4 ms·

> I've never been very moved by the pi line for "non-maker" "server-type" stuff. I love raspberry pis but pi-mania is absolutely out of control. I can't count

> I've never been very moved by the pi line for "non-maker" "server-type" stuff. I love raspberry pis but pi-mania is absolutely out of control. I can't count how many $100+ programmer hours I have seen wasted waiting for a $10 pi to boot, build, or generally stop being slow. I have witnessed the deep shame of a multi-million dollar exhibition center-featuring a RPi kiosk deployed in front of customers that chugs so hard the sales team takes shifts intercepting people before they can poke at it and realize how much of a dog it is. But at least they saved $200 on not using a laptop, right? If you want to dip your toes in the hardware world from the comfort of ubuntu at impulse buy prices, pis are great, but they stop making sense very quickly once you exit that specialized vertical.

tyingq 6y ago
Phoronix did a reasonable comparison of an Rpi4 to a Celeron G5900 and it does a pretty good job of showing why a Pi isn't a great (even low end) general purpose option. Not disputing it's usefulness in other spaces... https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Raspberry https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Raspberr...
- justin66 6y ago
  The only interesting thing about that comparison is that the Pi did pretty well in the single real-world software benchmark Phoronix did (something to do with LibreOffice and pdfs), where it was 59% the speed of the Celeron G5900, and it managed that with an SD card rather than proper USB 3 storage. "It's not as fast as a new Intel processor" is not new information...
porknubbins 6y ago
I’m guilty of this. I use Pis for industrial use monitoring some machinery’s serial output and being a server for it. I know the SD cards will eventually get corrupted from power cycling and I’ll have to come fix them. But the alternative is buying a bunch of $250-500 industrial arm computers sight unseen, with a tiny fraction of the support and reviews that Pis have so it feels like a shot in the dark.
- hoyd 6y ago
  The MLC and SLC cards for industrial use are not that bad. Regular sd cards TLC will break quicker. I use pi's for exhibitions at work, with great success for a few years, as well as for digital signage screens.

tyingq 6y ago

Phoronix did a reasonable comparison of an Rpi4 to a Celeron G5900 and it does a pretty good job of showing why a Pi isn't a great (even low end) general purpose option. Not disputing it's usefulness in other spaces... https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Raspberry https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Raspberr...

justin66 6y ago
The only interesting thing about that comparison is that the Pi did pretty well in the single real-world software benchmark Phoronix did (something to do with LibreOffice and pdfs), where it was 59% the speed of the Celeron G5900, and it managed that with an SD card rather than proper USB 3 storage. "It's not as fast as a new Intel processor" is not new information...

porknubbins 6y ago

I’m guilty of this. I use Pis for industrial use monitoring some machinery’s serial output and being a server for it. I know the SD cards will eventually get corrupted from power cycling and I’ll have to come fix them. But the alternative is buying a bunch of $250-500 industrial arm computers sight unseen, with a tiny fraction of the support and reviews that Pis have so it feels like a shot in the dark.

hoyd 6y ago
The MLC and SLC cards for industrial use are not that bad. Regular sd cards TLC will break quicker. I use pi's for exhibitions at work, with great success for a few years, as well as for digital signage screens.