The BBB is quite a different beast from Arduino (and there are many of those; I assume you mean one of the simpler ones such as 'Uno'). Arduino is simple to use, like a bicycle. It's great when that is what you need. BBB is more like a powerful motorcycle - lots more capability but a step or ten up in complexity... and learning curve. BBB has a pretty complete operating system capability (I use Ubuntu 14.04) which the simpler Arduinos lack. BBB has ethernet, HDMI, etc baked in which Arduino does not, and the simpler Arduinos can't realistically add that. The more complex Arduinos can, but then you get to about the same price point as BBB and you arguably have a kludge. I don't mean any of this disparagingly, just that the "best" solution for you depends... on what you are trying to do, and a lot of other factors. Personally I like BBB for some applications where you want Linux, HDMI, Python, etc, and Teensy 3.1 for smaller ones. They are all tools - pick the one you like best or that fits your needs best.
You'd hope, this being 2015 (and not 1995) that there would be some *standard and portable* way to have hardware device drivers you could use anywhere. There are some efforts in that area such as Pingo <https://pypi.python.org/pypi/pingo/0.1.9> but this issue is gnarly... figure out a good solution and you'd have a great business. The use of I2C and SPI as common hardware interfaces has helped a lot but there is a long way to go until all sensors could be "plug and pray" on any hosting system. BBB also has the PRUs <http://elinux.org/BeagleBone_PRU_Notes> which seem like a solution for any number of special realtime interface issues. And the BBB community is pretty great too! Mr Kernal, Robert Nelson <https://github.com/RobertCNelson?tab=activity>, and Mr Beagleboard (Gerald Coley) and a ton of others are working hard to make BBB great. Adafruit is also a good source of BBB parts and tutorials <https://www.adafruit.com/category/75?gclid=CjwKEAjw2cOsBRD3xNbRp5eQxzYSJADZGYbzr3b7SK924RUB0eE7SegsUotk-6NzpIrehZ9pKqCdXBoC1qDw_wcB> . Welcome to the community! -- For more options, visit http://beagleboard.org/discuss --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "BeagleBoard" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
