feddit.uk 3 points 5 days ago

I lost a lot of love for Raspberry Pi over the years, I used to be a huge advocate, I lost faith around the time of the chip shortage when they abandoned hobbyists for commercial customers.

[-] grue@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago

Yeah, same here. It's unfortunate that even with Raspberry Pi's fall from grace, it remains the choice because all the other SBCs suck even worse. I'd love for some entity like Pine64 to step up, but while they make noises about being open source the support and follow-through and community just isn't there compared to Raspberry Pi.

[-] BeardedGingerWonder@feddit.uk 1 points 5 days ago

Radxa, lattepanda and orangepi all seem to make pretty interesting boards fwiw, but as you say everything seems to have its issues and I've enough projects to be getting on with without learning a new platform. I've a couple of projects that will likely demand a pi in the end - but again it's mostly down to the software/hardware that's standardized round the pi rather than the specific features of the pi itself.

[-] manualoverride@lemmy.world 6 points 6 days ago

I really have no excuse, I don’t live far from Cambridge and I guess I’ve just only ever seen Raspberry Pi content from American YouTubers like Jeff Geerling.

Since Maplin died I’m not aware of any tech stores I would go to when in search of something like a Pi or Arduino.

I’ve got an old Atom mini PC which I’m planning to install HomeAssistant on, but once that’s operational I’ll get some Pi bits and look into web hosting, email, NAS and voice assistant options.

[-] rmuk@feddit.uk 3 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

If you're going to have a PC running Home Assistant full-time it might be worth looking into something like ProxMox which let's you run multiple virtual machines on commodity devices, even something as simple as an Atom USFF PC. That way you can do all your self-hosting on a single, dinky box

[-] Flisty@mstdn.social 5 points 6 days ago

@manualoverride @grue the raspberry pi flagship store is in the Grand Arcade

[-] manualoverride@lemmy.world 4 points 6 days ago

Now you’ve done it! Just got clearance from the finance director to plan a day in Cambridge for some punting and Pi.

[-] Flisty@mstdn.social 2 points 6 days ago

wahey! Don't fall in!

[-] Emperor@feddit.uk 17 points 6 days ago

Yep, it's a great British success story.

The only issue has been availability. You might be better using a thin client or SFF PC.

Although favourites tend to be from HP or Dell, looking around there is:

  • Axel - French
  • Igel - German
  • Praim - Italy but information is skimpy
[-] SleafordMod@feddit.uk 8 points 6 days ago

I've thought of self-hosting a website at home on something like a Raspberry Pi but I thought of two problems with that idea:

  1. I think most ISPs don't like it if you try to host a website on a domestic internet connection, so maybe they would cancel your contract at some point.
  2. If somebody out there doesn't like the website you're hosting then maybe they would try to attack your home server and therefore your home network, and maybe they would compromise your home network. Maybe it's just safer to host a website on something like Hetzner.

I don't know if I'm just worrying too much. Maybe I am.

[-] qjkxbmwvz@startrek.website 8 points 6 days ago

  1. Certainly depends; and it depends on traffic volume!

  2. Definitely something to consider; many folks (myself included) use a free/cheap VPS as the endpoint, and reverse proxy to home, via some VPN (WireGuard in my case). Works well, and lots of guides online.

[-] SleafordMod@feddit.uk 2 points 5 days ago

Maybe I should try that. Thank you for the info.

[-] grue@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago

I think most ISPs don't like it if you try to host a website on a domestic internet connection, so maybe they would cancel your contract at some point.

It's amazing how much damage ISPs have done to the Internet by having policies like that. Personally, I believe it was a significant factor in the rise of centralized walled garden services like Facebook.

As such, I would encourage you to self-host a website as a matter of protest and principle.

[-] SleafordMod@feddit.uk 1 points 4 days ago

I could give it a shot, and see if my ISP notices. If they do object then I guess I could move to a cheap VPS.

[-] cubism_pitta@lemmy.world 5 points 6 days ago

I've been hosting sites oof my home connection for over 15 years.

Webservers and such don't have any problems so long as you have the bandwidth to support them.

I recommend (no idea on EU alt) a service like Cloudflare as that will boost your overall security / hide your real IP from end users

The big piece that will not work from a residential connection is running a mail server. Thats partly because ISPs try to block them and also because most servers you would send mail to will reject any connections from a residential IP address.

[-] SleafordMod@feddit.uk 2 points 5 days ago

Interesting, I might look into that. I was thinking of just renting a VPS but maybe I don't need to. Thanks for the info.

[-] choutos@lemmy.world 4 points 6 days ago

Bunny.net is a good cloudflare alternative

[-] xiii@lemmy.world 8 points 6 days ago

https://www.scaleway.com/ French company with data centers in Paris, Amsterdam, Warsaw.

In another thread on lemmy today https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en/TUXEDO-InfinityBook-Pro-14-Gen9-AMD.tuxedo#specs

[-] TheMightyCat@lemm.ee 8 points 6 days ago

Does anyone know of a European alternative for a x86 single board pc? I like the pi but it being ARM is a deal breaker for me.

Currently i use Lattepanda and they are great, so if something like that exists but European i would be very thankful.

[-] 9point6@lemmy.world 9 points 6 days ago

x86 is only licensed to be made by Intel, AMD and whoever owns the Cyrix and VIA licenses these days. Intel has not issued new licenses since the 90s and doesn't intend to ever again.

Due to this, there is basically no chance there will ever be an x86 CPU manufactured in the EU, I'm afraid.

If you accept the CPU won't be European though, I'm fairly sure there are a decent number of European industrial PC manufacturers to choose from, which are half the time basically SBCs with a heatsink attached.

I'm curious what you're doing on an SBC that explicitly requires x86, though? I can't really think of anything you'd use an SBC for that wouldn't be workable on ARM unless you need some specific piece of compute-intensive (and therefore not practical to run via QEMU or something), proprietary software—perhaps full fat virtualization of something maybe preventing a docker-like alternative?

[-] TheMightyCat@lemm.ee 4 points 6 days ago

It is part convience and part necessity. My entire infrastructure is currently x86 and introducing ARM into it seems like a hassle, if i develop and test software on my x86 based workstation i expect it to just work then, not having to deal with either compiling to ARM or using emulation. Also part of this that currently everything I use runs Arch, which only officially supports x86.

Which brings us to necessity, my software currently runs with manually written simd instructions. Ofcourse I can write ARM NEON polyfills for these, but again that takes a lot of work.

So while not impossible to use ARM it currently is a lot of work to use. I'm gonna save that time for when the big riscv migration comes.

[-] grue@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago

Which brings us to necessity, my software currently runs with manually written simd instructions. Ofcourse I can write ARM NEON polyfills for these, but again that takes a lot of work.

Using the word "polyfill" to describe that is making my eye twitch, so thanks for that!

[-] exchange12rocks@lemm.ee 2 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

There IS a European (as in designed in geographical Europe) CPU that's binary compatible with x86 and even can run Windows: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elbrus-8S

[-] qjkxbmwvz@startrek.website 1 points 6 days ago

I'm curious what you're doing on an SBC that explicitly requires x86, though?

Not parent, but I used ARM SBCs for a bit, and while it was nice, my x86 experience with a nuc has been much, much better. HW acceleration works on some RPIs, and sort of worked on my Orange Pi 5+, but only when using an ancient kernel which had some hacks (like, kernel debug messages saying "DISABLE THIS FOR RELEASE!"). And afaik RPI 5 doesn't support hw encoding (not to mention no SSD support).

Basically, my experience was that the hardware was neat if sometimes limited, the energy consumption was great, but the software/kernel support...ugh. YMMV of course.

[-] Cobrachicken@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago

Only thing that comes to my mind are old Fujitsu-Siemens workstations, their mainboards were assembled in Germany (Augsburg afaik). But those times are gone now.

[-] thelittleblackbird@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 6 days ago

Please allow me to share this community here just in case is still unaware https://lemmy.world/c/selfhosted

Have a nice day

this post was submitted on 26 Mar 2025
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