If you’ve read my articles on XDA, you may have noticed that I like to work on bizarre computing projects every now and then. After all, there are a lot of cool ideas you can bring to life on modern hardware, including gaming on virtual machines, running Apple’s highly guarded macOS inside a mere Docker container, or using a Raspberry Pi as a laptop.

Speaking of the Raspberry Pi, I’ll admit that not all of my experiments turn out right. Some end up as borderline useless projects, while others are so limited in their functionality that you can’t consider them useful. Whether it’s due to the performance drawbacks of the Arm architecture or the compatibility issues with certain packages, here are some Raspberry Pi projects that aren’t worth spending your time on.

4 Bare-metal Windows 11 PC

A barely functional system that will drain your patience

Despite the major advancements in the Arm ecosystem thanks to Snapdragon X Elite laptops, running Windows 11 natively on the Raspberry Pi remains a pipe dream. Well, you could technically flash the Raspberry Pi UEFI package on a microSD card and use it to boot into an Arm64 image of Windows 11, but I wouldn’t recommend doing that.

Even on an SSD, the installation process is a huge slog, and you’ll have to use a couple of workarounds before you can boot into the Windows 11 desktop. Even then, the performance is far from ideal, and you'll have to contend with several compatibility issues. What’s more, genius developer Botspot recently created a tool that lets you whip up a virtual machine on your Raspberry Pi OS… and it runs far better than the bare-metal Windows 11 setup. Don’t get me wrong, the fact that we’ve got a few methods to run Windows 11 on the Raspberry Pi is nothing short of amazing. However, there’s no reason to go with a bare-metal installation when you get superior performance by running Windows 11 as a VM inside your favorite Raspberry Pi distribution.

3 PS3 emulation box

The Raspberry Pi is too underpowered for the job

With their small form factor, low power consumption, and support for multiple emulation distributions, Single-Board Computers like the Raspberry Pi are amazing at running titles designed for older consoles. Unfortunately, that statement doesn’t extend to every gaming system released in the past, as even the 8GB version of the Raspberry Pi 5 can’t handle PlayStation 3 titles.

For context, the developers at RPCS3 recently released the Arm version of the emulator, which is compatible with the Raspberry Pi OS. Unfortunately, the Raspberry Pi series lacks the GPU horsepower to emulate 2D titles at playable frame rates, let alone their 3D counterparts.

2 Steam gaming machine

My phone can emulate PC games better than the RPi

This one’s kind of a no-brainer, but if you’re planning to run PC titles on an SBC, you might want to stay away from Arm boards like the Raspberry Pi. Setting up Box86 and Box64 emulators is already a job and a half, and you’ll have to spend some extra time configuring the Steam client.

Unfortunately, the performance is downright abysmal on anything besides 2D (and some old-school 3D) games, and even then, you may have to turn the resolution down a notch to maintain playable FPS. The only workaround involves connecting a graphics card to the Raspberry Pi 5, but the terrible bottleneck from the PCIe 2.0 x1 slot and driver compatibility issues make it hard to recommend this wacky stunt.

1 Proxmox home server

That can barely run an Arm VM or two

I’ve been a Proxmox fan for a long time, so you can imagine my joy when I heard it’s possible to run this amazing home server OS on the Raspberry Pi. After all, the newer Raspberry Pi models pair exceedingly well with UmbrelOS, YunoHost, FreedomBox, and other containerization distros, so they should be able to handle a handful of Arm VMs and containers inside a makeshift Proxmox server, right?

Similar to Windows 11, Proxmox also requires you to go the UEFI route, so you’ll have to deal with a boorish installation process and broken drivers. The Raspberry Pi 5 UEFI, in particular, doesn’t have functional Ethernet drivers, meaning you’ll have to buy a USB-to-RJ45 adapter or grab a LAN HAT to access the web UI. To add insult to injury, the Raspberry Pi 5 can’t handle more than two virtual machines simultaneously, and even then, you’ll have to tweak several settings just to boot into them. With some elbow grease, you can technically run Arm-based LXC containers on the Pi-flavored Proxmox server, but there’s little reason to do so when you can easily run your favorite services with Docker.

Nevertheless, the Raspberry Pi is still fantastic for DIY enthusiasts

For every failed abomination, you’ll find ten times as many useful tinkering projects for your Raspberry Pi. As I mentioned earlier, the Raspberry Pi family pairs well with retro gaming projects, and if you’re on a high-end model, you can turn it into a self-hosting behemoth with a handful of containerization projects.

Then there’s Home Assistant for owners of smart gadgets and IoT paraphernalia, while a Raspberry Pi-powered Octoprint server works wonders when you’re into 3D printing. Throw in a camera module, and you can build a time-lapse camera or a surveillance system with your tiny SBC. And the list goes on and on…