Raspberry Pi: yeah we're pretty much all on desktops again

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > Raspberry Pi: yeah we're pretty much all on desktops again

HolyDukeNukem: Sep 10, 2008

SPACE HOMOS posted:

What surprises me the most is the cost. I don't know much about ARM11 but by the sounds of it this little thing can do a lot. I know that ARM is used in a lot of consumer products and phones, and smart phones are getting pretty powerful. So all that on a little board thats 25 bucks? Thats a great price for a learning tool. Look at this FPGA board that one class (really just a lab) requires:

100 bucks in the bookstore, 80 online (really 50 if you use your school email). All that does is simulate gates, yet the raspberry does so much more and is cheaper? I want to get my hands on one and think its a great idea.

Edit: Also I kind of think that having not much resources on the board is a good idea. I've never agreed with the whole "memory is cheap" way of teaching in CS classes. So having to learn to program within a limit may teach more proficient coding. I remember doom running well on a 486, yet some games come out today and run like poo poo on i7s with gtx 570s (CLOD).

FPGA's can't really be compared to a full on processor. The design of FPGA's is to design logic systems(like microprocessors). They were never designed to be fully usable out of the box. It's not a commodore 64 or anything like what the raspberry pi wants to deal with. Most people who want to learn FPGA's want to because they plan on doing ASIC design or other forms of logic and low level hardware design, not coding. Its much much cheaper to use a mass produced microprocessor and pcb it to a few necessary components.

# ¿ Feb 25, 2012 07:34

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# ¿ May 5, 2024 12:37

HolyDukeNukem: Sep 10, 2008

OptimusMatrix posted:

So I got one of these when they first came out cause I wanted to use it to stream movies from my computer to my TV but I've got not the time nor the patience to learn how to set it up. So if any of you goons wanna buy it, they shipped it today and should be here in a couple days. I'll sell it to you for what I bought it for which is $35 bucks plus the price of shipping. Just lemme know if you want it.

I am very interested since I am planning on using this for a senior design project. email is kevin.70cuda at gmail dot com

# ¿ Jun 2, 2012 02:52

HolyDukeNukem: Sep 10, 2008

Lukano posted:

I'm really really impressed with Raspbmc's performance. I got a bunch of errors when installing it, something about SD card left open for write from last operation or somesuch, but I hand waved them away and the install persisted.

Menu navigation within xbmc isn't nearly as painful as I was lead to believe it would be, and I'm pretty picky - I use XBMC on 3 TV's in the house, and have been using XBMC since it was the hot new kid on the old XBOX1.

There's a few wrinkles that I'm sure will get ironed out with a release or two, and some development time from both raspbmc and the XBMC teams, but I'm loving sold. First chance I get I'm going to snap up another two or three or four of these (both to replace the two other HTPC's in the house, but also finally get that kitchen-puter together, and a small terminal for the basement).

Not to mention the dozen of other goofy projects that have occurred to me.

Suffice to say, I'm very pleased with the results of the rPi thus far. I had high hopes, and tried really hard to ignore the naysayers over the past 5 months of waiting, but it's paid off in spades for my purposes.

One thing you could look into is Hexxeh's firmware updater. It allows you to change how much memory is dedicated to the CPU and how much is going to the graphics. By default I think only 64Megs of memory is dedicated to the graphics, so more graphics memory may help. Here's the link:
https://github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update

# ¿ Jun 9, 2012 04:55

HolyDukeNukem: Sep 10, 2008

Lukano posted:

Good call, I'll give that a try Sunday perhaps, if not then early next week - and report back.

Does anyone know if the SoC that's doing most of the heavy lifting for decoding anyways, is more reliant on ram allocated to GPU or CPU (or does it matter?).

My guess is that it needs more GPU. The split is by default 192/64 so you may need to bump to like 128/128 or something closer to even.

edit: the GPU is supposed to have the video decoders

HolyDukeNukem fucked around with this message at 15:03 on Jun 9, 2012

# ¿ Jun 9, 2012 15:01

HolyDukeNukem: Sep 10, 2008

AlphaDog posted:

This RaspBMC stuff sounds very promising, and I got an email today about probably being able to order by the end of this week.

That said, I thought of another possible application for this thing. Will it run a webcam? Enough to record an hour or two of travel if I were to put it in my car? Can you power if off the cigarette lighter? I've been thinking about building a forward and backward recording system for when some rear end in a top hat inevitably runs into me, and RaspPi seems like it would be ideal for that sort of thing.

It should be able to run off a cigarette lighter since the Raspberry Pi acts like a phone in terms of amperage needed(I've been using mine off of my phone charger when I need to use it). The webcam on the other hand, you should be careful about. The rpi is really sensitive to what hardware works and what doesn't. I couldn't get my keyboard to work(pulled to much amperage from the usb port) so I bought a logitech k120. Here is a site that gives tested and proven webcams:
http://elinux.org/RPi_VerifiedPeripherals#USB_Webcam

# ¿ Jun 17, 2012 15:21

HolyDukeNukem: Sep 10, 2008

Social Animal posted:

Well that is a good point in that I'll probably be using the thing through SSH more than I would be through the video output anyways. Is the amperage draw really that delicate though?

The amperage draw is pretty delicate. The usb ports are only rated for 100 mA and I think the total thing can handle an input of 700mA or something around there. But I've been using a basic keyboard plus wireless mouse plus usb wireless card all connected to a non powered usb hub with not too many issues. I was also using a class 10 card, which I personally would recommend. A good class 10 card will make running an OS on it far more bearable if you plan on running anything intense.

# ¿ Jun 18, 2012 14:55

HolyDukeNukem: Sep 10, 2008

I don't know if anyone has looked at Raspberry Pi's website today, but broadcom has open sourced the userland aspects of the graphics driver:
http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/2221

# ¿ Oct 24, 2012 21:45

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# ¿ May 5, 2024 12:37

HolyDukeNukem: Sep 10, 2008

Guy Axlerod posted:

Google isn't helping here. What is it?

Wayland/Weston is an alternative display system to X11. Rather than using a server-client model, it basically is like windows/mac where is composes the screen directly. Supposed to be much faster and less bloated.

# ¿ Aug 13, 2013 00:59

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