Raspberry Pi 4 - Taking Notes

Raspberry Pi 4: Chronicling the Desktop Experience – Taking Notes – Week 25

Last Updated on July 22, 2020

Summary Table

Out of the 22 open source programs, the Raspbian repositories host packages for 8. For the other 14 programs, you’ll need to compile the source code for yourself.

NotesWritten inVersion in RepositoryCurrent release
JoplinJavaScriptNot present-
Zim Desktop WikiPython0.68 - March 20180.72.1 - January 2020
CherryTreePythonNot present-
TuskJavaScriptNot present-
SimplenoteJavaScriptNot present-
BasKet Note PadsC++2.11 - December 20162.49b - February 2019
TagSpacesJavaScriptNot present-
Trilium NotesJavaScriptNot present-
org-modeEmacs Lisp9.1.14 - August 20189.3.6 - February 2020
tomboy-ngPascalNot present-
MyNotexPascalNot present-
FeatherNotesC++0.4.6 - February 20190.6.0 - March 2020
WikidPadPythonNot present-
RedNotebookPython1.10.1 - April 20152.18 - February 2020
GloboNoteJavaNot present-
QOwnNotesC++Not present-
XpadC5.3.0 - December 20185.4.0 - January 2019
GnoteC++3.30.0 - September 20183.36.0 - March 2020
nvPYPython1.0.0 - December 20162.1.0 - March 2020
MyTetraC++Not present-
ElephantJavaNot present-
FromScratchJavaScriptNot present-

Most of the Raspbian packages only provide old or very old versions. I’m rapidly reaching the conclusion that you probably will want to compile the application even where there’s a Raspbian package.

The table doesn’t show the version number for software where there’s no Raspbian package; I’m really only trying to illustrate the difference between the Raspbian package and the latest version.

Notes Tools

Pages in this article:
Page 1 – Main page
Page 2 – Joplin, CherryTree, Tusk: Starting up
Page 3 – Survey of Notes Tools

Read all my blog posts about the RPI4.

Raspberry Pi 4 Blog
Week 36Manage your personal collections on the RPI4
Week 35Survey of terminal emulators
Week 34Search the desktop with the latest version of Recoll
Week 33Personal Information Managers on the RPI4
Week 32Keep a diary with the RPI4
Week 31Process complex mathematical functions, plot 2D and 3D graphs with calculators
Week 30Internet radio on this tiny computer. A detailed survey of open source software
Week 29Professionally manage your photo collection with digiKam
Week 28Typeset beautifully with LyX
Week 27Software that teaches young people how to learn basic computing skills and beyond
Week 26Firefox revisited - Raspbian now offers a real alternative to Chromium
Week 25Turn the Raspberry Pi 4 into a low power writing machine
Week 24Keep the kids learning and having fun
Week 23Lots of choices to view images
Week 22Listening to podcasts on the RPI4
Week 21File management on the RPI4
Week 20Open Broadcaster Software (OBS Studio) on the RPI4
Week 19Keep up-to-date with these news aggregators
Week 18Web Browsers Again: Firefox
Week 17Retro gaming on the RPI4
Week 16Screen capturing with the RPI4
Week 15Emulate the Amiga, ZX Spectrum, and the Atari ST on the RPI4
Week 14Choose the right model of the RPI4 for your desktop needs
Week 13Using the RPI4 as a screencaster
Week 12Have fun reading comics on the RPI4 with YACReader, MComix, and more
Week 11Turn the RPI4 into a complete home theater
Week 10Watching locally stored video with VLC, OMXPlayer, and others
Week 9PDF viewing on the RPI4
Week 8Access the RPI4 remotely running GUI apps
Week 7e-book tools are put under the microscope
Week 6The office suite is the archetypal business software. LibreOffice is tested
Week 5Managing your email box with the RPI4
Week 4Web surfing on the RPI4 looking at Chromium, Vivaldi, Firefox, and Midori
Week 3Video streaming with Chromium & omxplayerGUI as well as streamlink
Week 2A survey of open source music players on the RPI4 including Tauon Music Box
Week 1An introduction to the world of the RPI4 looking at musikcube and PiPackages

This blog is written on the RPI4.

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Nick1969
Nick1969
3 years ago

Have you considered simplenote?

Fred Q
Fred Q
3 years ago
Reply to  Nick1969

Luke says he’s looking at the top 4 free notes programs, Simplenote was rated 5th.

Brian
Brian
3 years ago

I use both tusk and Joplin on Linux. The both come as an app image. This is by for the easiest way to install them and they both work fully and seamlessly.

Craig G
Craig G
3 years ago
Reply to  Luke Baker

This is one of the things I dislike about the Raspberry Pi 4. There’s too little support for ARM among developers.

dkn
dkn
3 years ago

It looks like we cannot get Joplin running on Raspian (without a lot of work).

Fred
Fred
3 years ago
Reply to  dkn

Correct, and the Joplin developers show absolutely no interest whatsoever.

dkn
dkn
3 years ago
Reply to  Fred

A Google search for “joplin raspberry pi” brought up a Reddit post with a link to GitHub where the author stated “Joplin runs on electron which only runs on 64bit systems”. Raspbian is a 32-bit system. I wouldn’t want to back port something designed for a 64-bit system to a 32-bit system, either. The workarounds are wait for a 64-bit version of Raspbian, use an existing 64-bit system (e.g., Ubuntu Server), or use a different application. Luke has successfully found an application that doesn’t work on his target system. He has also successfully introduced me to an application I wasn’t aware of. Thanks, Luke!

Trent Calder
Trent Calder
3 years ago
Reply to  dkn

As Luke notes, it’s absurd to say Electron doesn’t run on Raspbian. Some random spud on Reddit is hardly an authoritative source.

Matt Hambleton
Matt Hambleton
3 years ago

I managed to get Joplin working on Raspbian without too much trouble and wrote a guide on how to install it on medium. Tried to link it here in the comments but I guess the comment must be filtered as spam.

Arthur Dent
Arthur Dent
3 years ago

I spent days trying to get Joplin to work on a Pi 4; many different guides, many different errors, mostly due to architecture or dependency issues. This guide worked perfectly on the 1st try. Works on Ubuntu Mate 64bit 20.04.1