Raspberry Pi Compute Module • Hacker News Board

Re: Raspberry Pi Compute Module

#81

Post by bronson » Mon, Apr 07, 2014, 6:00 PM UTC

tomswartz07 wrote: post #45

rcxdude wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very similar but often faster. The Odroid U2 uses removable EMMC storage which has an SD card adaptor, which I feel is a very good middle ground (most of the advantages of both with the disadvantage that the connector on the board is non-standard).

SD cards have different classes- without seeing specs, I'd be willing to bet that a Class 10 SDhc card is on par with this EMMC storage.

Correct, plus the cheap SD connectors are a source of a lot of noise and unreliability. Just doing away with them will be a huge benefit.

Re: Raspberry Pi Compute Module

#82

Post by samstave » Mon, Apr 07, 2014, 6:00 PM UTC

Narishma wrote: post #58

samstave wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does the compute module have the GPU on it? Or is it on the connector board?

The GPU is part of the SoC, which is exactly the same on the Pi and on the compute module.

Thanks! I didnt know this.

I actually just received my first RPi's on friday...

Re: Raspberry Pi Compute Module

#83

Post by bronson » Mon, Apr 07, 2014, 6:06 PM UTC

bestham wrote: post #31

maguirre wrote: post #20

It's about time they put some FLASH on-board. SD card has proven time and time again an unreliable medium. You never know if the device would boot up after a "dirty shutdown"

Isn't the eMMC card basically an "SD" card as a chip? Thus this machine should having the same problems with unreliable shutdown and wear-leveling as the normal Pi, with the added culprit that you cannot swap the card for a new one.

A lot of the unreliability comes from the connector, and a lot more comes from crappy counterfeit SD cards.

If you still want an SD card (I don't -- network and USB are so much faster), I expect you could buy an IO board with one or more. I don't see one on the Pi Foundation's board right now but it should be easy to add.

Re: Raspberry Pi Compute Module

#84

Post by noonespecial » Mon, Apr 07, 2014, 6:09 PM UTC

Touche wrote: post #65

noonespecial wrote: post #59

The price is getting better but it's still in the "I used my pi for the project" vs the "I used a pi..." range. Things get interesting when a general purpose Linux computer reaches disposable pricing where you just pull a new one from the bin for each project. This feels like about $20usd or less to me.

So what happens to all that e-waste when you throw out an old computer board because you don't feel like wiping it?

No, it stays in your project because you don't have to rip apart your previous work to salvage the expensive magic bit for the next great idea. You start building different kinds of projects because you know this and create many more awesome things that continue to make your life better after they are done.

The parts of projects that were left behind after pulling your expensive SBC are no longer junked so waste comes out a wash. In any case, a few makers experimenting in any fashion isn't even a rounding error compared to the mobile phone apocalypse thats hitting landfills now.

Re: Raspberry Pi Compute Module

#85

Post by bronson » Mon, Apr 07, 2014, 6:11 PM UTC

Yay, they are putting onboard flash! That's going to make the Pi way more reliable.

But boo, no more clock or memory. Lots of apps bump gracelessly into the 512M limit (libre office, IDEs, OpenElec+plugins, ...) 1G should give all of them enough breathing room that they don't need babying them all the time.

A little more grunt to the CPU would have been nice but that's minor. Overclocking the Pi seems mostly futile -- it just lets the CPU spend even more time waiting on I/O and cache.

Re: Raspberry Pi Compute Module

#86

Post by tlrobinson » Mon, Apr 07, 2014, 6:13 PM UTC

outside1234 wrote: post #60

ris wrote: post #4

Isn't the Pi incredibly underpowered for use as a compute node?

Hilarious - i was just thinking it was overpowered! It depends on your use case. If you are thinking of this for industrial controls, its overpowered. If you are thinking of this for mining bitcoins, it is underpowered.

(FYI mining Bitcoin can only be reasonably done using custom ASIC hardware these days)

Re: Raspberry Pi Compute Module

#87

Post by noonespecial » Mon, Apr 07, 2014, 6:13 PM UTC

simik wrote: post #78

Touche wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what happens to all that e-waste when you throw out an old computer board because you don't feel like wiping it?

Patiently waiting in a trash field for a future entrepreneur genius who would devise a way to extract on the cheap anything and everything useful from it.

Unfortunately, we have that already and it looks like this:

http://www.occupyforanimals.org/uploads/7/7/3/5/7735203/__95...

Re: Raspberry Pi Compute Module

#88

Post by azth » Mon, Apr 07, 2014, 6:17 PM UTC

Touche wrote: post #65

noonespecial wrote: post #59

The price is getting better but it's still in the "I used my pi for the project" vs the "I used a pi..." range. Things get interesting when a general purpose Linux computer reaches disposable pricing where you just pull a new one from the bin for each project. This feels like about $20usd or less to me.

So what happens to all that e-waste when you throw out an old computer board because you don't feel like wiping it?

Not to mention the physical waste...

Re: Raspberry Pi Compute Module

#89

Post by learc83 » Mon, Apr 07, 2014, 6:27 PM UTC

bronson wrote: post #85

Yay, they are putting onboard flash! That's going to make the Pi way more reliable. But boo, no more clock or memory. Lots of apps bump gracelessly into the 512M limit (libre office, IDEs, OpenElec+plugins, ...) 1G should give all of them enough breathing room that they don't need babying them all the time. A little more grunt to the CPU would have been nice but that's minor. Overclocking the Pi seems mostly futile -…

>Lots of apps bump gracelessly into the 512M limit (libre office, IDEs, OpenElec+plugins, ...)

The compute unit isn't meant to be used as a desktop, but as an embedded system.

Re: Raspberry Pi Compute Module

#90

Post by learc83 » Mon, Apr 07, 2014, 6:38 PM UTC

atmosx wrote: post #64

tomswartz07 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I liked the SD Card method. It allowed me to keep a few cards with different OS images on them, and quickly swap them out when I wanted to change what the device was used for. It might be a bit more difficult with the built in storage, but I suppose it's nothing that can't be managed.

Yes but say I need to run a rails application with a DB on a Lan (less than 15 users), perfomance is not an issue (nginx + postgresql + puma uses less than 115 MB of RAM!) The only thing stopping you is SDCard's reliability! A friend of mine had two unrecoverably broken Kingston class 10 SDCards on the same RPi in 6 months. Bad luck maybe, but still I'd love to have something more solid to run applications without fe…

You can setup the SD card to run read only, and use a external usb hard drive when you need to write.