Chris wrote:
Following up now that Tom's team has checked this rather than estimated it: every image in the Media preset (Jellyfin, Sonarr, Radarr, Prowlarr, qBittorrent, SABnzbd, Bazarr, Seerr, gluetun and the helpers) publishes a 64-bit ARM build, and so do the core apps SparkBox installs alongside it, so the demo really does run on an 8 GB Pi with an SSD. Two honest caveats. Jellyfin can't use the Pi's hardware transcoder, so pick a file the client plays natively (a plain H.264 MP4) or the demo will look worse than the software deserves. And Tom hasn't tested SparkBox on ARM himself: the Media preset is covered above, but keep the trial to that preset rather than the other app presets. One check before you start: on the Pi, uname -m should print aarch64. If it prints armv7l the Pi is on a 32-bit OS and nothing will install; reflash 64-bit Raspberry Pi OS first. Also, sorry: our terms page listed Raspberry Pi OS as officially supported while the docs said the opposite. That's corrected in today's release, and the installer now says what it thinks of the processor before it downloads anything.
Chris wrote:
Yes — you can build and test the Pi at home over Ethernet, then move it to another network. A new LAN IP does not by itself break SparkBox's apps: the containers use their internal service names, not your home's IP. At the new location, reconnect Ethernet and open SparkBox using the Pi's new address. Keep the external 5 TB drive mounted and available before starting the media stack, and keep its storage location unchanged; changing that location can make Jellyfin lose sight of the library. The Pi 4B is fine for a temporary Media-preset demo, but it will not match Intel/AMD transcoding performance. If the goal is specifically to demonstrate Intel performance, your Ubuntu Mac mini is the better demo machine.
Chris wrote:
Yes — an 8 GB Raspberry Pi with an SSD is a reasonable temporary demo box for SparkBox's Media preset, which includes Jellyfin and the media apps. The published estimate is about 3.5 GB, and 8 GB is the comfortable target. The Pi's ARM processor will run it more slowly than Intel or AMD, so it can demonstrate that the stack works but not Intel's playback or transcoding performance. Keep in mind the SSD boot drive also needs enough room for the media library, or attach separate storage. If you share the exact Pi model and 64-bit operating system, I can check that baseline before you set it up.
Wildwood32 wrote:
Thank you Chris and tom, The hardwaree is a Pi 4b 8 gb SSD boot/ configs and external 5tb HDD for storage. Its just to get their feet wet and give them a taste of the good life, Alternative i would use my old mac mini on Ubuntu. 16gb ram 500 gb ssd for boot/ configs and add an ext hdd. Can I build this on my network via ethernt and let them take it home and run it on a different ip, or will this screw up apps?