3 ms·

Show HN: Get into physical computing with Docker and Raspberry Pi (workshop)

49 points by alexellisuk 9y ago

frik 9y ago
What's the overhead of Docker when running on RPi? How many such small docker images could be run on RPi3? (RPi3 has 4 cores (arm8) and 1GB memory, like a 4 year old smartphone.)
- alexellisuk 9y ago
  The Pi3 has a kind of wildcard - it's actually 64-bit ARM but not widely supported yet. Anyway it totally depends on your usecase. Java is hungry for RAM - static Golang binaries don't tend to be - Node.js can also be lean. I have a whole series of blog posts if you would like an idea of the things you can do - https://blog.alexellis.io/tag/raspberry-pi/ https://blog.alexellis.io/tag/raspberry-pi/ The RPi is also much more interesting in a swarm or cluster - https://blog.alexellis.io/live-deep-dive-pi-swarm/ https://blog.alexellis.io/live-deep-dive-pi-swarm/ One thing you can do on a Swarm is to try out a Docker Serverless framework like Functions as a Service (FaaS) - https://github.com/alexellis/faas https://github.com/alexellis/faas
- KaiserPro 9y ago
  The overhead I suspect will mostly be IO bound, which is already at a premium on the Pi.
  - alexellisuk 9y ago
    Use of Linux kernel features such as namespaces and cgroups (aka containers) should have minimal impact on I/O. YMMV.
dennykane 9y ago
Sorry, IMHO, I just think that "Web Applications" are things that exist primarily on the client (in the JavaScript event loop) rather than on the server (whatever is going on in Docker-land, which I have no concept of as a front-end guy). As such, the "physical web" APIs (WebBluetooth, available in current Chrome; WebUSB, coming in a few short weeks with the release of Chrome 61) are far more interesting ways for me to invest my time than getting into this. I am, by the way, the creator of a technology called "Linux on the Web", which I've been working on full-time since 2012. You can find it at https://linuxontheweb.org https://linuxontheweb.org (or failing that, on the project's actual domain: https://linuxontheweb.appspot.com https://linuxontheweb.appspot.com). I'm calling it the world's first implementation of a userland operating system -- as opposed to a kernel/hardware level operating system -- that "installs" extremely efficiently as a web page. It tries, in other words, to be the perfect high-level complement to the all low-level engineering work being done by the developers of ChromeOS.
oulipo 9y ago
Cool, if you are interested you can add 100% on-device Voice AI to your Raspberry Pi with our platform https://snips.ai https://snips.ai

49 points by alexellisuk 9y ago

frik 9y ago

What's the overhead of Docker when running on RPi? How many such small docker images could be run on RPi3? (RPi3 has 4 cores (arm8) and 1GB memory, like a 4 year old smartphone.)

alexellisuk 9y ago
The Pi3 has a kind of wildcard - it's actually 64-bit ARM but not widely supported yet. Anyway it totally depends on your usecase. Java is hungry for RAM - static Golang binaries don't tend to be - Node.js can also be lean. I have a whole series of blog posts if you would like an idea of the things you can do - https://blog.alexellis.io/tag/raspberry-pi/ https://blog.alexellis.io/tag/raspberry-pi/ The RPi is also much more interesting in a swarm or cluster - https://blog.alexellis.io/live-deep-dive-pi-swarm/ https://blog.alexellis.io/live-deep-dive-pi-swarm/ One thing you can do on a Swarm is to try out a Docker Serverless framework like Functions as a Service (FaaS) - https://github.com/alexellis/faas https://github.com/alexellis/faas
KaiserPro 9y ago
The overhead I suspect will mostly be IO bound, which is already at a premium on the Pi.
- alexellisuk 9y ago
  Use of Linux kernel features such as namespaces and cgroups (aka containers) should have minimal impact on I/O. YMMV.

dennykane 9y ago

Sorry, IMHO, I just think that "Web Applications" are things that exist primarily on the client (in the JavaScript event loop) rather than on the server (whatever is going on in Docker-land, which I have no concept of as a front-end guy). As such, the "physical web" APIs (WebBluetooth, available in current Chrome; WebUSB, coming in a few short weeks with the release of Chrome 61) are far more interesting ways for me to invest my time than getting into this. I am, by the way, the creator of a technology called "Linux on the Web", which I've been working on full-time since 2012. You can find it at https://linuxontheweb.org https://linuxontheweb.org (or failing that, on the project's actual domain: https://linuxontheweb.appspot.com https://linuxontheweb.appspot.com). I'm calling it the world's first implementation of a userland operating system -- as opposed to a kernel/hardware level operating system -- that "installs" extremely efficiently as a web page. It tries, in other words, to be the perfect high-level complement to the all low-level engineering work being done by the developers of ChromeOS.

oulipo 9y ago

Cool, if you are interested you can add 100% on-device Voice AI to your Raspberry Pi with our platform https://snips.ai https://snips.ai