Raspberry Pi is shipping!!!

jinjuku said:
I understand that it's a fragmented market and once a profit seeking enterprise gets involved it will speed up (like it always does, It took Apple to put a *nix on the desktop).

Looking at some of the prepackaged Droid and Genesi stuff also.
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Realistically you would be better off with the beagle board stuff as there development has been more dynamic because of changes they made for corporate customers. RPi will prob ably be to static for a corporate backer to get on board.
 
jinjuku said:
I understand that it's a fragmented market and once a profit seeking enterprise gets involved it will speed up (like it always does, It took Apple to put a *nix on the desktop).

Looking at some of the prepackaged Droid and Genesi stuff also.
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These are more geared towards development and taking the place of some micro controller duties. That's why they have GPIO.
 
Maximus825 said:
These are more geared towards development and taking the place of some micro controller duties. That's why they have GPIO.
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Definitely. The Raspberry Pi has been a runaway success so far, but I'm surprised at just how many people are buying one for all the wrong reasons. It's a great platform for learning about Linux, embedded systems programming, etc. but it's going to make for an awful desktop.

Running anything from an SD Card is a miserable experience. You know the speedup you get going from a mechanical HDD to an SSD? Switching to an SD Card is like going in the opposite direction. Latency is awful. IOPs are incredibly low. Sustained throughput is decent if you get an expensive card, but that's not going to help for OS tasks. On all of ARM boards that I use for active development (console only) I attach a small SSD via USB and do everything out of a chroot on the SSD. It's a night and day difference in usability, even on just the console. It's also possible on most platforms to have the boot loader load the OS from a USB attached SSD, but it's not trivial at this point.

Also, driver and software support is going to be a painful uphill battle. I work a lot with Beagleboards and Pandaboards, which have been out for quite a while, and anything beyond basic driver support is still very sketchy. Expect to spend a lot of times combing through forum threads and on IRC if you're doing anything beyond using pre-packaged OS images.

On the other hand, if you're looking to actually learn about embedded systems and Linux then this is a great platform. There are going to be plenty of opportunities to work with open source projects, learn about the whole software stack from boot loader through Linux kernel, and tweak things at a very low level. The SD card makes this un-brickable, so a clean system is just one reformat away. Awesome platform for learning and experimenting.

If you're looking for a general-purpose system to do X task, this probably isn't it. Even for XBMC, the onboard MPEG2 decoder isn't licensed by the R-Pi foundation, so you're limited to what you can decode. And like I said, anything with a user interface is going to be painfully laggy without some workarounds due to the SD Card primary storage. Also, keep in mind this is just a bare board unless you buy a case.
 
tamngoman said:
does anyone know any alternative to raspberry pi?
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Pandaboard ($200) is the way to go if you can afford it. Best balance of modern hardware with decent driver support.

BeagleBoard ($150) and BeagleBone ($100) are more mature but slower and less feature rich.

There are several newcomers (ODROID-X, Gooseberry, etc.) but do not purchase anything cutting edge unless you enjoy messing with kernels, compiling code, applying patches from mailing lists, etc. Support is generally terrible with immature and niche ARM boards. For example, the Pandaboard is one of the few ARM boards listed as a target platform for Ubuntu 12.04, but you have to jump through hoops (adjusting CPU frequency governor) just to get it stable enough to last more than a day without crashing. And that's as good as it gets for out of the box support right now.

Nothing is going to match the price of the Pi, though. The price is what makes it so attractive. If you're looking for something cheap to hack on, consider grabbing one of the cheap micro controller platforms. If you're looking to hack on Linux, you can always get started in an emulator until your Pi shows up.
 
AgentQ said:
Pandaboard ($200) is the way to go if you can afford it. Best balance of modern hardware with decent driver support.

BeagleBoard ($150) and BeagleBone ($100) are more mature but slower and less feature rich.

There are several newcomers (ODROID-X, Gooseberry, etc.) but do not purchase anything cutting edge unless you enjoy messing with kernels, compiling code, applying patches from mailing lists, etc. Support is generally terrible with immature and niche ARM boards. For example, the Pandaboard is one of the few ARM boards listed as a target platform for Ubuntu 12.04, but you have to jump through hoops (adjusting CPU frequency governor) just to get it stable enough to last more than a day without crashing. And that's as good as it gets for out of the box support right now.

Nothing is going to match the price of the Pi, though. The price is what makes it so attractive. If you're looking for something cheap to hack on, consider grabbing one of the cheap micro controller platforms. If you're looking to hack on Linux, you can always get started in an emulator until your Pi shows up.
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haha sweet, ill actually look into pandaboard. there is like no Pi shipping :[
 
Ordered mine but it hasn't shipped yet. How long is it taking for everyone to get it?
 
Got mine today.

Will be looking at getting AirPlay running on it and then integrating it into the Cadillac's entertainment system to allow me to AirPlay audio & video!
 
I got mine sitting nicely inside as HP MicroServer as router / VPN / NFS and DHCP server using a second USB nic (running Raspbian 14). Love that little beauty (and sits at a load of 0.08 at 800Mhz and 224/32MB memory split)
 
Anyone have a case recommendation? I'm finally getting mine on Monday. Probably just going to use it stand alone to mess around with programming, so I'd like to get a decent case to keep it safe.
 
Ozzman said:
You brought it back to life. My how much has changed in 4 years though
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He didn't, it was a bot post which was deleted.
Also, you just res'ed the thread again nearly a month later, so... (y)
 
Red Falcon said:
https://www.raspberrypi.org/

;)
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Indeed, there is likely an appropriate external reference to most questions.

My post was more to foster a discussion around what the good people [H] thinks is coming next for Pi, and possibly other small computers. Someone always has some interesting point of view on future direction of these things in tech - and I'd like to hear it.
 
kniwor said:
Indeed, there is likely an appropriate external reference to most questions.

My post was more to foster a discussion around what the good people [H] thinks is coming next for Pi, and possibly other small computers. Someone always has some interesting point of view on future direction of these things in tech - and I'd like to hear it.
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I would check this thread on ARM processors in general:

https://hardforum.com/threads/arm-server-status-update-reality-check.1893942/page-2
 
kniwor said:
Indeed, there is likely an appropriate external reference to most questions.

My post was more to foster a discussion around what the good people [H] thinks is coming next for Pi, and possibly other small computers. Someone always has some interesting point of view on future direction of these things in tech - and I'd like to hear it.
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The Nvidia Jetson Nano completely obviates any need to buy Pi, or the next generation of Pi, unless you need the standard hardware adapter. It's a cheap board from a major vendor with vastly-superior performance to anything Pi, and it actually has a future upgrade path (to TX2).

Raspberry Pi will always be produced on two-generations-old process node to cut costs (which is why they have trouble with overheating with just four A53s), and was really intended as a promotional product for Broadcom (which is why they released it so cheap in such small quantities). Pi.org can keep hacking around it's limitations by stacking on more CPUs, I don't think there's any project to replace the chipset and video core with something brand-new. To Broadcom, the job it intended to do is done. Since VideoCore use in products has mostly died anyway, so there's very little reason for them top press-on with a revamp. And while Pi could switch to something newer, it's doubtful they would get the same sweetheart licensing deal, and even if they did, they would have to design a compatibility layer to deal with the chipset transition, which adds costs.

You're left to your own devices if you want something significantly better, but luckily there's now wide support for ARM on Linux. You don't have to stay in the little Pi House with the Training Wheels of Raspbian permanently attached - just buy the Nvidia Jetson Nano for $100, and be done wondering.
 
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whateverer said:
The Nvidia Jetson Nano completely obviates any need to buy Pi, or the next generation of Pi, unless you need the standard hardware adapter. It's a cheap board from a major vendor with vastly-superior performance to anything Pi, and it actually has a future upgrade path (to TX2).

Raspberry Pi will always be produced on two-generations-old process node (which is why they have trouble with overheating with just four A53s), and was really intended as a promotional product for Broadcom (which is why they released it so cheap in such small quantities). Pi.org can keep hacking around it's limitations by stacking on more CPUs, I don't think there's any project to replace the chipset and video core with something brand-new. To Broadcom, the job it intended to do is done. Since VideoCore use in products has mostly died anyway, so there's very little reason for them top press-on with a revamp. And while Pi could switch to something newer, it's doubtful they would get the same sweetheart licensing deal, and even if they did, they would have to design a compatibility layer to deal with the chipset transition, which adds costs.

You're left to your own devices if you want something significantly better, but luckily there's now wide support for ARM on Linux. You don't have to stay in the little Pi House with the Training Wheels of Raspbian permanently attached - just buy the Nvidia Jetson Nano for $100, and be done wondering.
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Interesting view - I looked at the Jetson nano, and I am wondering how the support and power draw is.

My use case for Pi is basically to just attach a couple of cheap portable HDDs and use as a 24/7 online backup server with something like owncloud. Benefit of Pi is that raspbian is mature, and has quite the community around it.
 
kniwor said:
Interesting view - I looked at the Jetson nano, and I am wondering how the support and power draw is.

My use case for Pi is basically to just attach a couple of cheap portable HDDs and use as a 24/7 online backup server with something like owncloud. Benefit of Pi is that raspbian is mature, and has quite the community around it.
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But the downside of Pi is, it's so mature that the reason you are posting in this thread is, it's not modern enough for you. Like the I/O limits of a USB 2 I/O backplane.

The PI 3 b plus can hit 5w at full-load, but it hits just 1.75w at idle.

pi-power-consumption-model-3-b-plus.png


The Jetson is using a much more advanced 20nm process node, and has a better more modern power management, so it actually uses less power at idle:

Jetson TX1 draws as little as 1 watt of power or lower while idle, around 8-10 watts under typical CUDA load, and up to 15 watts TDP when the module is fully utilized, for example during gameplay and the most demanding vision routines
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.

The Cut-down Nano version peaks at just 10w, because it has half the CUDA cores, and a few hundred mhz slower CPU. But it still destroys Pi 3 Plus.

https://devblogs.nvidia.com/nvidia-...dule-drives-next-wave-of-autonomous-machines/
 
Red Falcon said:
http://macchiatobin.net/product/macchiatobin-double-shot/

This is a bit more pricey, but has a quad-core Cortex-A72, supports up to 16GB DDR4 ECC SDRAM, and PCI-E 3.0 4x.
Not to mention some nice NICs.
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That is true overkill.

It's a pretty good deal for a system with dual 10GE (if you need such a thing), but overpriced for "people looking for something much better than a Pi. " The Nano fits that description, with a real PCIe backplane, 1Gbps networking, USB 3.0 ports, and HDMI 2.0b, for $99.

Who needs 16GB ram for a media server? You also have to pay for that ram stick, while the 4GB ram is included on the Nano.
 
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whateverer said:
Who needs 16GB ram for a media server?
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I would say for Plex it would be really useful, but not sure if the CPU would keep up with it.
It would be great for Aarch64 VMs, though, at least for a small dev environment.
 
whateverer Thanks, that's awesome detail!

Reading more into this, it seems Jetpack supports Ubuntu - which is pretty critial to success (some kind of debian support). But are the binaries built for this architechture? Can I just do "sudo apt-get install xxx" or do I need to compile the applications.

You're seriously making me consider an upgrade!


EDIT: One more question - what are your thoughts on also using the Jetson to double as a 4k video player in addition to Owncloud server?

EDIT2: Looks like the CPU is ARM - so should be good on the sudo apt-get part if I understand correctly
 
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It runs Quad ARM A57s, instead of Quad A53s. Same ARM64 architecture as the Pi, just up to 3x faster.

The application code should work just fine from one CPU to the next, but you'll need to change the kernel driverset for each board.
 
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Red Falcon said:
I would say for Plex it would be really useful, but not sure if the CPU would keep up with it.
It would be great for Aarch64 VMs, though, at least for a small dev environment.
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Plex isn't RAM dependent at all. 4-8GB is plenty.
 
whateverer
So I got the Jetson nano, and trying to use it now.

However, my fears about small computers other than Pi are slowly coming true. It is definitely a great powerful little thing - but support is really poor and things are broeken everywhere it seems.

Installed Jetpack 4.2, and iptables match rules do not work on this installation. Appears to be an issue with how nVidia compiled the kernel. This has already sucked a lot of my time. If you have the nano, see if you can get something like this to work:
sudo iptables -A OUTPUT -m owner --uid-owner <some username> -j DROP​
 
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