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

First Impressions with the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W

blog.alexellis.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 81 posts

Re: First Impressions with the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W

#11

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

martin_a wrote: post #6
Waterluvian wrote: post #5

Does anyone else have feelings about “there’s too many tiers of Pi” yet? I’m not sure if I feel that but it’s on my mind.

What baffles me is the rather bad availability of older versions. I'd have guessed that there's somewhere a warehouse full of Pi Zero Ws, but I can't buy one right now in Germany. There's a shop in Switzerland, but I'd have to pay import taxes and whatnot to get hold of that. So, let's try a Model 3 B+ then... Same as before: Official vendors are almost all sold out, one has some but it's 15 to 20 Euro above the reco…

> So, let's try a Model 3 B+ then... Same as before: Official vendors are almost all sold out, one has some but it's 15 to 20 Euro above the recommended price...

An econ student would probably tell you that this is the market adjusting (or trying to) against the official price not matching the supply/demand intersection, so they're only available at the "real" price that unofficial vendors provide. (Of course, it may be more complex than that simplistic reading, hence econ student :])

Re: First Impressions with the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W

#12

Post by foxfluff »

Waterluvian wrote: post #5

Does anyone else have feelings about “there’s too many tiers of Pi” yet? I’m not sure if I feel that but it’s on my mind.

Not really, but that's because I largely dismiss the early Pis altogether. They sit in the awkward space where they're larger and faster than a microcontroller but practically speaking require an OS that wastes a lot of the available resources; for running Linux applications, they feel way underpowered. Pi 3 seemed powerful enough to be interesting and I did a small project with it, but Pi 4 pushes it to where I'm actually starting to like the platform (though I'm still anxious for a Pi 5).

Now with the Zero 2 W, there are three tiers: the Pi 4 for SBCs, Zero 2 W for providing connectivity for things that don't really look like computers as such (but still need Linux for whatever reason?), and then the Pico for microcontroller projects. The difference in capabilities between each tier is large; they cover a wide spectrum of use cases. You can't complain that there are too many tiers.

It's good to know that you can fall back to the older Pis if you have very specific/niche needs that they fulfill better than the new ones, but you'll know it when you need them, and having these extra choices doesn't hurt.

If you don't have very specific requirements, just pick the most appropriate of the three new ones. Easy.

I guess I'm also disregarding the compute module, because I haven't seen particularly compelling reason to look at it. Again I guess if you have very specific needs and can design a carrier board for it, have a go at it. Otherwise, ignore.

Re: First Impressions with the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W

#13

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

foxfluff wrote: post #12
Waterluvian wrote: post #5

Does anyone else have feelings about “there’s too many tiers of Pi” yet? I’m not sure if I feel that but it’s on my mind.

Not really, but that's because I largely dismiss the early Pis altogether. They sit in the awkward space where they're larger and faster than a microcontroller but practically speaking require an OS that wastes a lot of the available resources; for running Linux applications, they feel way underpowered. Pi 3 seemed powerful enough to be interesting and I did a small project with it, but Pi 4 pushes it to where I'm ac…

I think the later Pi 3 models are still fine; they're a little slower (CPU and IO), but they're cheaper than the 4 while still running 64-bit ARM and being reasonable capable. I would agree that unless you have existing stuff to replace in place the Pi 1 and 2 are irrelevant today:)

Re: First Impressions with the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W

#14

Post by PragmaticPulp »

foxfluff wrote: post #12
Waterluvian wrote: post #5

Does anyone else have feelings about “there’s too many tiers of Pi” yet? I’m not sure if I feel that but it’s on my mind.

Not really, but that's because I largely dismiss the early Pis altogether. They sit in the awkward space where they're larger and faster than a microcontroller but practically speaking require an OS that wastes a lot of the available resources; for running Linux applications, they feel way underpowered. Pi 3 seemed powerful enough to be interesting and I did a small project with it, but Pi 4 pushes it to where I'm ac…

> They sit in the awkward space where they're larger and faster than a microcontroller but practically speaking require an OS that wastes a lot of the available resources; for running Linux applications, they feel way underpowered.

The Raspberry Pi isn't competing with a microcontroller. They're on opposite ends of the computing spectrum. If an application can be quickly developed and run on a microcontroller, using a full embedded Linux system would be overkill.

As for Linux work: The Raspberry Pi 4 is plenty fast for most embedded applications. If you're trying to use it as a desktop replacement it's going to feel sluggish relative to an actual desktop, especially if you're only using an SD card instead of a USB3 SSD. However, it's generally not a problem for most non-desktop use cases.

Compiling large projects is the only place where a Pi 4 starts to feel limited, but cross-compilation is available with plenty of guides online.

If you have a situation that requires more power than a Pi 4, you should probably be using a real desktop or VM anyway. These are embedded systems that start at $35, not something competing with a $500 NUC or a $2000 laptop.

Re: First Impressions with the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W

#16

Post by PragmaticPulp »

Stampo00 wrote: post #3

The idea of using it as a self-hosted Github Actions runner spoke to me. I wouldn't have thought of that. Thank you!

Personally, I'd prefer to get a standard Raspberry Pi 4 model for any server-like duties. Get the 8GB RAM model and it's easy to run a lot of virtual machines on it for all of your different mini-server needs on a single device.

Managing a lot of different little Pis for different server-like things is fun for experimenting with clustering and multi-server management tools, but it gets old fast if you really just want several different VMs or containers.

VMWare ESXi is even available for the Raspberry Pi now: https://www.servethehome.com/getting-started-with-vmware-esx...

Re: First Impressions with the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W

#17

Post by madisp »

martin_a wrote: post #6
Waterluvian wrote: post #5

Does anyone else have feelings about “there’s too many tiers of Pi” yet? I’m not sure if I feel that but it’s on my mind.

What baffles me is the rather bad availability of older versions. I'd have guessed that there's somewhere a warehouse full of Pi Zero Ws, but I can't buy one right now in Germany. There's a shop in Switzerland, but I'd have to pay import taxes and whatnot to get hold of that. So, let's try a Model 3 B+ then... Same as before: Official vendors are almost all sold out, one has some but it's 15 to 20 Euro above the reco…

if you don't mind a soldered-on header then berrybase seems to have plenty of Pi Zero WHs

Re: First Impressions with the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W

#18

Post by foxfluff »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #14
foxfluff wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really, but that's because I largely dismiss the early Pis altogether. They sit in the awkward space where they're larger and faster than a microcontroller but practically speaking require an OS that wastes a lot of the available resources; for running Linux applications, they feel way underpowered. Pi 3 seemed powerful enough to be interesting and I did a small project with it, but Pi 4 pushes it to where I'm ac…

> They sit in the awkward space where they're larger and faster than a microcontroller but practically speaking require an OS that wastes a lot of the available resources; for running Linux applications, they feel way underpowered. The Raspberry Pi isn't competing with a microcontroller. They're on opposite ends of the computing spectrum. If an application can be quickly developed and run on a microcontroller, using…

> The Raspberry Pi isn't competing with a microcontroller. They're on opposite ends of the computing spectrum.

The spectrum is wider than that, but if you're comparing Pi and MCUs, today you have 32 bit multi-core ARM microcontrollers that run at hundreds of MHz and make a 486 look wimpy. And for a microprocessor, the first gen Pi is pretty darn wimpy (wikipedia compares it to a 300MHz Pentium II). Yet the performance difference between a first gen Pi and a Pi 4 is absolutely massive.

That's what I mean by the awkward space. Yes it's still faster than a high end microcontroller, but if I need an application running on modern Linux, chances are I don't want to deploy it on Pentium II class hardware except in very niche circumstances. So it's neither a microcontroller, nor is it a decent microprocessor for modern OS. It's about right in the middle of the spectrum where it kinda sucks for any application that can be implemented on a microcontroller and sucks for anything that needs a "real computer".

I need to point out that I actually work as an embedded software developer in this space where we have high end microcontrollers running a custom RTOS and applications that offer largely the same functionality and interfaces that we also implement using low end Linux-capable ARM solutions; what you can implement on a microcontroller is a heck of a lot, but Linux capable chips have gotten cheap and using them sometimes saves development effort on the driver & application stack. There's plenty of overlap, they're totally not opposite ends of the spectrum.

Re: First Impressions with the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W

#19

Post by blippage »

Waterluvian wrote: post #5

Does anyone else have feelings about “there’s too many tiers of Pi” yet? I’m not sure if I feel that but it’s on my mind.

Yes, I think there are too many. Everyone tends to go for the latest and greatest. The Pi is heading towards becoming a PC replacement, but I'm not sure what advantage that is.

Instead of have faster computers, I want a faster OS. Or preferably very little in the way of an OS. Something like a DOS, perhaps. Something where you could write blazingly-fast software because the kernel is straightforward. And I want a real-time kernel.

I'm vaguely aware that there's some stuff out there, like RTEMS and a real-time Linux, but I suspect it's all a pain to set up.

I've played around with writing my own "kernel" - but it's more in the style of a "unikernel" - which is a pretty good approach.

The real problem occurs when you want to use the USB. A USB stack is not easy to implement. I also had the SD card working, but I haven't been able to get it working lately.

I would like to see Pis flourish as a way of implementing Operating Systems, but the hardware is too complex.

Maybe some kind of Pico/Pi hybrid might be feasible. That might sound an insane suggestion, but Ebon has mentioned in the past that a combo of a Pi with a microcontroller is a good one. Why not take this idea to its logical conclusion and put both on the same board?

Post reply on HN