6 ms·

The BeagleBone was great when it first came out. Then the Raspberry Pi came out, and has a bigger community, higher performance, and lower price. Compared to th

by jwatte 10y ago

The BeagleBone was great when it first came out. Then the Raspberry Pi came out, and has a bigger community, higher performance, and lower price. Compared to the RPi 3, the BBBW seems like ... too little, too late?

revelation 10y ago
I guess it depends on what you are using them for. If I want a smartphone, yeah use the RPi, if you need something that can do reliable precise timing, no amount of extra ARM cores can replace the PRUs in the BB.
- CaptSpify 10y ago
  What kind of OS do you typically use with the BB? I know the RPI has noobs/rasbian, but is there something comparable for the BB?
  - fnj 10y ago
    Plain un-customized Debian is what it comes with. Debian and Ubuntu are both popular, but you can run almost any distro.
    - ams6110 10y ago
      Or OpenBSD. http://www.tedunangst.com/flak/post/OpenBSD-on-BeagleBone-Black http://www.tedunangst.com/flak/post/OpenBSD-on-BeagleBone-Bl...
  - petre 10y ago
    Debuan, Angstrom, Arch Linux ARM, also others. The Beaglebone is more suited platform for M2M applications. http://elinux.org/Beagleboard:BeagleBoneBlack http://elinux.org/Beagleboard:BeagleBoneBlack
dublinben 10y ago
The BeagleBone Black has better Linux support out of the box, doesn't require non-free firmware to boot, and is itself an Open Source Hardware design.
- BHSPitMonkey 10y ago
  I had the opposite experience with mine; My BeagleBone Black kept becoming soft-bricked while trying to run Debian (unable to boot, forcing me to reinstall the OS/loader or restore a backup), and I eventually found out it was because upstream Debian updates were incompatible with the board's funny hardware. One needs (or at least needed) to take special care not to update one's kernel. Switched to a RPi2 after that headache. The BBB has been collecting dust ever since.
  - dhess 10y ago
    Possibly too late for you, but if you decide to put the BBB to good use in the future, this is all you need: http://elinux.org/BeagleBoardDebian http://elinux.org/BeagleBoardDebian
- kriro 10y ago
  I haven't researched the BB in a while. Are there any BLOBs that remain (graphics?). Last time I checked it was the freest alternative I found.
- technomancy 10y ago
  It's also massively more capable on the GPIO front. I used mine for a project with a lot of analog input that a Pi would never have worked for.
CocoaGeek 10y ago
The BeagleBone does power management which the RPI doesn't. It's unfortunate that they didn't take this revision opportunity to boost the RAM and switch to USB3. IMHO.
- mschuster91 10y ago
  "mechanical compatibility" is the answer for USB3. Simply swapping the micro-usb connector would have broken that (because it's larger).
- bsder 10y ago
  > It's unfortunate that they didn't take this revision opportunity to boost the RAM and switch to USB3. IMHO. Well, the RAM on the Bone is DDR3 while the RAM on the RPi3 is DDR2. I'll generally take the extra performance over an extra 512MB. With respect to USB3, USB Type-C connectors are WAY more expensive than micro-B. We're talking like more than a dollar vs less than 10 cents. And USB Type-C cables are way more expensive, too. And you'd still only be doing USB 2.0 speeds anyhow. I doubt Type-C USB is going to be making it into this space anytime soon.
  - rektide 10y ago
    You've conflated USB 3.0 with Type-C. Many many people ship USB3, many of them being fairly low cost wifi routers, but yes, they use USB 3.0 Type-A connectors, the big rectangular ones. I'm also generally unconvinced the Type-C scaremongering is real. Difficulty now is high, costs are high, but it still doesn't seem as impervious a barrier as many people intone.
    - bsder 10y ago
      > Many many people ship USB3, many of them being fairly low cost wifi routers That's fine, but most embedded things can't even do USB high speed. So why incur the cost of USB 3.0 when they can't even use USB 2.0 to the fullest?
  - yuhong 10y ago
    > RPi3 is DDR2 *LPDDR2
blackguardx 10y ago
The BeagleBone Black has always targeted more embedded applications. Raspberry Pi's recommended embedded models are actually worse than this.
- errantspark 10y ago
  Yup. I've worked with a couple companies now that use BBB or derivatives thereof in shipped hardware. Mostly managing other hardware, e.x. battery packs. It's a cheap off the shelf solution, and with it being open source hardware it seems (I have not been part of the procurement process) that they're easier to source in bulk. The Raspi has always struck me as exclusively targetting the hobbyist market.
Gibbon1 10y ago
Does the RPi3 still require an SSD Card for the file system? Edit: A warning about the TPS65217C on the BBB. The power supply needs to come up in (I think 50ms) or it'll fail to boot.
- kingosticks 10y ago
  I believe you could have moved most of the filesystem to another device but recently they announced a load of new ways to boot too. https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberrypi/bootmodes/ https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberry...
- khedoros 10y ago
  It needs a microSD for the stuff in the /boot partition (kernel+devicetree files+firmware blobs+bootloader), but everything else should be able to live on an external USB device. USB+ethernet both use the same connection to the CPU, and it's a USB-OTG implementation basically hacked to act like a USB host, but it's possible to host the filesystem there.
- mhandley 10y ago
  There are instructions here regarding how to set up an RPi3 to boot from USB: https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberrypi/bootmodes/msd.md https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberry...
rdtsc 10y ago
Does RPi have PRU co-processors?
- khedoros 10y ago
  No, but the GPU actually contains a non-ARM general-purpose processor. I think we're in the very early days of knowing how to program for it.
- errantspark 10y ago
  No, you can't for example control RGBW one-wire LED strings with a Raspi. On the BBB thanks to the PRU you can do so with 0% CPU load.
- silasb 10y ago
  Nope. Would be awesome if they did though.
- mianos 10y ago
  You can run programs with the vector processors in the vidcore with QPULib. https://github.com/mn416/QPULib https://github.com/mn416/QPULib Kind of apples and oranges, considering the PRU is more focussed on determinate timing.
asimuvPR 10y ago
Not at all. IME, they tend to be more reliable and used in real world products. The Rpi (as much as I love it) is focused more at the hobby market. You can use the BB boards on professional settings as off the shelf hardware.
bsder 10y ago
> Then the Raspberry Pi came out, and has a bigger community, higher performance, and lower price. Lower price. And that's what drove almost everything. The RPI very much does NOT have higher performance. Simple things like "How fast can I toggle that pin?" can make you think so because the RPi's are "closer to the metal".
- jwatte 10y ago
  I have measured performance for my compute heavy use case. Four cores with Neon are way higher performance. (The Rpi1 was slower, but the BBBW is up against the Pi3, and previous ones against Pi2.)
  - bsder 10y ago
    > I have measured performance for my compute heavy use case. Four cores with Neon are way higher performance. Um, sure, but if that's your benchmark, you'd want an ODROID-C2 instead, no? The problem I have with the RPi3 is that it's rare that I am CPU bound (and there are better choices if I am), while I am far more often I/O bound. And the RPi I/O system (Still hanging Ethernet off the USB? Only one PWM pin? Really?) is sub-par. However, to each their own. The level of choice is wonderful from the perspective of someone who had to fight making a board at $200 4 years ago that didn't even reach near the level of the initial RPi.
    - FullyFunctional 10y ago
      I agree, but my anecdata: I'm _often_ IO bound (storage and network) and the ODROID-C2's eMCC & GbE blows the RPi 3 out of the water.
    - jwatte 10y ago
      Yes, the ODROID is interesting, too. If I want raw performance, I actually want some form of the Jetson. Even adding a Teensy3 over USB or serial for the cases where I really need bit twiddling, the RPi3+Teensy3 system came out ahead for me. (Mainly, robotics control, some computer vision.) The onboard camera/GPU integration of the Pi3 is great for me, too. And if I want absolute-lowest-price, CHIP is still where it's at, unless I can stretch as low as the ESP8266, but then we're no longer in the same category. So, anyway, I'm not particularly excited about yet another beaglebone that's two or three times too expensive for what it is, in singles. Others have differing needs/opinions.
snarfy 10y ago
They have different features. RPi still doesn't have any support for analog. The BeagleBone has had an ADC since the beginning. If you are using them for anything more than a basic computer these little things matter.

by jwatte 10y ago

revelation 10y ago

I guess it depends on what you are using them for. If I want a smartphone, yeah use the RPi, if you need something that can do reliable precise timing, no amount of extra ARM cores can replace the PRUs in the BB.

CaptSpify 10y ago
What kind of OS do you typically use with the BB? I know the RPI has noobs/rasbian, but is there something comparable for the BB?
- fnj 10y ago
  Plain un-customized Debian is what it comes with. Debian and Ubuntu are both popular, but you can run almost any distro.
  - ams6110 10y ago
    Or OpenBSD. http://www.tedunangst.com/flak/post/OpenBSD-on-BeagleBone-Black http://www.tedunangst.com/flak/post/OpenBSD-on-BeagleBone-Bl...
- petre 10y ago
  Debuan, Angstrom, Arch Linux ARM, also others. The Beaglebone is more suited platform for M2M applications. http://elinux.org/Beagleboard:BeagleBoneBlack http://elinux.org/Beagleboard:BeagleBoneBlack

dublinben 10y ago

The BeagleBone Black has better Linux support out of the box, doesn't require non-free firmware to boot, and is itself an Open Source Hardware design.

BHSPitMonkey 10y ago
I had the opposite experience with mine; My BeagleBone Black kept becoming soft-bricked while trying to run Debian (unable to boot, forcing me to reinstall the OS/loader or restore a backup), and I eventually found out it was because upstream Debian updates were incompatible with the board's funny hardware. One needs (or at least needed) to take special care not to update one's kernel. Switched to a RPi2 after that headache. The BBB has been collecting dust ever since.
- dhess 10y ago
  Possibly too late for you, but if you decide to put the BBB to good use in the future, this is all you need: http://elinux.org/BeagleBoardDebian http://elinux.org/BeagleBoardDebian
kriro 10y ago
I haven't researched the BB in a while. Are there any BLOBs that remain (graphics?). Last time I checked it was the freest alternative I found.
technomancy 10y ago
It's also massively more capable on the GPIO front. I used mine for a project with a lot of analog input that a Pi would never have worked for.

CocoaGeek 10y ago

The BeagleBone does power management which the RPI doesn't. It's unfortunate that they didn't take this revision opportunity to boost the RAM and switch to USB3. IMHO.

mschuster91 10y ago
"mechanical compatibility" is the answer for USB3. Simply swapping the micro-usb connector would have broken that (because it's larger).
bsder 10y ago
> It's unfortunate that they didn't take this revision opportunity to boost the RAM and switch to USB3. IMHO. Well, the RAM on the Bone is DDR3 while the RAM on the RPi3 is DDR2. I'll generally take the extra performance over an extra 512MB. With respect to USB3, USB Type-C connectors are WAY more expensive than micro-B. We're talking like more than a dollar vs less than 10 cents. And USB Type-C cables are way more expensive, too. And you'd still only be doing USB 2.0 speeds anyhow. I doubt Type-C USB is going to be making it into this space anytime soon.
- rektide 10y ago
  You've conflated USB 3.0 with Type-C. Many many people ship USB3, many of them being fairly low cost wifi routers, but yes, they use USB 3.0 Type-A connectors, the big rectangular ones. I'm also generally unconvinced the Type-C scaremongering is real. Difficulty now is high, costs are high, but it still doesn't seem as impervious a barrier as many people intone.
  - bsder 10y ago
    > Many many people ship USB3, many of them being fairly low cost wifi routers That's fine, but most embedded things can't even do USB high speed. So why incur the cost of USB 3.0 when they can't even use USB 2.0 to the fullest?
- yuhong 10y ago
  > RPi3 is DDR2 *LPDDR2

blackguardx 10y ago

The BeagleBone Black has always targeted more embedded applications. Raspberry Pi's recommended embedded models are actually worse than this.

errantspark 10y ago
Yup. I've worked with a couple companies now that use BBB or derivatives thereof in shipped hardware. Mostly managing other hardware, e.x. battery packs. It's a cheap off the shelf solution, and with it being open source hardware it seems (I have not been part of the procurement process) that they're easier to source in bulk. The Raspi has always struck me as exclusively targetting the hobbyist market.

Gibbon1 10y ago

Does the RPi3 still require an SSD Card for the file system? Edit: A warning about the TPS65217C on the BBB. The power supply needs to come up in (I think 50ms) or it'll fail to boot.

kingosticks 10y ago
I believe you could have moved most of the filesystem to another device but recently they announced a load of new ways to boot too. https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberrypi/bootmodes/ https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberry...
khedoros 10y ago
It needs a microSD for the stuff in the /boot partition (kernel+devicetree files+firmware blobs+bootloader), but everything else should be able to live on an external USB device. USB+ethernet both use the same connection to the CPU, and it's a USB-OTG implementation basically hacked to act like a USB host, but it's possible to host the filesystem there.
mhandley 10y ago
There are instructions here regarding how to set up an RPi3 to boot from USB: https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberrypi/bootmodes/msd.md https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberry...

rdtsc 10y ago

Does RPi have PRU co-processors?

khedoros 10y ago
No, but the GPU actually contains a non-ARM general-purpose processor. I think we're in the very early days of knowing how to program for it.
errantspark 10y ago
No, you can't for example control RGBW one-wire LED strings with a Raspi. On the BBB thanks to the PRU you can do so with 0% CPU load.
silasb 10y ago
Nope. Would be awesome if they did though.
mianos 10y ago
You can run programs with the vector processors in the vidcore with QPULib. https://github.com/mn416/QPULib https://github.com/mn416/QPULib Kind of apples and oranges, considering the PRU is more focussed on determinate timing.

asimuvPR 10y ago

Not at all. IME, they tend to be more reliable and used in real world products. The Rpi (as much as I love it) is focused more at the hobby market. You can use the BB boards on professional settings as off the shelf hardware.

bsder 10y ago

> Then the Raspberry Pi came out, and has a bigger community, higher performance, and lower price. Lower price. And that's what drove almost everything. The RPI very much does NOT have higher performance. Simple things like "How fast can I toggle that pin?" can make you think so because the RPi's are "closer to the metal".

jwatte 10y ago
I have measured performance for my compute heavy use case. Four cores with Neon are way higher performance. (The Rpi1 was slower, but the BBBW is up against the Pi3, and previous ones against Pi2.)
- bsder 10y ago
  > I have measured performance for my compute heavy use case. Four cores with Neon are way higher performance. Um, sure, but if that's your benchmark, you'd want an ODROID-C2 instead, no? The problem I have with the RPi3 is that it's rare that I am CPU bound (and there are better choices if I am), while I am far more often I/O bound. And the RPi I/O system (Still hanging Ethernet off the USB? Only one PWM pin? Really?) is sub-par. However, to each their own. The level of choice is wonderful from the perspective of someone who had to fight making a board at $200 4 years ago that didn't even reach near the level of the initial RPi.
  - FullyFunctional 10y ago
    I agree, but my anecdata: I'm _often_ IO bound (storage and network) and the ODROID-C2's eMCC & GbE blows the RPi 3 out of the water.
  - jwatte 10y ago
    Yes, the ODROID is interesting, too. If I want raw performance, I actually want some form of the Jetson. Even adding a Teensy3 over USB or serial for the cases where I really need bit twiddling, the RPi3+Teensy3 system came out ahead for me. (Mainly, robotics control, some computer vision.) The onboard camera/GPU integration of the Pi3 is great for me, too. And if I want absolute-lowest-price, CHIP is still where it's at, unless I can stretch as low as the ESP8266, but then we're no longer in the same category. So, anyway, I'm not particularly excited about yet another beaglebone that's two or three times too expensive for what it is, in singles. Others have differing needs/opinions.

snarfy 10y ago

They have different features. RPi still doesn't have any support for analog. The BeagleBone has had an ADC since the beginning. If you are using them for anything more than a basic computer these little things matter.