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> Why does the RPi still have its own OS? Because it's not aimed at the general purpose computer market? The OS -- the features, the documentation, the learni

> Why does the RPi still have its own OS? Because it's not aimed at the general purpose computer market? The OS -- the features, the documentation, the learning focus, the ease-of-use planning, the designed support for school and code clubs -- is part of the product. It's not just a little cheap linux box for nerds; it has a different focus. Also the hardware itself is different, is it not? It has (for example) no battery-backed clock. It has connectors other distros cannot be expected to support (CSI for example). They achieve all of this with their own slice of Debian; it's as close to being standard as is sensible. They also provide a tool -- pi-gen -- to allow you to roll your own distro off the main; it's quite effective. And they have a mainline OS (Ubuntu) if you want that. But if you really want a tiny SBC without their OS platform -- buy one.

StillBored 5y ago
"The OS -- the features, the documentation, the learning focus, the ease-of-use planning, the designed support for school and code clubs" It reminds me of the class a family member took recently where they were learning basic shell scripting using c-shell on a bunch of 15 year old Solaris machines. Interesting, but also somewhat harmful because they now have to translate what they have learned to linux/macos/etc should they actually get a job/etc that involves any shell scripting because bash tends to be the default. Similarly with the RPi, the install process needs custom tools, instructions, and images because the normal distro install process (which are overwhelmingly UEFI based) simply don't work. So they are basically teaching everyone how to perform actions that any students that go into IT related fields will need to relearn. https://ubuntu.com/tutorials/install-ubuntu-desktop#1-overview https://ubuntu.com/tutorials/install-ubuntu-desktop#1-overvi... And there isn't an argument that they are making it simpler either, since its entirely possible to create ubuntu/etc disk images as well while still burying a proper boot/etc interface in the firmware. So, as I said earlier what they are doing made sense 10 years ago but today looks out of place vs what everyone else is doing. PS: And as far as the hardware, normal distro's don't seem to have problems with missing RTCs (they all enable NTP AFAIK), and none of the interfaces on the board are that weird. Mainline Linux supports GPIO, and MIPI/CSI, etc. https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/v4.10/media/kapi/csi2.html https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/v4.10/media/kapi/csi2.html If those don't work on the RPi in mainline, that is where the foundation should be focusing, in order to land their drivers upstream, or provide binary packages for the main distos (or both as some vendors do). They aren't special in this regard, they are only special because instead of doing what everyone else does, they created a custom linux distro.
- unfocussed_mike 5y ago
  > So they are basically teaching everyone how to perform actions that any students that go into IT related fields will need to relearn. Sure, they will. But who cares? They can do that on the job, can't they? Why is there an obligation to teach, you know, ten/eleven/twelve year olds professional skills? The same kids are also learning MicroPython for the BBC micro:bit -- that's not really a professional skill either is it? The point of the Raspberry Pi is not to breed sysadmins; it is not even to breed coders. It is to breed technically literate young people. It genuinely sounds like the Raspberry Pi is simply not for you. And that is OK.
  - StillBored 5y ago
    But why, if you have a choice would you diverge. Why not install bash on the solaris machine. Same with the pi, which despite your insistence its only a teaching tool, I suspect that is actually a small fraction of their sales. The compute modules and their carriers make that point along with the popular HATs. As do a few other posters on this forum noting how they show up on the internet connected to peoples various IoT devices. Pi holes, Kodi boxes, cheap security cameras, on and on. Pretty much everyone I know in IT has a few of them they are using for those purposes or sitting in their junk boxes. One guy I knew literally purchased thousands of them because he was running a little hobby security business and they are great (cheap!) little security cameras given a PoE hat and a camera. The number of students I know with them? Two, both of which were getting CS/etc style degrees, and I purchased for them to play around with. High schoolers/etc zero. Despite asking quite a number of them on the robotics teams/etc. Frankly, they aren't very good IoT devices either, wemos/arduino/etc are far more approachable if all you want to learn how to do is blink a led, or connect a moisture sensor to the internet. So, at least where I live and the people I talk to, they are basically hacker devices. Also, note the questions in: https://old.reddit.com/r/raspberry_pi/ https://old.reddit.com/r/raspberry_pi/
    - unfocussed_mike 5y ago
      > But why, if you have a choice would you diverge. Why not install bash on the solaris machine. You diverge because you're designing a product and you want to. (The Raspberry Pi desktop, for example, is available to run on non-linux platforms; there is a continuum for them.) There are plenty of Ubuntu-based Linux distros with diverging requirements; which ones do you not approve of? They have their own intent to develop a distro with a particular focus; so does Raspberry Pi. If you disregard intent as a factor, sure; there's no justification for any of those distros. But then if you disregard intent as a factor there's no inherent justification for _any_ distros at all. > So, at least where I live and the people I talk to, they are basically hacker devices. OK. But we should probably stipulate that the Foundation intends them to also be used by people who want to learn computing on a very low budget, and that is why they have chosen to create their own (reconfigurable) OS. > Also, note the questions in: https://old.reddit.com/r/raspberry_pi/ https://old.reddit.com/r/raspberry_pi/ And? Reddit is not for people under 13, for one thing.

StillBored 5y ago

"The OS -- the features, the documentation, the learning focus, the ease-of-use planning, the designed support for school and code clubs" It reminds me of the class a family member took recently where they were learning basic shell scripting using c-shell on a bunch of 15 year old Solaris machines. Interesting, but also somewhat harmful because they now have to translate what they have learned to linux/macos/etc should they actually get a job/etc that involves any shell scripting because bash tends to be the default. Similarly with the RPi, the install process needs custom tools, instructions, and images because the normal distro install process (which are overwhelmingly UEFI based) simply don't work. So they are basically teaching everyone how to perform actions that any students that go into IT related fields will need to relearn. https://ubuntu.com/tutorials/install-ubuntu-desktop#1-overview https://ubuntu.com/tutorials/install-ubuntu-desktop#1-overvi... And there isn't an argument that they are making it simpler either, since its entirely possible to create ubuntu/etc disk images as well while still burying a proper boot/etc interface in the firmware. So, as I said earlier what they are doing made sense 10 years ago but today looks out of place vs what everyone else is doing. PS: And as far as the hardware, normal distro's don't seem to have problems with missing RTCs (they all enable NTP AFAIK), and none of the interfaces on the board are that weird. Mainline Linux supports GPIO, and MIPI/CSI, etc. https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/v4.10/media/kapi/csi2.html https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/v4.10/media/kapi/csi2.html If those don't work on the RPi in mainline, that is where the foundation should be focusing, in order to land their drivers upstream, or provide binary packages for the main distos (or both as some vendors do). They aren't special in this regard, they are only special because instead of doing what everyone else does, they created a custom linux distro.

unfocussed_mike 5y ago
> So they are basically teaching everyone how to perform actions that any students that go into IT related fields will need to relearn. Sure, they will. But who cares? They can do that on the job, can't they? Why is there an obligation to teach, you know, ten/eleven/twelve year olds professional skills? The same kids are also learning MicroPython for the BBC micro:bit -- that's not really a professional skill either is it? The point of the Raspberry Pi is not to breed sysadmins; it is not even to breed coders. It is to breed technically literate young people. It genuinely sounds like the Raspberry Pi is simply not for you. And that is OK.
- StillBored 5y ago
  But why, if you have a choice would you diverge. Why not install bash on the solaris machine. Same with the pi, which despite your insistence its only a teaching tool, I suspect that is actually a small fraction of their sales. The compute modules and their carriers make that point along with the popular HATs. As do a few other posters on this forum noting how they show up on the internet connected to peoples various IoT devices. Pi holes, Kodi boxes, cheap security cameras, on and on. Pretty much everyone I know in IT has a few of them they are using for those purposes or sitting in their junk boxes. One guy I knew literally purchased thousands of them because he was running a little hobby security business and they are great (cheap!) little security cameras given a PoE hat and a camera. The number of students I know with them? Two, both of which were getting CS/etc style degrees, and I purchased for them to play around with. High schoolers/etc zero. Despite asking quite a number of them on the robotics teams/etc. Frankly, they aren't very good IoT devices either, wemos/arduino/etc are far more approachable if all you want to learn how to do is blink a led, or connect a moisture sensor to the internet. So, at least where I live and the people I talk to, they are basically hacker devices. Also, note the questions in: https://old.reddit.com/r/raspberry_pi/ https://old.reddit.com/r/raspberry_pi/
  - unfocussed_mike 5y ago
    > But why, if you have a choice would you diverge. Why not install bash on the solaris machine. You diverge because you're designing a product and you want to. (The Raspberry Pi desktop, for example, is available to run on non-linux platforms; there is a continuum for them.) There are plenty of Ubuntu-based Linux distros with diverging requirements; which ones do you not approve of? They have their own intent to develop a distro with a particular focus; so does Raspberry Pi. If you disregard intent as a factor, sure; there's no justification for any of those distros. But then if you disregard intent as a factor there's no inherent justification for _any_ distros at all. > So, at least where I live and the people I talk to, they are basically hacker devices. OK. But we should probably stipulate that the Foundation intends them to also be used by people who want to learn computing on a very low budget, and that is why they have chosen to create their own (reconfigurable) OS. > Also, note the questions in: https://old.reddit.com/r/raspberry_pi/ https://old.reddit.com/r/raspberry_pi/ And? Reddit is not for people under 13, for one thing.