Beginner looking for help building cyber deck

Using the Raspberry Pi 4 is a good starting point for what you're doing. In the future you could consider customising it a bit more when you're certain what you want it to do and what features you need; as in, creating a printed circuit board, lowering the size of it, and maybe using a Raspberry Pi Compute Module.

At the moment you have some choices to make, do you want to go for 'hats' on the Raspberry Pi, or do you want to go for USB devices?

There are trade-offs with each, 'hats' you need to make sure are fixed to the Raspberry Pi so that they don't move a great deal, and some are only designed to have one at a time on them.

USB devices can be bulky, and while they have good friction on the ports, they could come loose or disconnect. So you will want to consider that in your design, and be thoughtful of the types of USB cables that you use. There are a lot of options out there, such as 'magnetic' ones that are USB-C or otherwise, that will easily detach, making the weak point the magnet, rather than the USB port itself.

Storage is a consideration, as there's now nvme hats, but you can also simply use storage from microSD or USB. If you're writing 'logs' a lot from running scans, or writing to a database, you'll want to consider nvme or at least USB storage over the finite writes of microsd. The microSD should ideally be used as an immutable operating system boot, but not relied upon for your operating system booting.

There are some good 'audio hats' out there, but depending how lo-fi you want to be you can get away with a USB DAC. As for pentesting, depends what you're going for, USB WiFi and Bluetooth adapters are what you'd be looking at, and whether or not they support promiscuous mode, but then the Raspberry Pi has onboard WiFi.

Heat dissipation should be a consideration, despite the claims, the Raspberry Pi 4 and 5 do need a heatsink and ideally some form of active cooling to move the heat away, else you'll be throttling the Pi - unless as a 'portable' device you're looking for something that can run 'low power' anyway.

Durability will mainly come from your enclosure, and any clasps or clamps you put on the USB ports as those will be the main parts you will want to protect. The last thing you want is to have to re-solder your ports back on. Having said that, you could break it out with a USB Hub and affix the Pi to a pocket in your bag (that's appropriately cooled).

A bit more detail as to the specifics you're looking at working with will help to guide this a bit more.

Using the Raspberry Pi 4 is a good starting point for what you're doing. In the future you could consider customising it a bit more when you're certain what you want it to do and what features you need; as in, creating a printed circuit board, lowering the size of it, and maybe using a Raspberry Pi Compute Module.

At the moment you have some choices to make, do you want to go for 'hats' on the Raspberry Pi, or do you want to go for USB devices?

There are trade-offs with each, 'hats' you need to make sure are fixed to the Raspberry Pi so that they don't move a great deal, and some are only designed to have one at a time on them.

USB devices can be bulky, and while they have good friction on the ports, they could come loose or disconnect. So you will want to consider that in your design, and be thoughtful of the types of USB cables that you use. There are a lot of options out there, such as 'magnetic' ones that are USB-C or otherwise, that will easily detach, making the weak point the magnet, rather than the USB port itself.

Storage is a consideration, as there's now nvme hats, but you can also simply use storage from microSD or USB. If you're writing 'logs' a lot from running scans, or writing to a database, you'll want to consider nvme or at least USB storage over the finite writes of microsd. The microSD should ideally be used as an immutable operating system boot, but not relied upon for your operating system booting.

There are some good 'audio hats' out there, but depending how lo-fi you want to be you can get away with a USB DAC. As for pentesting, depends what you're going for, USB WiFi and Bluetooth adapters are what you'd be looking at, and whether or not they support promiscuous mode, but then the Raspberry Pi has onboard WiFi.

Heat dissipation should be a consideration, despite the claims, the Raspberry Pi 4 and 5 do need a heatsink and ideally some form of active cooling to move the heat away, else you'll be throttling the Pi - unless as a 'portable' device you're looking for something that can run 'low power' anyway.

Durability will mainly come from your enclosure, and any clasps or clamps you put on the USB ports as those will be the main parts you will want to protect. The last thing you want is to have to re-solder your ports back on. Having said that, you could break it out with a USB Hub and affix the Pi to a pocket in your bag (that's appropriately cooled).

A bit more detail as to the specifics you're looking at working with will help to guide this a bit more.

Hey thanks for taking the time to reply! Honestly I just learnt about hats today and was going to make the whole thing strictly USB. What my vision is right now is trying to make it as close to the devices they use in the Watch Dogs games, Pretty much just a Swiss army knife of a machine. I also wanted to incorporate some type of artistic additions whether that be a case design or something audio related.

If it helps put things in perspective right now for the OS im going for Kali Linux as it has pretty much all if not more than what im looking for.

I was also thinking to make it into the bag itself like you suggested (Some sort of sling/fanny pack bag) which might just be the way to go, although I would have to figure out a way for user input which in hindsight shouldn't be too difficult.

Honestly the only thing im struggling with now is figuring out the exacts of what i need to buy and actually planning it out/piecing it together. This will probably be a trial and error prototype project that I will have to revise but I definitely look forward to having a cool gadget I can show off!

DoItForRodagia212 said:

Hey thanks for taking the time to reply! Honestly I just learnt about hats today and was going to make the whole thing strictly USB

The benefits to using hats can be better control over how they work, from a power perspective at least.

DoItForRodagia212 said:

What my vision is right now is trying to make it as close to the devices they use in the Watch Dogs games, Pretty much just a Swiss army knife of a machine. I also wanted to incorporate some type of artistic additions whether that be a case design or something audio related.

Sure, you're looking for that balance of functionality, practicality and aesthetics.

DoItForRodagia212 said:

If it helps put things in perspective right now for the OS im going for Kali Linux as it has pretty much all if not more than what im looking for.

Most linux distro's will have what you're looking for. Kali linux is intended to be used as a 'boot into a temporary environment when needed and dispose after' kind of deal, rather than a 'perpetual use and maintain'. You might want to prototype with raspberry pi os / raspbian / another os that gives you more options and control, and then go down the path of customising / minimising the operating system to be built for what you're doing.

DoItForRodagia212 said:

I was also thinking to make it into the bag itself like you suggested (Some sort of sling/fanny pack bag) which might just be the way to go, although I would have to figure out a way for user input which in hindsight shouldn't be too difficult.

You have options. Bluetooth being one of them, else USB should be easy to route through cloth/clothing. There are some good examples of sling bags for say, the Steam Deck at this point.

DoItForRodagia212 said:

Honestly the only thing im struggling with now is figuring out the exacts of what i need to buy and actually planning it out/piecing it together. This will probably be a trial and error prototype project that I will have to revise but I definitely look forward to having a cool gadget I can show off!

Take it a 'purpose at a time' and then focus on identifying what you need to do that. For example if you already have the raspberry pi, have a go at doing each individual 'thing' once, such as scanning and identifying data from packet captures, war driving, reading environmental sensors. Once you've got the code and automation for each down, then look at what it would take to 'initiate' that in a way you want to control, observe how you want to control it, should it be a button that runs a script? or do you want a full fat keyboard and display? Do you want to switch it to a mode that exposes a web interface from your phone?

Once you've worked through some of these you start to get an idea for what you need for each 'component' of it and then looking at what software and code you need to execute it.