131–140 of 208 posts
It used to be that raspberry pi was a cheap pc. Well it's not longer cheap. And at their price point, you could just get a mini PC and have better performance, or if you want to use it as a microcontroller, you can just use an arduino, esp32, or an actual microcontroller for a fraction of the price and power consumption. So, what do people actually do with these pies?
I keep hearing voices invalidate each other, is the bottleneck the raw silicon substrate, or fab capacity?
What purity levels are required for say Pi Zero 2W?
The volume of monocrystalline silicon used in solar panels is orders of magnitude greater than the volume used in IC's / RAM production.
Is the actual bottleneck 11N + grade silicon wafers while 6N to 9N grade used in solar panels remains unaffected?
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> It was a "microcontroller" you could program in Python with a friendly Linux environment and is now an expensive, power hungry, hot computer with a microcontroller hanging off of it The Pi project was never originally a microcontroller - it was always a full-blown SBC you could program any way you want with some GPIO pins attached. People literally used them as (slow) home computers. The company didn't sell its fir…
At one point, the raspberry pi was a decent option if you wanted something hobbyist friendly that could toggle GPIOs and connect to the Internet (and later Bluetooth). I suspect Espressif has mostly taken over that market now
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^^^ when I tell people tangential to the field that the latest pi needs considerations of cooling solutions and a beefy power supply (no more just any old micro usb cable into any old usb port), they're astonished. It was a "microcontroller" you could program in Python with a friendly Linux environment and is now an expensive, power hungry, hot computer with a microcontroller hanging off of it
On the other hand, the RP2350 actually is a microcontroller, and IMO a nice one for many purposes. PIO, high-quality datasheet, nice ecosystem, etc. And the Pi Zero 2(W) can do most things the Pi/Pi 2 could, with a smaller footprint and less power consumption. Variety is nice.
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^^^ when I tell people tangential to the field that the latest pi needs considerations of cooling solutions and a beefy power supply (no more just any old micro usb cable into any old usb port), they're astonished. It was a "microcontroller" you could program in Python with a friendly Linux environment and is now an expensive, power hungry, hot computer with a microcontroller hanging off of it
Something can't be a microcontroller if it runs Linux.
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Nvidia's software platform for the whole Jetson series was, at least in my experience, absolutely awful on the Jetson Nano and Orin boards I worked on. Has that improved at all? I did not appreciate that the only option they provided was a full desktop version of ancient Ubuntu... and even flashing the OS image was a bizarre process. Edit: looks like they at least have a better headless option now.
Nowadays upstream Linux with UEFI mostly works, with their out of tree drivers. I’ve managed to make it work in NixOS with the stock kernel. Look at the open embedded L4T project, they have some recipes for building that. No need to use nvidia’s kernel anymore! Also, supposedly on the second half of 2026 they were going to be moving even more stuff out of their Jetson-specific drivers as they already do for their sli…
rephrase please?
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I agree that Raspberry Pi is not a good general purpose computer, but some of these criticisms are starting to feel like a pile-on with partially incorrect information. > the latest pi needs considerations of cooling solutions FYI you can run the Raspberry Pi 5 without a fan or even a heatsink. It will safely throttle itself if it gets too hot. If you're trying to get maximum performance out of it all the time, you w…
Raspberry Pi uses USB-C and USB-C is more generous with power. Almost everything except computers provides 15W. With USB-C, devices request want they and there is no reason has to work with minimum possible. The problem with the Pi5 is that they use weird profile, 5A/5V, that requires special charger. Most 5V chargers are 100W and beefy. If they hadn't cheaped out on power circuits, they could have used normal 30W ch…
5A/5V what are they smoking?
> " ...: It sounds like the key feature will be 'more': a faster CPU and faster IO, rather than new features. " Raspberry Pi Holdings is a embedded systems manufacturer for pity's sake; we don't need more from them, we need less. [EDIT] A faster Raspberry Pi 6 is encroaching on the territory of the Intel N150 and its successors and mainstream Linux distributions and that is a battle they would lose in terms of price…
Ideally each RPi generation should keep the same price (or lower now that it's gotten so high) but with better performance. If they can't do that they just shouldn't create a new generation.
It used to be that raspberry pi was a cheap pc. Well it's not longer cheap. And at their price point, you could just get a mini PC and have better performance, or if you want to use it as a microcontroller, you can just use an arduino, esp32, or an actual microcontroller for a fraction of the price and power consumption. So, what do people actually do with these pies?
But you're right. It's pretty overpriced for its performance. If I'm after the GPIO I'd just use a microcontroller. If I'm setting up a headless server I'd just use pretty much any other SBCs or mini PC. I'm personally not a big fan of Raspberry Pi.
The cheap Raspberry Pi's still available as Raspberry Pi Zero tho, if that's what you're after.
