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Raspberry Pi 4

raspberrypi.org

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Re: Raspberry Pi 4

#251

Post by makomk »

KaiserPro wrote: post #230
makomk wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've specifically said that the camera module DRM chip is there because they make money from selling the camera modules and they don't want third-party cloners undercutting their pricing and eating into their profits, as happened with the non-DRMed version one of the camera module. Thing is, the third-party camera modules aren't just much cheaper, they're also offered in a whole bunch of useful variants that aren'…

> So in order to ensure their continued profits, they're using DRM to actively make their platform less useful. but that is demonstrably not true. The CSI interface and driver is opensource ( https://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/9951525/ ), anyone can create a camera that piggybacks onto that port. Infact, there are a number of aftermarket cameras that do. Some have built in infrared, some are tiny. What they are attem…

The CSI interface is open source, the image processing hardware to take the data and turn it into actual images is not - it's run by a proprietary undocumented blob on a proprietary undocumented core. So you can interface to whatever camera you like, you just can't use it as a camera. Even that part wasn't open source until well over year after they added the DRM chip.

Every one of those afternarket cameras - the tiny ones, the big ones with replaceable lenses, the IR ones, the funny fisheye ones, all of them - works around this by using the same sensor as the official v1 camera and looking enough like it that the existing code will talk to it. This is precisely what the Raspberry Pi Foundation added the DRM chip to the v2 to stop people from doing. They can't do anything about the v1 clones, but they can stop anyone from doing the same with the better sensor in the v2 and they have.

(In theory the open source CSI driver is useful for non-camera hardware though - for example, there's one obscure third party board that uses this for HDMI capture. I think this may be the main intended purpose. It came too late to save the Kickstarter campaign a few years back promising such a board though.)

Re: Raspberry Pi 4

#252

Post by imtringued »

kharak wrote: post #233
dougmwne wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another way to think about this is that it's the antidote to seamless portless iGlass slabs for $1000. You've got compute, a pile of mainstream ports and wireless interfaces, GPIO pins and an established ecosystem, all for basically no money. It's an open enough platform that kids, adults, startups, schools, and companies have found endless uses for them, ranging from toy projects for learning purposes to production…

My comment wasn't meant to criticise, just open self reflection. Even reading about some of those projects, I still don't get it and wonder why. What makes some people see this tool and get all excited about the possibilities, while others like me can only shrug their shoulders? As said before, I think I'm missing something, something great I like to have but just don't.

Honestly most raspberry pis are just gathering dust in a drawer somewhere. Unless you want to program on ARM there is no really compelling reason for an average developer to have one. If you have a specific use case, then you already know why you need one.

Re: Raspberry Pi 4

#253

Post by imtringued »

mschuster91 wrote: post #128

Too bad the USB-C slot is only used for supplying power instead of being a proper Thunderbolt slot with support for acting as a USB device or attaching external PCIe cards. But well, that's a thing for the 4+ then I guess...

How is that different to the micro USB slot in previous iterations of the Raspberry PI? You could only use those for supplying power.

Re: Raspberry Pi 4

#254

Post by bscphil »

schappim wrote: post #143

I have a Raspberry Pi 4 Model B in front of me and have just run some benchmarks using the Phoronix Test Suite. TL;DR: Prime CPU test; Pi4B: 60 seconds, Pi3B+, 80 seconds, Render test: Pi4B 27fps at 720p, Pi3B+ 16fps at 720p. Zips of the test reports: http://cdn.littlebird.com.au/rpi4/test-4-b.zip http://cdn.littlebird.com.au/rpi4/test-pi-3-b-plus.zip

Hi, thanks for running this. It's helpful information. Something strange is that in your cpuinfo the SoC is detected as BCM2835, while in all the spec sheets online it's supposed to be BCM2711. Do you know if you are possibly working with a different version of the hardware?

One reason this is important is that some of us in this thread are trying to work out what the video decoding and 4K HDMI capabilities are with this new hardware. In particular, the specs say the BCM2711 is supposed to be a VideoCore VI SoC, but your dmesg is showing that the vc4 driver blob is being used.

If you could add any information that would help that would be awesome!

Re: Raspberry Pi 4

#255

Post by hlandau »

HeadsUpHigh wrote: post #248
hlandau wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't add up either, since they seem to be effectively walling themselves into not opening up some of the software needed to boot rpis, which remains proprietary. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20261549

The assumption that they would prefer to handicap their main product because of some unknown deal they have on an accessory seems biased to me. The SoCs that they use are Broadcomm ones, a company known for being hostile to open source. Perhaps the fact that they have now sold over 25 million units of what is essentially their old designs that wheren't selling anymore is opening their eyes on the money that can be ma…

I agree that if rpi decides not to do camera DRM anymore, this motivation not to get rid of the boot blobs in the main product disappears.

Currently they are defending this practice, however. It logically follows that as long as they institute this policy of using DRM on the main product to prevent use of third party camera modules, the boot blobs will remain...

Re: Raspberry Pi 4

#256

Post by dannypgh »

grenoire wrote: post #163
morphle wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you a non-profit if you pay a salary to you employees and allow your suppliers to make a profit?. They act as a 'low profit' company, but they do make profits.

Do you realise that non-profit means that you just don't have leftover cash at the end of the year in your balance sheet? Non-profits pay their employees and their suppliers, their financial situation has absolutely nothing to do with what you are implying.

I thought being a non-profit meant you had goals that weren't profit; there are non-profits with billion dollar endowments that presumably have leftover cash on their balance sheet...

Re: Raspberry Pi 4

#257

Post by pizza234 »

voltagex_ wrote: post #67
morio wrote: post #41

Desktop performance my behind. What's the point of all that CPU power when IO performance remains in mid 2000s territory? It takes forever to boot, any time disk access occurs everything crawls to a halt. M.2 has been around for 5+ years now and would have easily fit on this design in its short length form factor. No datasheet for the SoC either. Again. There are vastly better SBCs out there.

Vastly better hardware wise perhaps, but at least you'll be able to get a board until 2022. Plus, the Pi 4 will have something approaching mainline kernel support and a large community of people working on it.

I have a great interest in SBCs mainline compatibility, but I think they will always be "compatible but not fully", unless a given board will be specifically designed with this objective (at which point, there will be surely a trade off performancecompatibility).

The RPi3 has in fact mainline support, but is not "fully compatible" (at least, in the x86 sense). I guess this will be the case for the RPi 4 also.

This is a shame, since any ARM board has essentially an expiry date. For this reason, my next board will be an x86 SBC (the "famous one"), however, it costs considerably more.

Re: Raspberry Pi 4

#260

Post by ekianjo »

paulcarroty wrote: post #157
Medox wrote: post #46

Depending on the purpose, for example if somebody just wants a compact home cloud, the Odroid HC2 could also - still - be considered: https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-hc2-home-cloud-two/ - Half the RAM but double the cores. I'm waiting for some benchmarks to see if the RPi4 is faster and by how much. - Also Gigabit Ethernet and it works great. My downloads are always at 108-111MB/s for the whole transfer. - Not…

> the Odroid HC2 could also - still - be considered Even don't think about it - shitty support from vendor. They don't care about updates in general.

Not from hardkernel. They have decent support.
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