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At last, the Raspberry Pi shortage is finally coming to an end

pcworld.com

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Re: At last, the Raspberry Pi shortage is finally coming to an end

#61

Post by mmastrac »

kkielhofner wrote: post #33
mmastrac wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer to all of this is "where's the fun in that"? I can afford to pay Amazon The original home computing explosion didn't come about because of the power of those early platforms -- it was because the thrill of accomplishing something under the limitations of a popular platform is the reward early pioneers needed to keep going. So yeah, the Pi is not ideal for so many use cases, but successfully arm-wrestling t…

> The answer to all of this is "where's the fun in that"? I can afford to pay Amazon How is this any different from self-hosting on any other hardware? Other than the admittedly fun and engaging aspect of putting the work in to string together a bunch of USB hubs, cabling, and SATA bridges, etc. I think a lot of that thrill comes from the challenges of pounding a square peg into a round hole along the journey. Again,…

You're right about the square peg, but the big difference is the size of the community. I could do this work on any platform but if there's only a handful of people that know what a MangoPi or KiwiPi (names invented) can do, there's a whole lot of context to understand how cool a hack is.

Ditto for reading about projects -- it's great that Alice's Intel nuc can serve X pages per second, but it's easier to read and understand the technical feats of someone hacking off traces on a Pi 4 to expose PCIe because we all know the limits of the platform.

Re: At last, the Raspberry Pi shortage is finally coming to an end

#62

Post by derefr »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #55
bemusedthrow75 wrote: post #38

Each time this topic comes up, some broad threads emerge: - people saying that there are "more performant" devices. Sure, there are. How do they perform in terms of kernel support and documentation? - people (often Americans) saying that the Pi has been "supply-constrained for five years". It really hasn't; it wasn't particularly supply-constrained in the UK until about five or six months into the pandemic. Yeah, som…

> - people saying that there are "more performant" devices. Sure, there are. How do they perform in terms of kernel support and documentation? One of the main options pointed at is low-power x86 boxes, which are better than Pis ever were. The rest of the ARM ecosystem is, I agree, poor . > - people (often Americans) saying that the Pi has been "supply-constrained for five years". It really hasn't; it wasn't particula…

> One of the main options pointed at is low-power x86 boxes, which are better than Pis ever were.

In terms of what? Battery usage at idle? BOM to operationalize the design? Surely not.

> > It's almost as if most of the people whining are just upset there isn't a cheap device they can drop into a Kodi box without any effort.

> Okay. Yes? That's a valid usecase.

Funny enough, all throughout the pandemic the one thing that kept being made was Android streaming boxes. I'm pretty sure it's dead simple to wipe those and put Kodi on them. So it's not much of a valid use-case. (I'd instead expect most hobbyists who want Pis, to actually want them for running game-console emulators — specifically, emulators for consoles new enough that those weaker streaming boxes would struggle with them.)

Re: At last, the Raspberry Pi shortage is finally coming to an end

#63

Post by derefr »

magicalhippo wrote: post #49
leidenfrost wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm looking for a noiseless low power NAS solution. Any recommendations? After my transtition to an M1, now I can't stand any fan noise running on the background.

Get a NUC or mini-ITX system and a fanless case[1][2]? [1]: https://www.akasa.co.uk/update.php?tpl=list%2FCHASSIS+POWER.... [2]: https://www.akasa.co.uk/update.php?tpl=product/product.detai...

Where do the drives live? Drives, as in at least two, but more likely 5, if you're taking fault-tolerance seriously.

Re: At last, the Raspberry Pi shortage is finally coming to an end

#65

Post by derefr »

kkielhofner wrote: post #43
kytazo wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but when you compare the TDP and compute/watt of such a system compared to an arm sbc it pales in comparison. Being fan-less hence much more compact is another thing they lack as well.

NUC and other platforms get down to single-digit watts idle. I have a much larger, very performant Ryzen 7 system that idles at 30 watts with an Nvidia GTX 1070. The GTX 1070 alone is 10w idle and tiny (under 1 sec) 70 watt peaks for inference in my various uses (the fan doesn't even start). The x86_64 architecture has come a long way in terms of energy usage and even the much older NUCs, thin clients, etc can pretty…

That's all fine if you're powering the thing off mains power. A lot of Pi use-cases involve running them on batteries, e.g. any of the Pi-powered "retro handheld" devices.

Re: At last, the Raspberry Pi shortage is finally coming to an end

#66

Post by ilyt »

euniceee3 wrote: post #10

The shortage ruined the brand for me. Any sort of commercial product based on this cheap platform had supply issues, which caused a pivot. I had an old boss balk at me for suggesting we use Pi's back in 2013, I now see why. Glad to see the gouging finally come to an end!

I'm sure your old boss magically predicted pandemic and chipaggedon happening /s

Re: At last, the Raspberry Pi shortage is finally coming to an end

#67

Post by kfarr »

For those that love the pi and electronics I’d suggest checking out the raspberry pi pico which is not a full os but a microcontroller with tons of features including WiFi that runs Python or c scripts. Replaced the pi for me in the projects I was working on, especially paired with a nice LED matrix display. My favorite combo at the moment is this led matrix with presoldered pico w: https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/cosmic-unicorn

Re: At last, the Raspberry Pi shortage is finally coming to an end

#68

Post by ilyt »

bemusedthrow75 wrote: post #38

Each time this topic comes up, some broad threads emerge: - people saying that there are "more performant" devices. Sure, there are. How do they perform in terms of kernel support and documentation? - people (often Americans) saying that the Pi has been "supply-constrained for five years". It really hasn't; it wasn't particularly supply-constrained in the UK until about five or six months into the pandemic. Yeah, som…

> - people saying that there are "more performant" devices. Sure, there are. How do they perform in terms of kernel support and documentation?

And Pi isn't even supported fully in upstream kernel! And it's so much worse in competitors...

> The truth is that the Raspberry Pi SBCs are unique because they are the product of their funding model. If you want "more performant" devices that are as good, you might need to front up the cash.

Not really. The key point why people want it is that they are by far most seamless product out of the competition (sans maybe some x86 ones I guess). 3rd-party patched kernel is always PITA especially over long lifetime but rPi got theirs in "near vanilla" debian-derivative so there is very little friction. And on top of that of course ecosystem that grew around it.

*if* there was competitor that have similar featureset yet work at 100% vanilla kernel there would be a chance but there is always some problem to deal with.

Re: At last, the Raspberry Pi shortage is finally coming to an end

#69

Post by kfarr »

bemusedthrow75 wrote: post #38

Each time this topic comes up, some broad threads emerge: - people saying that there are "more performant" devices. Sure, there are. How do they perform in terms of kernel support and documentation? - people (often Americans) saying that the Pi has been "supply-constrained for five years". It really hasn't; it wasn't particularly supply-constrained in the UK until about five or six months into the pandemic. Yeah, som…

People doing real projects with deadlines find another solution and don’t whine about it on message boards

Re: At last, the Raspberry Pi shortage is finally coming to an end

#70

Post by skykooler »

derefr wrote: post #62
yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - people saying that there are "more performant" devices. Sure, there are. How do they perform in terms of kernel support and documentation? One of the main options pointed at is low-power x86 boxes, which are better than Pis ever were. The rest of the ARM ecosystem is, I agree, poor . > - people (often Americans) saying that the Pi has been "supply-constrained for five years". It really hasn't; it wasn't particula…

> One of the main options pointed at is low-power x86 boxes, which are better than Pis ever were. In terms of what? Battery usage at idle? BOM to operationalize the design? Surely not. > > It's almost as if most of the people whining are just upset there isn't a cheap device they can drop into a Kodi box without any effort. > Okay. Yes? That's a valid usecase. Funny enough, all throughout the pandemic the one thing t…

The Pi is not stellar in terms of battery usage at idle, either. Its CPU doesn't have proper power management handling, which is why all homemade raspi-based phones/tablets/etc have a <6hr battery life.
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