Published on July 20, 2022.

I've had several people reach out to me about video that I posted on LinkedIn last week, which showed NetSuite running in a browser on a Raspberry Pi 400. I thought I'd write a little about that here, and answer some of the questions that I've received.

Here's the video that I posted on LinkedIn.

Click the image to view a larger version.

And here's another short video.

Click the image to view a larger version.

The Chromium Browser

The browser that I'm using is Chromium, the default browser that is preinstalled with Raspbian, the operating system used for Raspberry Pi devices. Raspbian is a version of Debian that has been optimized for the Raspberry Pi. Debian is a version of Linux.

The Raspberry Pi 400 Computer Kit

If you're interested in getting started with a Raspberry Pi, I recommend purchasing the Raspberry Pi 400 Computer Kit. As of this post, the Raspberry Pi 400 Computer Kit costs $100 USD. I purchased mine from CanaKit.

The Raspberry Pi 400 is a simple one-piece computer, consisting of a Raspberry Pi 4 tucked inside of the Official Raspberry Pi keyboard. To use it, you plug in the mouse and power supply, and connect it to a display via an HDMI cable. The mouse, power supply, and HDMI cable are included as part of the kit. The only thing you'll need to add is a monitor.

The Pi 4 consists of a quad-core 64-bit processor running at 1.8 GHz, with 4 GB of RAM. For networking, it supports both WiFi and ethernet. And for output, it supports dual HDMI displays, and 4K video playback. So it's more than capable of running browser-based applications such as NetSuite.

The Raspberry Pi 400 can be used as a sort of "NetSuite terminal." But you can also run other business apps on it, including LibreOffice, which came pre-installed on my Pi 400. LibreOffice is an open source suite that consists of programs for word processing, creating and editing of spreadsheets, slideshows, diagrams and drawings, working with databases, and more. Think of it as "Office for Pi."

Developing Apps for Raspberry Pi

I first became interested in Raspberry Pi computers when I discovered that you can use Xojo to develop apps that run on them. Xojo is a cross-platform application development tool. You can use it to develop desktop apps, mobile apps, Web apps, and console apps. The desktop, Web, and console apps can run on macOS, Windows, Linux. The mobile apps can run on iOS, and Android support is coming soon.

With Xojo, you can develop apps and run them in debug mode for as long as you'd like, at no charge. If you'd like to compile an app and run it as an executable, then you'll need to purchase a license. If you're only interested in building desktop and console apps for Raspberry Pi, Xojo offers a free "Xojo Pi" license. Otherwise, the type of license that you'll need - and its cost - will depend on the type of apps that you want to build. Visit the Xojo store for details.

If you're interested in developing apps for the Raspberry Pi, I highly recommend checking out Xojo.

Wrapping Up

I'm really enjoying using my Raspberry Pi with NetSuite, and have had no problems doing so. But the real joy has been in developing apps for it. I've developed a few desktop and Web apps that run on it, several of which integrate with NetSuite and Tulip.

If you have questions about any of this, please feel free to reach out to me. You should also check out both the Raspberry Pi Forums and Xojo Programming Forum.