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Hadlock
Nov 9, 2004

awesome-express posted:

Problem is most folk don't read MS press releases. Engadget, Gizmodo, and The Verge, who also got a sizeable 'donation' from MS, all claimed that the RPI would run Windows 10 as a full desktop experience.


lol verge

Yeah I agree it's very misleading however anyone not following Betteridge's law and reading clickbait articles gets what they deserve, IMO.

People who bought a RPi2 thinking it would just run Win10 desktop out of the box probably read and shared all those articles on Facebook about how Obama was invading Texas last month, and if they share that one photo, Bill Gates will send you $100.

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UncleBlazer
Jan 27, 2011

Has it been released? Does it support F#? Because that would be my wildest dreams I think.

Double Punctuation
Dec 30, 2009

Ships were made for sinking;
Whiskey made for drinking;
If we were made of cellophane
We'd all get stinking drunk much faster!

UncleBlazer posted:

Has it been released? Does it support F#? Because that would be my wildest dreams I think.

Yes and yes. It supports any .Net languages and Python, from what I can tell.

Hadlock
Nov 9, 2004

Can you get F# to compile/run on/for the broadcom GPU? I don't know much about F# but apparently it's at least partially geared towards doing computation on the (a) GPU.

From what I understand the GPU takes up about 85% of the silicon of the SoC so that would be neat to unlock some of that potential for async programming.

But yeah F# is .net and the IoT Win10 stack has full .net 4.6 support so you should be golden for the CPU at least.

Paul MaudDib
May 3, 2006

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Hadlock posted:

Can you get F# to compile/run on/for the broadcom GPU? I don't know much about F# but apparently it's at least partially geared towards doing computation on the (a) GPU.

GPU programming stuff for it is out there, but I don't think there's any drop-in solutions.

Might want to look at this: http://petewarden.com/2014/08/07/how-to-optimize-raspberry-pi-code-using-its-gpu/

FormatAmerica
Jun 3, 2005
Grimey Drawer
Fwiw they mention they're still working on the graphics driver in the release notes.

I'll be rewriting an app or two as universal apps to run on the rpi, will report in on how they run.

mod sassinator
Dec 13, 2006
I came here to Kick Ass and Chew Bubblegum,
and I'm All out of Ass
Win 10 on Pi doesn't support the GPU yet unfortunately, it just uses software rendering (and is pretty slow, apparently can only get like maybe 1-2 frames/second with full screen animations). Perhaps in the future once they flesh out GPU support it might be possible to use some kind of general purpose GPU stuff for optimizations.

Using the GPU isn't an immediate performance gain though. You really need a problem that can be parallelized well to get the most benefits. There's overhead with sending memory to and from the GPU so small things like trying to run a loop of a few hundred things in parallel will actually end up taking more time than just running on the CPU. It's better to use the GPU like a fancy DSP where it runs an algorithm like a FFT, etc. and crunches through a ton of data at a time.

Nintendo Kid
Aug 4, 2011

by Smythe
Do keep in mind that the GPU in the Pi 2 is basically the same one as the Pi 1 and thus nearly 9 years old. It's not exactly a powerhouse for GPU computing.

Paul MaudDib
May 3, 2006

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I really, really doubt F# would run well on GPGPU anyway. Functional programming tends to be highly branching - eg you're working through a bunch of guards to figure out which case applies, and then doing some processing on it.

That's basically the opposite of GPGPU programming, where you want to have very low code-path divergence. That's because GPUs are SIMD, so the way you handle multiple code-paths within a group is you mask off some processors within your SIMD group (a warp) to run only NOPs instead of the standard instruction stream. That means that for every given segment of code (defined as the code between branch divergence and re-merging), if there's N different possible code paths you may run the code up to N times (if all code paths occur within your warp).

Functional programming still exists on GPGPU, but it looks like "a program built with Thrust device-wide collective operations", not a Prolog-type language.

F# isn't baby's first language by any means, but it's a high-level language. The standard language of choice used as a jumping-off point for this kind of low-level programming is C/C++. Unless you're into FORTRAN, that is. :whatup:

Paul MaudDib fucked around with this message at 03:56 on Aug 18, 2015

Paul MaudDib
May 3, 2006

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Nintendo Kid posted:

Do keep in mind that the GPU in the Pi 2 is basically the same one as the Pi 1 and thus nearly 9 years old. It's not exactly a powerhouse for GPU computing.

If he really wants to do GPU programming, the obvious choice is the Jetson TK-1. Yeah it does cost more, but there's a hell of a lot more there too - the CPU is decently powerful, it's got real CUDA, USB 3.0, SATA, mPCI-E, etc. I was never that satisfied with my Pi but the Tegra is probably in the "netbook" ballpark (don't own one, just guessing).

Still waiting on my Jetson with a Tegra X-1. Come the gently caress on NVIDIA :argh:

The other choice is the Parallella but it's not a standard GPU, it's a funky floating-point processor with 16 cores arranged in a 4x4 grid with 2-d x/y interconnects. I have a friend who wrote core-level MPI support for it, which is the obvious approach to programming that processor.

Paul MaudDib fucked around with this message at 05:04 on Aug 18, 2015

Magnus Praeda
Jul 18, 2003
The largess in the land.

awesome-express posted:

Just as an FYI, it's not a real version of Windows 10... It's Windows 10 IoT, which is a static single screen version that lets you deploy windows 10 apps to the Pi. You don't actually have a desktop you can click around, or a browser or anything like that. MS was really misleading with the whole Windows 10 for the Pi spiel.

Oh, I know. I never expected a full-on desktop Windows, nor would that really be useful in any way. I was just pointing out that it was available. I'm sticking to my Pi-B's and Linux since I mostly use them for playing around in the command line headlessly anyway.

doctorfrog
Mar 14, 2007

Great.

I guess I was one of the ignorami who didn't look too deeply at Windows 10 on the Pi, but I wasn't expecting a full Win 10 desktop experience, either, but something pretty scaled down, maybe half as flexible as Raspbian, with some disappointing form of their cloud, office, and gaming features roped in. I figured it would be part of MS's attempted entree into schools: cheapo computers with basic computery functions, aimed at poorer schools or better-equipped schools' science and activity labs.

"IoT"-a read the article next time.

awesome-express
Dec 30, 2008

doctorfrog posted:

I guess I was one of the ignorami who didn't look too deeply at Windows 10 on the Pi, but I wasn't expecting a full Win 10 desktop experience, either, but something pretty scaled down, maybe half as flexible as Raspbian, with some disappointing form of their cloud, office, and gaming features roped in. I figured it would be part of MS's attempted entree into schools: cheapo computers with basic computery functions, aimed at poorer schools or better-equipped schools' science and activity labs.

"IoT"-a read the article next time.

Those were my expectations as well, but it's not even that.

On a slightly different topic, has anyone had trouble with their pi camera? I got the infrared one and the pi isn't detecting it no matter how hard I wiggle it in.

FormatAmerica
Jun 3, 2005
Grimey Drawer
Going by general microsoft product life cycle trends, the third one will be worth using without major caveats.

I'm pleased with the changes from the beta - it was WAY easier to setup & noticeably quicker both overall and gui-specifically.

e: quoth the release notes since everyone is saying there's no video driver at all when they seem to suggest at least something is there:

Microsoft posted:

Windows 10 IoT Core is still being ported to the Raspberry PI. The video driver for the Raspberry PI is still under development, and its performance has not yet been optimized. Animated user elements, such as XAML based drop down menus in particular, may display poorly.

FormatAmerica fucked around with this message at 12:32 on Aug 18, 2015

Spazzle
Jul 5, 2003

awesome-express posted:

Those were my expectations as well, but it's not even that.

On a slightly different topic, has anyone had trouble with their pi camera? I got the infrared one and the pi isn't detecting it no matter how hard I wiggle it in.

There is is an enable camera setting in raspi-config.

mod sassinator
Dec 13, 2006
I came here to Kick Ass and Chew Bubblegum,
and I'm All out of Ass

awesome-express posted:

Those were my expectations as well, but it's not even that.

On a slightly different topic, has anyone had trouble with their pi camera? I got the infrared one and the pi isn't detecting it no matter how hard I wiggle it in.

Make sure to rpi-update to update the firmware. That caused some trouble for me with the camera in the past.

mod sassinator
Dec 13, 2006
I came here to Kick Ass and Chew Bubblegum,
and I'm All out of Ass

FormatAmerica posted:

Going by general microsoft product life cycle trends, the third one will be worth using without major caveats.

I'm pleased with the changes from the beta - it was WAY easier to setup & noticeably quicker both overall and gui-specifically.

e: quoth the release notes since everyone is saying there's no video driver at all when they seem to suggest at least something is there:

Yeah there's video but like folks said it only can display a single 'windows universal app' in full screen. It's a software renderer too right now so games, fast animations, etc. are a no go too.

UncleBlazer
Jan 27, 2011

dpbjinc posted:

Yes and yes. It supports any .Net languages and Python, from what I can tell.

Fantastic! Thanks for the info. Now if only MS would make F# a proper, first class citizen.

Nintendo Kid
Aug 4, 2011

by Smythe

doctorfrog posted:

I guess I was one of the ignorami who didn't look too deeply at Windows 10 on the Pi, but I wasn't expecting a full Win 10 desktop experience, either, but something pretty scaled down, maybe half as flexible as Raspbian, with some disappointing form of their cloud, office, and gaming features roped in. I figured it would be part of MS's attempted entree into schools: cheapo computers with basic computery functions, aimed at poorer schools or better-equipped schools' science and activity labs.

"IoT"-a read the article next time.

That doesn't really make sense. "Use raspberry pis as cheap school computers" has never made sense even if that was the intention. You can't use a Pi 2 without extra keyboard, mouse, display device. You bundle all that up and frankly regular Windows desktops or even low end laptops are cheaper, and significantly more versatile.

There are very few situations ever that you'd have usb mice, keyboards, and either composite tvs or hdmi tv/monitors all ready to go in the dozens but no computers, or with computers but they're so old that the Pi or anything like them would be a step up.

doctorfrog
Mar 14, 2007

Great.

Nintendo Kid posted:

That doesn't really make sense. "Use raspberry pis as cheap school computers" has never made sense even if that was the intention. You can't use a Pi 2 without extra keyboard, mouse, display device. You bundle all that up and frankly regular Windows desktops or even low end laptops are cheaper, and significantly more versatile.

There are very few situations ever that you'd have usb mice, keyboards, and either composite tvs or hdmi tv/monitors all ready to go in the dozens but no computers, or with computers but they're so old that the Pi or anything like them would be a step up.

That was extra supposition on my part that I didn't think would happen, but would be very interesting if it did. It would have been not an endgame, but a step toward cheap MS tablets in the schools and the like to compete on mindshare with Apple. All supposition on my part, supported by nothing but imagination.

baka kaba
Jul 19, 2003

PLEASE ASK ME, THE SELF-PROFESSED NO #1 PAUL CATTERMOLE FAN IN THE SOMETHING AWFUL S-CLUB 7 MEGATHREAD, TO NAME A SINGLE SONG BY HIS EXCELLENT NU-METAL SIDE PROJECT, SKUA, AND IF I CAN'T PLEASE TELL ME TO
EAT SHIT

They weren't meant to be drop-in replacements for PCs, the idea was to have a Computer Science package that's ready to go for any classroom at any level. It comes with a simple language for teaching fundamental concepts to beginners, that teachers with no ICT background can work with (which has always been a concern with this general push to bring computer science to younger children).

And the form factor and hardware access along with Python opens the door to design and technology projects, which is what a lot of schools have been using them for. The fact the 'hacking community' has embraced the Pi isn't exactly a side-effect - it was designed to be a general, flexible tool for students to create and explore ideas

Paul MaudDib
May 3, 2006

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baka kaba posted:

They weren't meant to be drop-in replacements for PCs, the idea was to have a Computer Science package that's ready to go for any classroom at any level. It comes with a simple language for teaching fundamental concepts to beginners, that teachers with no ICT background can work with (which has always been a concern with this general push to bring computer science to younger children).

And the form factor and hardware access along with Python opens the door to design and technology projects, which is what a lot of schools have been using them for. The fact the 'hacking community' has embraced the Pi isn't exactly a side-effect - it was designed to be a general, flexible tool for students to create and explore ideas

Actually the Pi foundation has repeatedly brought up the fact that the target market was the educational sector and not hackers. It's been their go-to excuse for years whenever someone complains about their hardware/software bugs.

They were even hoping that people would set up labs full of the things. It's pretty funny to imagine the supply of SD cards you'd need to make that happen.

I do appreciate their goals, but the massive PR push annoys the crap out of me. The savings over a low-power x86 barebones aren't really all that compelling when you consider all the things that don't come in the box (SD card, power adapter, wifi) and all the things you have to buy to fix the Pi's quirks (powered USB hubs, USB stick for a system drive to avoid burning out the SD card, etc). And when you're dealing with classroom- or lab-sized quantities you can't make decisions on the assumption that you can pull monitors, keyboards, mice, etc out of your junk closet, the network's not free, etc. Next to the cost of that, $25 or so of savings on the computer itself barely even registers.

The Pi has name recognition, though, and when the only tool you know is a hammer everything looks like a nail. Nobody ever got an Innovative Teacher Of The Year Award for setting up a lab full of ECS Livas, ODroids, or Bus Pirates.

Paul MaudDib fucked around with this message at 00:11 on Aug 19, 2015

doctorfrog
Mar 14, 2007

Great.

I think they're partly enamored of the idea of a weakly adorable, cheap machine like the Spectrum ZX in the UK of the 80's. If the design of the Pi really has some dumb decisions more than cost-conscious tradeoffs, that is. They're either being true to a set of values or pursuing a nostalgia.

Maybe they'll use their name rec to push something with a little more umph, but only if it's cheap. From their about page (bolding mine):

quote:

We don’t claim to have all the answers. We don’t think that the Raspberry Pi is a fix to all of the world’s computing issues; we do believe that we can be a catalyst. We want to see affordable, programmable computers everywhere. We want to break the paradigm where without spending hundreds of pounds on a PC, families can’t use the internet. We want owning a truly personal computer to be normal for children, and we’re looking forward to what the future has in store.

There is something in that first sentence, as though responding to common criticism.

I will say this much as a newcomer to the Pi: the low expense and even the low power of the device, are both part of the appeal. It's fun to see what one can coax out of the device, whether its really built for it or not. But there comes a point where, as a consumer--not a student, educator, or hardcore hobbyist--I'm gonna want a next step, and they should be investigating that, or making active, official recommendations for that next step, if they want to really contribute to the idea of "owning a truly personal computer to be normal." I think for kids, the next step is a tablet, which is generally a storefront for consumption, a step away from personal computing.

baka kaba
Jul 19, 2003

PLEASE ASK ME, THE SELF-PROFESSED NO #1 PAUL CATTERMOLE FAN IN THE SOMETHING AWFUL S-CLUB 7 MEGATHREAD, TO NAME A SINGLE SONG BY HIS EXCELLENT NU-METAL SIDE PROJECT, SKUA, AND IF I CAN'T PLEASE TELL ME TO
EAT SHIT

Paul MaudDib posted:

Actually the Pi foundation has repeatedly brought up the fact that the target market was the educational sector and not hackers. It's been their go-to excuse for years whenever someone complains about their hardware/software bugs.

They were even hoping that people would set up labs full of the things. It's pretty funny to imagine the supply of SD cards you'd need to make that happen.

I do appreciate their goals, but the massive PR push annoys the crap out of me. The savings over a low-power x86 barebones aren't really all that compelling when you consider all the things that don't come in the box (SD card, power adapter, wifi) and all the things you have to buy to fix the Pi's quirks (powered USB hubs, USB stick for a system drive to avoid burning out the SD card, etc). And when you're dealing with classroom- or lab-sized quantities you can't make decisions on the assumption that you can pull monitors, keyboards, mice, etc out of your junk closet, the network's not free, etc. Next to the cost of that, $25 or so of savings on the computer itself barely even registers.

The Pi has name recognition, though, and when the only tool you know is a hammer everything looks like a nail. Nobody ever got an Innovative Teacher Of The Year Award for setting up a lab full of ECS Livas, ODroids, or Bus Pirates.



Oh sure, and I've had to go through that myself when someone got me a Pi as a present (lots of stuff to buy before I can even use it). But like I said, I don't think the cost itself was the main point. The Pi offers an out-of-the-box, standardised Computer Science toolkit, with a bunch of resources for teachers and pupils to get using it. In primary school especially, teachers don't necessarily have any background in that kind of thing at all, but there's a drive to improve the UK's CS education and improve the tech skills of school-leavers. That's why they started the foundation - to tackle that issue and help teachers open the door to that kind of experimentation.

Sure there might be better gear out there, but it doesn't mean it's a better fit for the typical education environment. Anything that can get more kids involved in this kind of stuff is awesome

http://www.techradar.com/news/computing/8-great-raspberry-pi-projects-created-by-kids-1143243

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKMiWDeqm2E

:3:

Nintendo Kid
Aug 4, 2011

by Smythe

baka kaba posted:

They weren't meant to be drop-in replacements for PCs, the idea was to have a Computer Science package that's ready to go for any classroom at any level. It comes with a simple language for teaching fundamental concepts to beginners, that teachers with no ICT background can work with (which has always been a concern with this general push to bring computer science to younger children).

And the form factor and hardware access along with Python opens the door to design and technology projects, which is what a lot of schools have been using them for. The fact the 'hacking community' has embraced the Pi isn't exactly a side-effect - it was designed to be a general, flexible tool for students to create and explore ideas

Right, and they're TERRIBLE for that in comparison to the computers modern schools already have if they could also afford the necessary ancillary kit to actually use the Pis. In my high school in the 2000s, we simply used a free Java IDE for computer science class. Python, poo poo even Pascal or logo (they still put that out you know) are also free or often nearly free for education.

If it was designed to be that, it's worked out terribly for it to be frank. Because what they really built was something that was cheap and great for people who already know all about computers, or at least a decent bit. And that's a good thing for it to be, they just didn't seem to realize that that's what it could only really ever be.

It reminds me of the original OLPC. They decided to make it gimmicky with some custom Linux OS, then when the actual people who would be receiving them finally got a say, they're like "well we would really prefer if it had a normal OS, preferably Windows, so that we can use the same things the rich folks can". And then people whined about the project being tainted when Microsoft donated free Windows 7 Starter licenses for most of the later ones produced and actually sent overseas.

baka kaba
Jul 19, 2003

PLEASE ASK ME, THE SELF-PROFESSED NO #1 PAUL CATTERMOLE FAN IN THE SOMETHING AWFUL S-CLUB 7 MEGATHREAD, TO NAME A SINGLE SONG BY HIS EXCELLENT NU-METAL SIDE PROJECT, SKUA, AND IF I CAN'T PLEASE TELL ME TO
EAT SHIT

Yeah let's get a bunch of primary school teachers trained up in Java and wrangling serial ports on a collection of laptops, sounds like a plan

doctorfrog
Mar 14, 2007

Great.

Nintendo Kid posted:

It reminds me of the original OLPC. They decided to make it gimmicky with some custom Linux OS, then when the actual people who would be receiving them finally got a say, they're like "well we would really prefer if it had a normal OS, preferably Windows, so that we can use the same things the rich folks can". And then people whined about the project being tainted when Microsoft donated free Windows 7 Starter licenses for most of the later ones produced and actually sent overseas.

I always wondered, but never enough to look it up. OLPC was the sort of thing I thought was really neat, but always kinda scratched my head about what the poor African villagers in the pictures were supposed to do when the battery wouldn't hold any kind of charge in 2-3 years, the handle on the charge thing broke, or the kids wanted do something outside of the ghettoized OS it came with.

I even downloaded Sugar, the OS. It... means well.

Nintendo Kid
Aug 4, 2011

by Smythe

baka kaba posted:

Yeah let's get a bunch of primary school teachers trained up in Java and wrangling serial ports on a collection of laptops, sounds like a plan

Why do you need serial ports? :confused: If you're teaching basic computer stuff where the heck do serial ports come in in the year of our lord 2015? And Java's easy enough by far. Or again, python, logo, and other things. The Pi doesn't bring anything to the table, since all languages already run on the computers the school already has, whether they be Windows, OS X or even Linux if some school districts done that.

doctorfrog posted:

I always wondered, but never enough to look it up. OLPC was the sort of thing I thought was really neat, but always kinda scratched my head about what the poor African villagers in the pictures were supposed to do when the battery wouldn't hold any kind of charge in 2-3 years, the handle on the charge thing broke, or the kids wanted do something outside of the ghettoized OS it came with.

I even downloaded Sugar, the OS. It... means well.

If I remember right at one point the OLPC group considered just dumping unsent OLPCs over villages near the end.

Paul MaudDib
May 3, 2006

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Nintendo Kid posted:

Why do you need serial ports? :confused: If you're teaching basic computer stuff where the heck do serial ports come in in the year of our lord 2015? And Java's easy enough by far. Or again, python, logo, and other things. The Pi doesn't bring anything to the table, since all languages already run on the computers the school already has, whether they be Windows, OS X or even Linux if some school districts done that.

Yeah - if they don't want Java, it's not a problem to run Python on a real computer. Linux runs on things more powerful than a Raspberry Pi, or there's like Cygwin or ActivePython or stuff. Literally anything is more powerful than a Pi. Ubuntu is way easier than running Raspbian on a Pi anyway (I like the LXDE-flavored Lubuntu instead). If you feel the urge for console - Ubuntu Server runs in like zero memory. I think it's ~25mb to terminal on a clean system, and it's crazy fast even as a VM. Or you could even install gentoo, friendbuddyguy :smug:

I think the "serial port" is because they might want to do embedded stuff, and a lot of stuff talks via USART. But like, USB<->Serial adapters are a thing, I got a couple for like $15 a pop a couple years ago, they're not really rare or anything. And for I2C, JTAG, logic analysis, etc you can run a Bus Pirate instead. It's probably a better-engineered product than whatever someone hacked together on a SoC GPIO pin, lets you leverage whatever real computers you've got, and costs less than a Pi in the first place.

There's really no embedded task you can't accomplish over a USB port in TYOOL 2015. The Pi might make sense to embed in the final product, maybe. Although again there are better offerings.

Paul MaudDib fucked around with this message at 02:41 on Aug 19, 2015

Paul MaudDib
May 3, 2006

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Nintendo Kid posted:

If it was designed to be that, it's worked out terribly for it to be frank. Because what they really built was something that was cheap and great for people who already know all about computers, or at least a decent bit. And that's a good thing for it to be, they just didn't seem to realize that that's what it could only really ever be.

The thing is it is also terrible for that, because experienced users want to be able to do things that involve USB 2.0 speeds. For like a couple years the kernel would drop USB packets at 2.0 speeds. Even now, it's a terrible architecture for that because SD card, system disk, external disk, network, webcam, whatever are all hanging off a single 400 Mbps bus. USB ain't made for that.

Anyone who wants more than a bit-banging embedded device wants something with USB 3.0 and maybe even SATA. And anyone who wants a bit-banging embedded device probably wants either an ODroid/Beaglebone Black or an MSP430/Arduino/AVR/Parallax instead, depending on what side you're coming at that from. Maybe even something a little more, like a DSP or a Jetson.

Paul MaudDib fucked around with this message at 02:40 on Aug 19, 2015

Paul MaudDib
May 3, 2006

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baka kaba posted:

Sure there might be better gear out there, but it doesn't mean it's a better fit for the typical education environment. Anything that can get more kids involved in this kind of stuff is awesome

For the record, I agree with you that getting kids involved in programming is a worthy goal.

I just don't see the value add over cheap x86 hardware. Ye Olde Baytraile-Emm or J1900 is going to be a lot easier to manage because they have real SATA and aren't going to be making GBS threads their disk drives all the time. You can still PXE boot, actually it will be way easier since you don't have to bootstrap from a loving SD card. You don't have to gently caress around with janky micro-USB power supplies. Etc etc. A bunch of the Pi hardware ecosystem is incredibly toxic even before we get into the capabilities of the system itself. When you figure that monitors cost at least $90 a pop even on Newegg clearance, plus keyboard, maybe mouse, network, etc - it just doesn't make sense to save like $30 at the expense of your tech guys having a nervous breakdown.

I mean - assuming that you don't already have some kind of computer lab or laptop cart.


Yeah, cute, but that's just a temperature sensor that probably talks over I2C or frequency counts or something. Hook it to the Bus Pirate and it can be just as :3:, but the computer will be way more useful.

Paul MaudDib fucked around with this message at 03:03 on Aug 19, 2015

Nintendo Kid
Aug 4, 2011

by Smythe

Paul MaudDib posted:

The thing is it is also terrible for that, because experienced users want to be able to do things that involve USB 2.0 speeds. For like a couple years the kernel would drop USB packets at 2.0 speeds. Even now, it's a terrible architecture for that because SD card, system disk, external disk, network, webcam, whatever are all hanging off a single 400 Mbps bus. USB ain't made for that.

While this is all true, it was still really really cheap which was the main thing. Really these criticisms apply more to the Pi 2 because they coulda fixed that stuff and put a non-9 years-old GPU on it to match with the no-longer-9 years-old CPU but whatever.

IAmKale
Jun 7, 2007

やらないか

Fun Shoe
What's preventing anyone from releasing an x86 version of something like the Pi? Is it that the x86 architecture is expensive in general? I think it was in this thread that someone linked a Pi-esque x86 board that was going for a few hundred dollars? Obviously a far cry from $35.

I just wanted a cheap, low-power server I could keep on all the time without worrying about my electricity bill inflating. Unfortunately ARM seems to be a poo poo platform for what I want to do so I'm wondering if I should just bite the bullet and pick up an HP Mini instead.

Nintendo Kid
Aug 4, 2011

by Smythe

Karthe posted:

What's preventing anyone from releasing an x86 version of something like the Pi? Is it that the x86 architecture is expensive in general? I think it was in this thread that someone linked a Pi-esque x86 board that was going for a few hundred dollars? Obviously a far cry from $35.

I just wanted a cheap, low-power server I could keep on all the time without worrying about my electricity bill inflating. Unfortunately ARM seems to be a poo poo platform for what I want to do so I'm wondering if I should just bite the bullet and pick up an HP Mini instead.

Intel has their Compute Stick for around $140.

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/compute-stick/intel-compute-stick.html

It comes with 1 GB of ram and 8 GB of storage for the cheaper Linux version, or 2 GB ram and 32 GB storage for the more expensive Windows version (either os can be installed on either revision though)

It has a quad core modern Atom CPU (which is little to do with the original Atom design) so as far as CPU power goes it's pretty darn beefy, and the Intel gpu isn't bad either.

If it sold without casing or the storage it'd probably be decently cheaper.

Moey
Oct 22, 2010

I LIKE TO MOVE IT
If going for a dedicated headless server in a small form factor, I rather go with the HP stream. A little more ($180), but at least you can plug in an ethernet cable to it.

http://www.amazon.com/HP-Stream-200-010-Mini-Desktop/dp/B00R7R1GWK/ref=sr_1_4?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1439952860&sr=1-4&keywords=hp+stream

Hadlock
Nov 9, 2004

The Windows 10 IoT release was for the Pi2 and an x86 board called the Minnowboard Max out some such. It will also run regular Win 8.1 apparently.

With Arm-based Chromebooks slipping under $150 I can see a Pi branded ARM based laptop, with a flip up cover exposing a 40 pin female header, and then also a cheaper headless model with the same 40 pin header. In a year or two. It's going to have to be cheaper than the existing Chinese ARM Chromebooks, but that will be difficult to do.

Also yeah, Intel released their Galileo running Linux on a tiny x86 chip, with arduino pin out (but crappy PWM), and later a second model with less crappy PWM, and later still the Edison. So they have three "maker boards".

Hadlock fucked around with this message at 04:38 on Aug 19, 2015

BattleMaster
Aug 14, 2000

Just theorycrafting here but I would love a laptop with a bunch of GPIO pins with overvoltage, overcurrent, and ESD protection on them

IAmKale
Jun 7, 2007

やらないか

Fun Shoe

Moey posted:

If going for a dedicated headless server in a small form factor, I rather go with the HP stream. A little more ($180), but at least you can plug in an ethernet cable to it.

http://www.amazon.com/HP-Stream-200-010-Mini-Desktop/dp/B00R7R1GWK/ref=sr_1_4?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1439952860&sr=1-4&keywords=hp+stream
To be honest I've had my eye on this for a while (I mistakenly called this the "HP Mini" earlier) but the Pi was well within impulse buy territory so I've ended up buying them instead (a Pi B+ about a year ago, and the Pi 2 last weekend). That'll teach me I guess :sigh:

eschaton
Mar 7, 2007

Don't you just hate when you wind up in a store with people who are in a socioeconomic class that is pretty obviously about two levels lower than your own?
In the under $100 category, ARM still rules for overall price/performance, even if the Raspberry Pi isn't very performance for the price. I await my Dragonboard 410c…

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Jamsta
Dec 16, 2006

Oh you want some too? Fuck you!

Nintendo Kid posted:

Intel has their Compute Stick for around $140.

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/compute-stick/intel-compute-stick.html

It comes with 1 GB of ram and 8 GB of storage for the cheaper Linux version, or 2 GB ram and 32 GB storage for the more expensive Windows version (either os can be installed on either revision though)

It has a quad core modern Atom CPU (which is little to do with the original Atom design) so as far as CPU power goes it's pretty darn beefy, and the Intel gpu isn't bad either.

If it sold without casing or the storage it'd probably be decently cheaper.

I'm using one of these at work, with Windows 10. It's a very capable bit of kit, with HDMI, Wifi, Bluetooth and powered USB built in (only one port though).

There's no GPIO, so you'd need to use a USB IO dongle if you wanted to control electronics with it.

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