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The Realsense hardware might be great. The software that goes with it is not: * DKMS kernel module for what should be a plain vanilla USB 3.0 device * firmwar

The Realsense hardware might be great. The software that goes with it is not: * DKMS kernel module for what should be a plain vanilla USB 3.0 device * firmware updates require closed-source libraries * breaking API and ABI changes that do not respect semver or SOVERSION The worst part of my dayjob is wrangling the Realsense software suite.

TaylorAlexander 7y ago
I’ve met someone who is constantly asking me “why haven’t you tried realsense?” and you just confirmed my suspicions. When the first realsense products came out, they only supported windows. This is madness for a robotics focused product. Finally my friend tells me now they support Linux. But for me the damage has already been done. They have proven that they don’t understand me as a robotics engineer. And you’ve just confirmed that for me. So I stick with trying to use high resolution cameras and structure from motion algorithms to understand the world. No need for a specific proprietary piece of hardware. Since I’m mostly doing research in to what is possible, I prefer this non proprietary approach. This little lidar looks nice but the last thing I need is another weird kernel module and some closed source library to support my hardware. No thanks.
- rubicks 7y ago
  I mean... your friend's not wrong, if by "Linux" she/he means "Ubuntu 16.04 LTS" with the caveats: * disable Secure Boot xor create your own efi signing key pair, get friendly with `mokutil`, and pray your firmware's UEFI implementation supports that complicated custom KEK * Ubuntu 18.04 support, but forcibly install at least one 16.04 package they couldn't be bothered to build for the latest stable release of their chosen distro --- or `patchelf` the shared object and, again, pray. * accept that the debugging symbols they provide still bear the source paths from the Jenkins instance that packaged them * Oh, yeah; sometimes the device is detected as USB 2.1. That's fun when it happens 2 hours into a calibration run They're good if all you need is a flakey proof of concept. It sounds to me like you require something better.
  - TaylorAlexander 7y ago
    Damn that sounds awful. Yeah, I don’t need another headache. I can imagine times where the hardware is the right tool for the job, but with all those hoops you have to jump through to make it work I’d avoid that at all costs.
throwaway6734 7y ago
If you feel comfortable sharing, what kind of work are you doing?

TaylorAlexander 7y ago

I’ve met someone who is constantly asking me “why haven’t you tried realsense?” and you just confirmed my suspicions. When the first realsense products came out, they only supported windows. This is madness for a robotics focused product. Finally my friend tells me now they support Linux. But for me the damage has already been done. They have proven that they don’t understand me as a robotics engineer. And you’ve just confirmed that for me. So I stick with trying to use high resolution cameras and structure from motion algorithms to understand the world. No need for a specific proprietary piece of hardware. Since I’m mostly doing research in to what is possible, I prefer this non proprietary approach. This little lidar looks nice but the last thing I need is another weird kernel module and some closed source library to support my hardware. No thanks.

rubicks 7y ago
I mean... your friend's not wrong, if by "Linux" she/he means "Ubuntu 16.04 LTS" with the caveats: * disable Secure Boot xor create your own efi signing key pair, get friendly with `mokutil`, and pray your firmware's UEFI implementation supports that complicated custom KEK * Ubuntu 18.04 support, but forcibly install at least one 16.04 package they couldn't be bothered to build for the latest stable release of their chosen distro --- or `patchelf` the shared object and, again, pray. * accept that the debugging symbols they provide still bear the source paths from the Jenkins instance that packaged them * Oh, yeah; sometimes the device is detected as USB 2.1. That's fun when it happens 2 hours into a calibration run They're good if all you need is a flakey proof of concept. It sounds to me like you require something better.
- TaylorAlexander 7y ago
  Damn that sounds awful. Yeah, I don’t need another headache. I can imagine times where the hardware is the right tool for the job, but with all those hoops you have to jump through to make it work I’d avoid that at all costs.

throwaway6734 7y ago

If you feel comfortable sharing, what kind of work are you doing?