Raspberry Pi Model A+ Board • Hacker News Board

Re: Raspberry Pi Model A+ Board

#11

Post by narrowrail » Sat, Nov 08, 2014, 4:05 PM UTC

techrat wrote: post #7

jamesu wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I too have had problems with reliability, though more so when the device has already booted. e.g. numerous times I've had the device completely hang during file access. When problems such as this crop up it really puts a dampener on the experience.

brand of flash matters. before the raspi came along and popularized arm computing, there was a very lively scene around arm hacking out of existing devices. sheevaplug started the trend and people found that things like the seagate dockstar (a nas based hard drive dock) could be easily modified to boot a linux distro from usb and run as a low power headless server. we kept a list of results from our experiences of wh…

>sheevaplug started the trend

Not to be pedantic, but before the Sheevaplug, there was the Linksys NSLU2, which came out in 2004:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSLU2

http://www.nslu2-linux.org/wiki/FAQ/FirmwareMatrix

Re: Raspberry Pi Model A+ Board

#12

Post by b1gtuna » Sat, Nov 08, 2014, 4:18 PM UTC

maguirre wrote: post #2

I love the RPi and what it has done to introduce computing/programming/linux to more people. However I can't get past how unreliable booting from an SD card has been for me. I know reliability depends heavily on the SD card used and on the quality of board socket but I am disappointed that Rev 2 of the board did not come with the option of on-board flash.

Have you made sure your power supply is reliable?

Re: Raspberry Pi Model A+ Board

#13

Post by tambourine_man » Sat, Nov 08, 2014, 4:40 PM UTC

maguirre wrote: post #2

I love the RPi and what it has done to introduce computing/programming/linux to more people. However I can't get past how unreliable booting from an SD card has been for me. I know reliability depends heavily on the SD card used and on the quality of board socket but I am disappointed that Rev 2 of the board did not come with the option of on-board flash.

Maybe I'm just lucky, but my model b has been nothing but rock solid.

In fact, it syncs files across my machines through git and runs crash plan 24/7.

Absolutely love the little thing

Re: Raspberry Pi Model A+ Board

#14

Post by atmosx » Sat, Nov 08, 2014, 4:42 PM UTC

tambourine_man wrote: post #13

maguirre wrote: post #2

I love the RPi and what it has done to introduce computing/programming/linux to more people. However I can't get past how unreliable booting from an SD card has been for me. I know reliability depends heavily on the SD card used and on the quality of board socket but I am disappointed that Rev 2 of the board did not come with the option of on-board flash.

Maybe I'm just lucky, but my model b has been nothing but rock solid. In fact, it syncs files across my machines through git and runs crash plan 24/7. Absolutely love the little thing

I have 3 RPi deployments and at least two of those at home, one as 'home server' and the other one for dev projects. Never had a single SD-card failure. But a friend of mine, had a couple of failures...

Re: Raspberry Pi Model A+ Board

#15

Post by maguirre » Sat, Nov 08, 2014, 4:54 PM UTC

b1gtuna wrote: post #12

maguirre wrote: post #2

I love the RPi and what it has done to introduce computing/programming/linux to more people. However I can't get past how unreliable booting from an SD card has been for me. I know reliability depends heavily on the SD card used and on the quality of board socket but I am disappointed that Rev 2 of the board did not come with the option of on-board flash.

Have you made sure your power supply is reliable?

That's a good question. I haven't paid much attention to the power supply. I have a regulated (lab grade) power supply I am going to check if there are any changes when powered by it

Re: Raspberry Pi Model A+ Board

#16

Post by maguirre » Sat, Nov 08, 2014, 4:56 PM UTC

ZenoArrow wrote: post #5

maguirre wrote: post #2

I love the RPi and what it has done to introduce computing/programming/linux to more people. However I can't get past how unreliable booting from an SD card has been for me. I know reliability depends heavily on the SD card used and on the quality of board socket but I am disappointed that Rev 2 of the board did not come with the option of on-board flash.

Where are you obtaining your SD cards from?

I have tried different brands for what I'd consider reputable vendors. I do photography as a hobby which has educated me on quality (lack there of) of some SD cards

Re: Raspberry Pi Model A+ Board

#17

Post by vanderZwan » Sat, Nov 08, 2014, 5:07 PM UTC

custardcream wrote: post #8

maguirre wrote: post #2

I love the RPi and what it has done to introduce computing/programming/linux to more people. However I can't get past how unreliable booting from an SD card has been for me. I know reliability depends heavily on the SD card used and on the quality of board socket but I am disappointed that Rev 2 of the board did not come with the option of on-board flash.

Been lurking for a bit. Was hoping to say hello with a constructive comment but I have to jump in here. I bought a Pi model B for my daughter. Nothing but terrible unreliability. Booting problems as you state, power problems with the USB ports, random hangs and crashes and problems getting half of the devices recommended to work. I kind of expected that for the money but the thing that really pissed me off was when I…

I assume you did get the constructive feedback that you need a proper 5V power source? Because it will boot with lower, but then randomly crash all the time.

Re: Raspberry Pi Model A+ Board

#18

Post by Aqwis » Sat, Nov 08, 2014, 5:31 PM UTC

Is small size the only thing the A/A+ has over the B/B+ board? Is size really such a big issue for prototyping boards like the Raspberry Pi?

Re: Raspberry Pi Model A+ Board

#19

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Nov 08, 2014, 5:32 PM UTC

maguirre wrote: post #15

b1gtuna wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you made sure your power supply is reliable?

That's a good question. I haven't paid much attention to the power supply. I have a regulated (lab grade) power supply I am going to check if there are any changes when powered by it

[deleted]

Re: Raspberry Pi Model A+ Board

#20

Post by 101914 » Sat, Nov 08, 2014, 5:47 PM UTC

maguirre wrote: post #2

I love the RPi and what it has done to introduce computing/programming/linux to more people. However I can't get past how unreliable booting from an SD card has been for me. I know reliability depends heavily on the SD card used and on the quality of board socket but I am disappointed that Rev 2 of the board did not come with the option of on-board flash.

Just to give a different perspective, I think booting from SD card is my favorite aspect of the RPi (although I do not disagree with your comment).

This is because I find it gives me easier flexibility in switching between kernels with embedded userlands. I run my OS from RAM with only tmpfs for secondary storage, and I make my SD cards read-only. I do not try to use an SD card like a HDD, but I am aware that many people probably do and I am probably in the minority.

In sum, I find booting from the SD card is just easier when developing than constantly re-flashing on-board chips.

I doubt that this was the intention behind having the RPi store the bootloader on an SD card, but I am thankfule for it.

For ease of development for people like me, if nothing else, I sometimes wish more ARM evaluation boards would provide a similar boot from SD card option (where I choose the bootloader), in addition to on-board flash.