Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Windows on Raspberry

worproject.ml

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 113 posts

Re: Windows on Raspberry

#11

Post by tracker1 »

hristov wrote: post #4
BlahGod420 wrote: post #2

Does anyone have more experience with Windows on IoT devices in general? I'm curious about this - it seems like it could be a real game changer in general for IoT. But if it is already available and not actually doing much game changing, I'd be curious to know why.

Because it is bloated. It would run well on iot if you could make your iot device as big and as computationally powerful as a laptop.

It's not much better/worse than any modern linux desktop distribution... My biggest issues with the linux side usually come down to dealing with the one off issues that seem to popup on major updates... and never, ever try to use brand new hardware for you daily driver with linux unless you are prepared to deal with said frustrations.

Re: Windows on Raspberry

#12

Post by jeroenhd »

DavideNL wrote: post #6

I wonder how well this runs in terms of CPU, i have a Macbook Pro and i don't hear the fans very often. Except when i run Windows 10, the fans frequently blast at the maximum level...

There's a reason for that, macOS loads a specific fan curve that prefers silence over performance, only kicking in a the last moment before the CPU overheats. This focus on silence also costs them in performance, but as long as the laptop is fast enough for most people, the raw performance probably doesn't matter to them.

Windows doesn't about the thermal limits Apple put into place in their devices, so just treats it like a regular old laptop: boosting with fans turning whenever it needs to. However, it needs drivers to read the temperatures from the device and as far as I know, the Windows driver for reading those on Apple hardware aren't great (if they're available at all). This means Windows on a Mackintosh will always perform worse, because it doesn't have the same thermal information input as macOS has.

Re: Windows on Raspberry

#13

Post by tracker1 »

BlahGod420 wrote: post #2

Does anyone have more experience with Windows on IoT devices in general? I'm curious about this - it seems like it could be a real game changer in general for IoT. But if it is already available and not actually doing much game changing, I'd be curious to know why.

It's used in a lot of embedded scenarios... and will really depend on your use case. The raspberry pi will need a lot more/better hardware support if Windows is going to be a viable option. Video support is poor, onboard audio and lan aren't yet supported.

It's somewhat cool, but will need much better hardware support, or higher end hardware depending on the purpose.

If you aren't targeting something with end-user interfaces or consistent display needs, Linux is generally a better bet, and you can pretty much use the same languages and tooling.

For embedding, about the only more painful use of linux is when you need a gui display, and even that can somewhat be worked around... testing and isolating updates is probably the larger cost multiplier vs. windows in terms of long term support.

Re: Windows on Raspberry

#14

Post by m0xte »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #8
DavideNL wrote: post #6

I wonder how well this runs in terms of CPU, i have a Macbook Pro and i don't hear the fans very often. Except when i run Windows 10, the fans frequently blast at the maximum level...

The only time I've ever heard the fans on my Mac Mini is when I run Windows Update. The strange thing is even though it is stressing the machine it's still slow at updating.

Yeah I went for about a month thinking my Mac Mini fan was broken.

Re: Windows on Raspberry

#15

Post by m0xte »

zozbot234 wrote: post #7
detaro wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Embedded Windows has been a thing for a long time and has steadily become less and less relevant over the past decade or so, with many users slowly migrating away. It is more expensive and basically unsupported by Microsoft and hardware makers, while adding very little unique features. I've basically only encountered it in "We stop support for Windows" announcements, "Here's how to make migrating away from it a bit e…

> Embedded Windows has been a thing for a long time Mostly in Windows CE palmtops, based on a miniaturized version of the actual Windows 9x interface. Not sure it's ever been a thing in real embedded workloads.

It has unfortunately. It's used in some of Keysight's oscilloscopes. Even the new ones. And it's not even a new version

https://ripitapart.com/2018/10/15/gaining-access-to-the-wind...

Some of the later ones run Linux apparently but I've never seen one. All the Rigol ones are Linux based.

Re: Windows on Raspberry

#16

Post by ldiracdelta »

BlahGod420 wrote: post #2

Does anyone have more experience with Windows on IoT devices in general? I'm curious about this - it seems like it could be a real game changer in general for IoT. But if it is already available and not actually doing much game changing, I'd be curious to know why.

My experience in general with windows is that you need GUIs everywhere to configure stuff, whereas linux is text config first. I just deployed 20 pi's at work for a project and remote management on raspbian is fantastic. My BOM for the project is $300 and the previous system's BOM was $3k. Love raspbian.

The other piece is that there are 10 years of raspbian questions and answers on the internet. You have a problem, then someone else has hit it.

Re: Windows on Raspberry

#17

Post by lostlogin »

BlahGod420 wrote: post #2

Does anyone have more experience with Windows on IoT devices in general? I'm curious about this - it seems like it could be a real game changer in general for IoT. But if it is already available and not actually doing much game changing, I'd be curious to know why.

> it seems like it could be a real game changer in general for IoT.

Could you explain why Windows could make things better? As I get more IOT things I have gone more and more basic and had great success. I’m not suggesting that flashing ESP32 chips is the way forward for everyone, but it certainly has its merits.

If the rough edges could be removed (imperfect flash software, the need for multiple guides, understanding pin layouts and my crap wiring) the basic method is great - name the chip, give an SSID and password, then tell it what sensors it has - flash. It’s a genuine 10 minutes before it’s in Home Assistant.

Re: Windows on Raspberry

#18

Post by lostmsu »

DavideNL wrote: post #6

I wonder how well this runs in terms of CPU, i have a Macbook Pro and i don't hear the fans very often. Except when i run Windows 10, the fans frequently blast at the maximum level...

Windows has a power setting, that chooses between CPU throttling and fan speed increase.

Re: Windows on Raspberry

#19

Post by fortran77 »

ldiracdelta wrote: post #16
BlahGod420 wrote: post #2

Does anyone have more experience with Windows on IoT devices in general? I'm curious about this - it seems like it could be a real game changer in general for IoT. But if it is already available and not actually doing much game changing, I'd be curious to know why.

My experience in general with windows is that you need GUIs everywhere to configure stuff, whereas linux is text config first. I just deployed 20 pi's at work for a project and remote management on raspbian is fantastic. My BOM for the project is $300 and the previous system's BOM was $3k. Love raspbian. The other piece is that there are 10 years of raspbian questions and answers on the internet. You have a problem,…

You can do absolutely everything from powershell on the command line, on your local machine or any machine in your network, from Windows 10.

Re: Windows on Raspberry

#20

Post by fortran77 »

DavideNL wrote: post #6

I wonder how well this runs in terms of CPU, i have a Macbook Pro and i don't hear the fans very often. Except when i run Windows 10, the fans frequently blast at the maximum level...

You really can't judge Windows performance by how it runs on a Macbook Pro. Try it on a Surface or a Lenovo Thinkpad or Yoga and it will be a much better experience. They just don't have access to the Mac's proprietary hardware fan and power management controllers.
Post reply on HN