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Wow, this is such a great news! This plus the pinebook pro, I really hope that it will help the software availability on armv8 to skyrocket! Also I really hop

Wow, this is such a great news! This plus the pinebook pro, I really hope that it will help the software availability on armv8 to skyrocket! Also I really hope that someone will come with a new case to use it as tablet and laptop. Like a mix between the old pi-top and a surface book (or a PineTab). If anyone has experience developing on the raspberry pi 4 (4GB), I really want to hear from you, especially regarding the processor performance.

MayeulC 6y ago
It sounds like pine64 devices are miles ahead in terms of upstream kernel support, though. The remaining issue was with GPU support, but that's being taken care of with the Lima/Panfrost project, which now runs great.
- sylvain_kerkour 6y ago
  Unfortunately, their low specs make them really far from usable. I know that it may improve in the future, but as of today, 2GB of Ram for the PineTab...
  - MayeulC 6y ago
    Of course, you are free to pick whatever you want from their store, but comparing a raspberrypi with a PineTab is a bit unfair, as these two products are quite different. Moreover, I disagree with your suggestion that 2GB is useless in a tablet. It really depends on the use-case, and I have rarely seen a capability range similar to the pineTab in a tablet from-factor. Have a look at the RockPro64, for instance: https://www.pine64.org/rockpro64/ https://www.pine64.org/rockpro64/ The 4GB version is about $80, but offers PCIe 4x, 128Mbit Flash, Gigabit Ethernet, USB-C Host With Video Out, and an eDP Port, among others. It's true that the A64 family only goes up to 2GB, but the rock64 family goes to 4GB for $45. All offer valid tradeoffs to the Pi family :)
    - rjsw 6y ago
      > It's true that the A64 family only goes up to 2GB. I think they technically go up to 3GB, but making a board with that is messy.
FullyFunctional 6y ago
I spent a few months doing much of my development on the 4 GiB Raspberry Pi 4 (gently overclocked). My experience was that of a slightly older notebook - totally fine for most things. The 4 GiB memory was hardly ever an issue, but the pathetic IO (storage and to some degree network) eventually drove me away. Thus, 8 GiB is a great option, but it makes it seem even less balanced now. EDIT: I haste to add that having the full 64-bit Ubuntu 20.04 was what made this interesting to me.
- sylvain_kerkour 6y ago
  Thank you! Talking about the IO, did you experience failure (lose of work) due to the unreliability of microSD?
  - FullyFunctional 6y ago
    No one sane uses the microSD for anything but the boot partition :) I used a fast USB key and contemplated using a true fast USB 3.1 SSD, but I really didn't like the bulk (the SSD would have been as big as the Pi). I never lost any data (but I also only accessed it remotely - it was head-less).
jakogut 6y ago
> If anyone has development experience using the raspberry pi 4 (4GB), I really want to hear from you, especially regarding the processor performance I've been developing on the platform for a few months now. Though it's difficult to compare performance between architectures, the new BCM2711 compares favorably in CPU bound tasks to Intel's Cherry Trail Atoms from early 2016, primarily the Atom x5-z8350. The Pi 4 also overclocks easily from 1.5 GHz to 2.0 - 2.1 GHz, where it exceeds Atom performance in some cases. The A72 cores are a huge leap in performance compared to the A53 cores of the RPi 3. These are architecturally "big" cores, as compared to the more power efficient and lower throughput "little" A53 cores of the previous model.

MayeulC 6y ago

It sounds like pine64 devices are miles ahead in terms of upstream kernel support, though. The remaining issue was with GPU support, but that's being taken care of with the Lima/Panfrost project, which now runs great.

sylvain_kerkour 6y ago
Unfortunately, their low specs make them really far from usable. I know that it may improve in the future, but as of today, 2GB of Ram for the PineTab...
- MayeulC 6y ago
  Of course, you are free to pick whatever you want from their store, but comparing a raspberrypi with a PineTab is a bit unfair, as these two products are quite different. Moreover, I disagree with your suggestion that 2GB is useless in a tablet. It really depends on the use-case, and I have rarely seen a capability range similar to the pineTab in a tablet from-factor. Have a look at the RockPro64, for instance: https://www.pine64.org/rockpro64/ https://www.pine64.org/rockpro64/ The 4GB version is about $80, but offers PCIe 4x, 128Mbit Flash, Gigabit Ethernet, USB-C Host With Video Out, and an eDP Port, among others. It's true that the A64 family only goes up to 2GB, but the rock64 family goes to 4GB for $45. All offer valid tradeoffs to the Pi family :)
  - rjsw 6y ago
    > It's true that the A64 family only goes up to 2GB. I think they technically go up to 3GB, but making a board with that is messy.

FullyFunctional 6y ago

I spent a few months doing much of my development on the 4 GiB Raspberry Pi 4 (gently overclocked). My experience was that of a slightly older notebook - totally fine for most things. The 4 GiB memory was hardly ever an issue, but the pathetic IO (storage and to some degree network) eventually drove me away. Thus, 8 GiB is a great option, but it makes it seem even less balanced now. EDIT: I haste to add that having the full 64-bit Ubuntu 20.04 was what made this interesting to me.

sylvain_kerkour 6y ago
Thank you! Talking about the IO, did you experience failure (lose of work) due to the unreliability of microSD?
- FullyFunctional 6y ago
  No one sane uses the microSD for anything but the boot partition :) I used a fast USB key and contemplated using a true fast USB 3.1 SSD, but I really didn't like the bulk (the SSD would have been as big as the Pi). I never lost any data (but I also only accessed it remotely - it was head-less).

jakogut 6y ago

> If anyone has development experience using the raspberry pi 4 (4GB), I really want to hear from you, especially regarding the processor performance I've been developing on the platform for a few months now. Though it's difficult to compare performance between architectures, the new BCM2711 compares favorably in CPU bound tasks to Intel's Cherry Trail Atoms from early 2016, primarily the Atom x5-z8350. The Pi 4 also overclocks easily from 1.5 GHz to 2.0 - 2.1 GHz, where it exceeds Atom performance in some cases. The A72 cores are a huge leap in performance compared to the A53 cores of the RPi 3. These are architecturally "big" cores, as compared to the more power efficient and lower throughput "little" A53 cores of the previous model.