Re: [9fans] RasPi why?

[hiro]

linux device trees are horror

Re: [9fans] RasPi why?

[hiro]

i cannot run armv5 binaries on armv5. what gives...

Re: [9fans] RasPi why?

[Rui Carmo]

Actually, there has been a trend towards standardising the device tree, and I 
can run ARM5 binaries on an ARMv7 without hassles.

The jump to ARM64 does have some constraints, but I haven’t come across 
anything significant yet (at least on Linux).

And you _will_ have ARM laptops (in volume) very soon — and I’m not talking 
about Chromebooks.

R.

> On 5 Feb 2018, at 09:22, hiro <23h...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> About diversity:
> 
> We're not at the size where we would move industry.
> This cost of supporting ARM is higher than it needs to, because every
> new ARM platform and every new SoC using a new ARM platform does
> everything differently, there are no stable standards or
> backwards-compatibility.
> 
> I think there are mips laptops nowadays. Knowing nothing about it yet
> I'd welcome engagement with this over any rpi efforts. At least it
> would improve diversity more than if somebody came and supported the
> future rpi 95.
> 

Re: [9fans] RasPi why?

[hiro]

About diversity:

We're not at the size where we would move industry.
This cost of supporting ARM is higher than it needs to, because every
new ARM platform and every new SoC using a new ARM platform does
everything differently, there are no stable standards or
backwards-compatibility.

I think there are mips laptops nowadays. Knowing nothing about it yet
I'd welcome engagement with this over any rpi efforts. At least it
would improve diversity more than if somebody came and supported the
future rpi 95.

Re: [9fans] RasPi why?

[Lyndon Nerenberg]

RPi's aren't "the" answer,


Exactly.  There is no "one" answer.  Hardware, peripherals, operating 
systems ...


The "linux is everything" crowd is what's leading to the decimation of 
technological advancement these days.

Re: [9fans] RasPi why?

[Skip Tavakkolian]

RPi3 are reasonably capable for the price.  For me, they make sense because:

* RPis make it easy to try non-windows OS (including Plan 9).
* Provide a usable, yet inexpensive ARM platform for Plan9.
* (almost) all RPI hardware components are supported in Plan 9.
* There is an enthusiastic community building everything imaginable for,
and with, RPI's.

RPi's aren't "the" answer, but neither is Intel-inside everything.  The
speculative execution debacle proves that the entire industry has too much
reliance on one architecture. Diversity of architectures is good for Plan 9
and the industry as a whole.

In a perfect world there would be equivalent popular platforms for MIPS,
Power, RISC-V and other architectures.

-Skip

On Sun, Feb 4, 2018 at 1:46 AM Ethan Grammatikidis 
wrote:

> On Sat, Feb 3, 2018, at 11:46 PM, Bakul Shah wrote:
> >
> > Not to mention The RasPis are poor at
> > reliability.  Even a xenon flash or near a RasPi could power a
> > RasPi2 down! And since they do no onboard power regulation,
> > people had lots of problems early on -- add one more USB
> > device and the thing can become unreliable.
>
> This is probably an impossible question, but I've got to ask: Why do
> people even buy RasPis? Like, for anything? Even when the first RPi was
> new, a second hand laptop could offer far more processing power and
> reliability for the same price, sometimes excepting the disk of course. Add
> a base station with the old printer port and there's some GPIO; not as much
> as a RPi, it's true, but there are ways around that. One alternative for
> GPIO is the actually cheap boards from Ti or whoever which exist to
> interface Ethernet, WiFi, Bluetooth, or USB on one side (depending on the
> board) to GPIO and serial on the other. I think they're programmed in
> Forth, but I wouldn't be surprised if you can just download programs for
> them to do anything you'd want with remote control.
>
> --
> The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne. -- Chaucer
>
>

Re: [9fans] RasPi why?

[hiro]

anybody who plans to buy a rpi for a laptop/desktop usage who is price
limited please consider a thinkpad t43, x61, etc. from ebay.
x201 is slightly faster but might also still be affordable depending
on where you are, already has the crappier display ratio though ;)

Re: [9fans] RasPi why?

[Bakul Shah]

On Sun, 04 Feb 2018 09:45:51 + Ethan Grammatikidis  
wrote:
Ethan Grammatikidis writes:
> On Sat, Feb 3, 2018, at 11:46 PM, Bakul Shah wrote:
> > 
> > Not to mention The RasPis are poor at
> > reliability.  Even a xenon flash or near a RasPi could power a
> > RasPi2 down! And since they do no onboard power regulation,
> > people had lots of problems early on -- add one more USB
> > device and the thing can become unreliable.
> 
> This is probably an impossible question, but I've got to ask: Why do people
> even buy RasPis? Like, for anything? Even when the first RPi was new, a second
> hand laptop could offer far more processing power and reliability for the same
> price, sometimes excepting the disk of course. Add a base station with the
> old printer port and there's some GPIO; not as much as a RPi, it's true, but
> there are ways around that. One alternative for GPIO is the actually cheap
> boards from Ti or whoever which exist to interface Ethernet, WiFi, Bluetooth, 
> or USB on one side (depending on the board) to GPIO and serial on the other. 
> I think they're programmed in Forth, but I wouldn't be surprised if you can
> Just download programs for them to do anything you'd want with remote control.

They're all right if you understand and stay within their
limitations.  Make sure you supply more than enough current
for their intended use & Raspis will last a long time. The
"flash" problem was for a particular model only and did get
fixed (sorry, I over-egged it a bit).

If all you want is a laptop/desktop pis don't offer much,
especially if you can afford more expensive laptops. But their
low cost, small size, low power, GPIO & camera connectivity,
standardized models and easy availability open up a lot of new
applications. This is over 18 million Pis have been sold.
Even though they are supposed to be "educational" devices,
they are selling like quite well in the commercial market.  I
suspect for many embedded device mfrs just use a Pi + their
custom h/w to get to market fast and at a low cost.

Things like giant wall video display using many screens, 3d
scanners and printer, TOR routers, media servers, servers for
DHCP/boot/ftp/print/smtp/imap, s/w radios, robots, weather
stations, used in weather balloons, various controllers,
security cameras, toys, etc.

Re: [9fans] RasPi why?

[Lyndon Nerenberg]

Why do people even buy RasPis?


1) Serial port console servers. A Pi2 + StarTech USB 8-port serial is an 
inexpensive way to talk to console serial ports on routers, switches, 
firewalls, etc.


2) DHCP/TFTP servers used to remote PXE install the big iron in our data 
centres.


3) Interconnecting all the NMEA nav/comm gear on the boat.

4) Sensor monitoring on the boat (battery levels, bilge, tank levels) and 
sending alarms.


Etc.

Re: [9fans] RasPi why?

[Steve Simon]

i bought one (well, my employer bought me one) as a desktop machine. i don’t 
know where i could buy a headless pc or a used laptop for £30.

i also have drivers for the hardware and an install process that takes 10 mins 
(copy the image to an sd card).

they are not perfect, but a good comprise for me.

-Steve


> On 4 Feb 2018, at 09:45, Ethan Grammatikidis  wrote:
> 
>> On Sat, Feb 3, 2018, at 11:46 PM, Bakul Shah wrote:
>> 
>> Not to mention The RasPis are poor at
>> reliability.  Even a xenon flash or near a RasPi could power a
>> RasPi2 down! And since they do no onboard power regulation,
>> people had lots of problems early on -- add one more USB
>> device and the thing can become unreliable.
> 
> This is probably an impossible question, but I've got to ask: Why do people 
> even buy RasPis? Like, for anything? Even when the first RPi was new, a 
> second hand laptop could offer far more processing power and reliability for 
> the same price, sometimes excepting the disk of course. Add a base station 
> with the old printer port and there's some GPIO; not as much as a RPi, it's 
> true, but there are ways around that. One alternative for GPIO is the 
> actually cheap boards from Ti or whoever which exist to interface Ethernet, 
> WiFi, Bluetooth, or USB on one side (depending on the board) to GPIO and 
> serial on the other. I think they're programmed in Forth, but I wouldn't be 
> surprised if you can just download programs for them to do anything you'd 
> want with remote control.
> 
> -- 
> The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne. -- Chaucer

Re: [9fans] RasPi why?

[Rui Carmo]

There’s a fair amount of FUD here. The light sensitivity was fixed with a new 
component run (and, incidentally, is not specific to the Pi, you can take out 
other exposed electronics/computers with a flash), and the reliability pretty 
much became a non-issue since the Pi 2.

People buy Pis because of the ecosystem, flexibility (you get a full blown 
Linux system for a few bucks that can drive an HD monitor, an external hard 
drive for media and Wi-Fi), the educational aspects (the official distribution 
ships with Scratch, Python and a free edition of Mathematica) and the relative 
bang for buck. 

I have several editions (originals, 2s, 3s and Zeros) and use the smallest 
instead of Arduino boards for situations where more CPU and expand ability are 
required—I’ve resurrected a dead synth by wiring in a Pi with a USB DAC and 
installing timidity, my 3D printer is managed and monitored (with a webcam) by 
another, my digital oscilloscope is a quad-core Pi 2 with an 800px LCD display, 
and I use Pi 3s as thin terminals (besides a few other uses).

A Pi 3 is good enough to code in, and I have a Pi 2 running Plan 9 without any 
glitches (although I’ve been meaning to investigate moving to the 3 for 
Wi-Fi...).

I also have a few Arduinos, but have been phasing them out in favor of ESP8266 
devices, which are usually smaller and just as easier to work with (I code for 
those in C, Python or Lua, depending on flavor).

Both kinds of devices have (save from initial teething issues) been quite 
reliable in my experience. ESP8266s, in particular, have become common in 
commercial consumer devices, but Pi compute modules are used by some media 
players and digital signage.

R.

> On 4 Feb 2018, at 09:45, Ethan Grammatikidis  wrote:
> 
>> On Sat, Feb 3, 2018, at 11:46 PM, Bakul Shah wrote:
>> 
>> Not to mention The RasPis are poor at
>> reliability.  Even a xenon flash or near a RasPi could power a
>> RasPi2 down! And since they do no onboard power regulation,
>> people had lots of problems early on -- add one more USB
>> device and the thing can become unreliable.
> 
> This is probably an impossible question, but I've got to ask: Why do people 
> even buy RasPis? Like, for anything? Even when the first RPi was new, a 
> second hand laptop could offer far more processing power and reliability for 
> the same price, sometimes excepting the disk of course. Add a base station 
> with the old printer port and there's some GPIO; not as much as a RPi, it's 
> true, but there are ways around that. One alternative for GPIO is the 
> actually cheap boards from Ti or whoever which exist to interface Ethernet, 
> WiFi, Bluetooth, or USB on one side (depending on the board) to GPIO and 
> serial on the other. I think they're programmed in Forth, but I wouldn't be 
> surprised if you can just download programs for them to do anything you'd 
> want with remote control.
> 
> -- 
> The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne. -- Chaucer
>