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Introducing Raspberry Pi B+

raspberrypi.org

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Re: Introducing Raspberry Pi B+

#92
post #91

While we're here, I'd like to call attention to the fact that the Pi foundation has hired someone to opensource the X display driver, addressing one of the common criticisms about openness: http://anholt.livejournal.com/44239.html

We need an "(up|down)vote but derail/off-topic" button. Upvoted anyway.

Re: Introducing Raspberry Pi B+

#93

What's the same: - Same Broadcom BCM2835 Chipset - Same 512MB RAM - Same full size HDMI port - Same 10/100 Ethernet port - Same CSI camera port and DSI display ports - Same micro USB power supply connection What has changed: - Now comes with 4 USB ports so you can now connect more devices than ever to your Raspberry Pi. - There is a 40pin extended GPIO so you can build even bigger and better projects than ever before…

I'm still missing a normal round power plug, as the ramshackly micro USB draws much more power then the allowed 500mA.

Also Ethernet is still connected via USB, and horrible slow.

Re: Introducing Raspberry Pi B+

#95
post #88
post #35

I still can't see why would anyone buy one except as one of those toys that you buy and then gets tossed in the closet. 10 years ago I could see the appeal, but now? The robotics, home automation, and weekend project use cases seem like would be better served by a $5 microcontroller. Some projects, such as the weather station, justify the use of a full-fledged OS, but with the cost of buying an existing, proven, weat…

The use case of the Pi is a computer that can be given to small children to be theirs , to be a counterpart to the BBC Micro of thirty years ago. It's also an attempt to get right what the OLPC people got wrong (too expensive, too different from all other systems). It has to have a decent display, which really rules out microcontrollers (an early prototype was indeed an AVR that ran Lua and output composite video). I…

   > The use case of the Pi is a computer that can be given to small
   > children to be theirs,
I completely agree with this part...

    > to be a counterpart to the BBC Micro of thirty years ago.
But I don't really agree with this part. The BBC Micro was much more expensive in real terms when it launched, and never got down to an equivalent price during its lifespan. Only when it became a hand-me-down, replaced by something more powerful, did it have become the property of a kid. (I saw this happen with several friends.)

The Pi is something new --- its the first computer truly designed to be owned by almost all kids, from new. It's so cheap, and uses equipment most people have already (especially the TV), that only the very poorest can't afford one, and it's cheap enough that destroying one whilst tinkering isn't a disaster.

Re: Introducing Raspberry Pi B+

#96
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have the Raspberry Pi, mainly because, since I develop embedded software for a living, I have an endless supply of development boards I can hack on at work and am free to take home (during those evenings when I am not so fucking tired of flipping bits that I don't even want to SEE C code!), but : * A platform with less legacy crap than x86 is wonderful for learning about OS development. I don't know how the P…

> A platform with less legacy crap than x86 is wonderful for learning about OS development. I don't know how the Pi fares for this, with Broadcom's chip and all, but if I had the free time to hack an OS in my spare time, not dealing with all the thirty year-old cruft nor shedding a gazillion EUR on a PowerPC system would be ideal. Actually I'd say the x86/PC is probably one of the best-documented and most stable plat…

This is something I'm very interested in, and nearly bought a Pi today; I want a board that I can learn ARM assembly and C on to build a toy OS. I built half of a tiny kernel on X86 (woo real-mode!) nearly a decade ago, so I know a tiny bit about it all, but I'd assumed the Pi was a great target: well priced, tonnes of them out there so hopefully well documented, etc.

What would you suggest instead? I'm considering just firing up QEMU and it's ARM baseboard target then dealing with porting to real hardware later, but there's something exciting about seeing a real circuit firing up your kernel that makes me smile.

Re: Introducing Raspberry Pi B+

#97
post #35

I still can't see why would anyone buy one except as one of those toys that you buy and then gets tossed in the closet. 10 years ago I could see the appeal, but now? The robotics, home automation, and weekend project use cases seem like would be better served by a $5 microcontroller. Some projects, such as the weather station, justify the use of a full-fledged OS, but with the cost of buying an existing, proven, weat…

I've been using a Pi running XBMC for about a year. It's connected to a big hard drive. I can copy stuff there from my laptop (movies, music, etc.) It works pretty well; I don't remember having to "service" it in any way since I plugged it in. It works fine to stream stuff from YouTube, too. Shows for kids, etc. The XBMC remote on my phone is pretty handy too. Overall, I'm pretty happy with it.

Does it handle HD content?

Re: Introducing Raspberry Pi B+

#98
post #35

I still can't see why would anyone buy one except as one of those toys that you buy and then gets tossed in the closet. 10 years ago I could see the appeal, but now? The robotics, home automation, and weekend project use cases seem like would be better served by a $5 microcontroller. Some projects, such as the weather station, justify the use of a full-fledged OS, but with the cost of buying an existing, proven, weat…

I made a home heating controller with temp plotting and frost alarm out of a couple of Pis.

I don't think a $5 microcontroller would have run a tiny web server, tiny email server, or the plotter code that forms the core of the project.

The Pi is a fine budget Linux computer. It's not fast, it's not powerful, it's not expensive.

But it's fast enough and powerful enough for embedded applications you can put online without breaking a sweat.

Re: Introducing Raspberry Pi B+

#99
post #29
post #21

The Pi would be infititely more useful to me if the ethernet interface was attached to a "real" bus and not hung on USB. Here's to hoping that will be the next upgrade!

Could you explain why would it be better for you?

Bascially performance, one way or the other. Ethernet over USB is terribly CPU and power ineffective. I've also found the Ethernet to be a bit wonky (I suspect sleep mode issues) so I suspect reliability could be improved as a bonus.

Re: Introducing Raspberry Pi B+

#100

Is anyone running a webserver or mailserver over the Pi? Curious to know how it holds up.

Ive used it to run an openvpn client on which connected/bridged two WiFis over internet and forwarded igmp packets and multicast (not broadcast). Worked fine, so that my DLNA (minidlna) server could be reached and play movies on a Samsung smart tv as if the minidlna server was on the same wifi as the tv, but it was in fact in another city.

Streaming HD movies in this way - flawlessly. 30mbit up/down conneciton on the minidlna+openvpn server, and 24mbit down 1mbit up ASDL on the Samsung tv receiving end.

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