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The $8 Linux Computer

thelittleengineerthatcould.blogspot.com

121–130 of 166 posts

Re: The $8 Linux Computer

#121

We could have pretty decent $8 Linux machines, with USB, screen, touch, audio, MBs or even GBs RAM, if there would be some standard way to sideload fresh GNU/Linux onto billions of retired Android devices.

I thought you could root them and install Linux?

But yeah, we need to recycle these phones by making them home servers, etc.

Re: The $8 Linux Computer

#122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux is, too. The thing being discussed here is supporting multiple pieces of _hardware_ in the same machine that have different instruction sets. I don't think Windows supports that either.

they do, using drivers, that is too novel idea for linux.

Linux has just as much native support for such things as Windows does, if not more.

Re: The $8 Linux Computer

#123
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And didn't require a PhD in UART to get an OS running on it. Seriously, who the hell thought the process described in that blog makes any kind of practical sense at all. I mean the thing has two USB ports, TWO! And you can't use either, hahaha!

OP here...it got a little better with a patched picoprobe. I wrote up part 2 here: http://thelittleengineerthatcould.blogspot.com/2022/12/the-8... But yeah, not plug-n-play. I still have to find out how to get network or SD-Card.

it is quite interesting that it actually has an sdcard slot but doesn't use it as a boot device? Like wtf? With only 128 MB of flash what kind of OS can one even fit on that...

Nothing about this board makes any sense lol.

Re: The $8 Linux Computer

#124
post #112
post #111

What is this thing a MCU or a CPU? 64-bit?!?! It has a MMU? 700K of SRAM is alot for a MCU but so little for a CPU no?

It is a SoC with MMU. It just looks like a MCU. 64MByte RAM, (45MByte of it free after logging in.)

It also has MCU cores in addition to the application core.

In fact I don't think there's anything stopping you from just running on the larger MCU cores and simply disabling the large core if you really wanted to for some reason.

Re: The $8 Linux Computer

#125

Wasn't Pi Zero around $5 on release?

And didn't require a PhD in UART to get an OS running on it. Seriously, who the hell thought the process described in that blog makes any kind of practical sense at all. I mean the thing has two USB ports, TWO! And you can't use either, hahaha!

The first batch had a bug in the USB serial. Supposedly it's already fixed in boards you can buy now.

Re: The $8 Linux Computer

#126

Wasn't Pi Zero around $5 on release?

The cheap ARM boards you see typically have some economic reason that involve a deal for millions of SoCs falling through at the last minute and the SoC manufacturer selling them off at below cost just to get anything back from the run.

The BCM2835 was destined for a cheap set top box but for reasons not known publicly the manufacturer of that box didn't take those chips.

Re: The $8 Linux Computer

#127

> You cannot program it using USB, like you would an Arduino, ESP32, Stamp-C3 or rPi Pico. Nope... this needs to be programmed via the UART TX/RX pins. I think it should be possible to use another ESP32 or ESP8266 for programming.

[deleted]

Re: The $8 Linux Computer

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they do, using drivers, that is too novel idea for linux.

Linux has just as much native support for such things as Windows does, if not more.

I mean maybe you're right at this point but it's not like the reputation is undeserved

Re: The $8 Linux Computer

#129
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better embedded GPIO. RPi Zero is a great little board/computer but the capabilities of the GPIO pins are lacking in a lot of ways. Speed being the biggest problem. This little $8 board will run circles around even an RPi 4 when it comes to doing something like controlling a long strip of ws2812b RGB LEDs, as an example.

>run circles around even an RPi 4 when it comes to doing something like controlling a long strip of ws2812b RGB LEDs Why would a Raspberry Pi have any issue with this?

Linux and it's lack of hard real time functionality. ws2812b's don't have a clock signal and instead rely on relatively tight timing of the data to seperate the bits. So you end up having to write a kernel driver to either disable interrupts as you bit bang GPIO, or take over a SPI device and set it up with nasty parameters to get a ws2812b waveform out of the MOSI data line. This chip can simply dedicate one of the MCU cores to the task of babysitting that interface.

Re: The $8 Linux Computer

#130
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By the time you get a Rpi 4, a decent power supply and an external SSD, it's usually around the same price as a mini PC which you can get with a 7th/8th/9th Gen i3 or even i5 with everything included. I get that the Rpi will use less power, but I imagine many people will be like me and have it overclocked to 2.1ghz, and my heatsink was pretty warm all day long. I've recently picked up a Optiplex 3070 with a i5 9500t…

RPis are used as embedded controllers and such instead of a custom solution, which is why they are so hard to get right now -- many companies based their products on them when they were plentiful and now get priority over end-users for distribution. It is (or was) kind of a scandal as RPi's self-mandate was to provide cheap computing devices for learning, not for businesses to make products.

I've heard a rumor too that the rpi foundation is having a legal spat about that part with Broadcom right now too. Broadcom is pissed that their chips they were using as a tax right off are being sold for profit. That's why you can get RP2040 boards like the Pico no problem; they don't contain Broadcom IP blocks.
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