5 ms·

I'm not sure why we're still promoting Rpi's. Between production issues and scalpers it is easier to buy a 35 year old vintage machine than Rpi's. Furthermore n

I'm not sure why we're still promoting Rpi's. Between production issues and scalpers it is easier to buy a 35 year old vintage machine than Rpi's. Furthermore nothing listed in this article can't be done by a generic Linux box. Like an old laptop mentioned by a poster below, or a thin client pc that can be bought for $15 including shipping. I recently decided to build an old Intel e2200 based pc in an old mini desktop case as a home server. Including case and shipping it cost me around $15 to build(minus hdds). If one really wants small form factor and lower power consumption why not choose a pine64, orange pi or radxa boards? Yes, certain features like hdmi(on Quartz64), or hardware accelerated video encode/decode is only supported in older kernels, but if one needs a generic network box even fairly new Linux kernels work. So in conclusion, it is time to sell our remaining Rpi's to scalpers that want them and move to other things.

highduc 4y ago
At current raspberry pi prices I'd just get an Odroid H3.
- sidewndr46 4y ago
  I picked one up recently, it's a pretty neat machine. The footprint is larger, but I doubt that matters for many people.
PurpleRamen 4y ago
You assume people need to buy a new RPi. But many people reading such an article already have one or two at home, just searching for more use cases for their (often unused) toys.
- codetrotter 4y ago
  I have three Rasperry Pi. One of them is the original model that they made first. That one I don’t use currently because it’s a bit slow. Well they are all slow, but the first one especially so. The two other Raspberry Pi that I have are Model 3B+. On one of these I run Raspbian. On the other one I run FreeBSD. I would like to buy a few more Rapsberry Pi, but they are not so easy to come by. I would especially like to buy the following: - Raspberry Pi 4 - Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 (CM4) If anyone has one or more RPi 4 or RPi CM4 that they are not using, I would be interested to buy them so that I can put them to use. I have an address in Norway, and an address in Spain. So if anyone in any countries nearby (Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Spain, France, Germany, Portugal, etc) have some RPi 4 or RPi CM4 that they are not using and willing to part with for a reasonable price, please let me know :)
  - slowhand09 4y ago
    You might check https://rpilocator.com/ https://rpilocator.com/
  - nine_k 4y ago
    What is the point of using an RPi for heavier compute, and not something like ODroid [1] [2] or a beefier Orange Pi [3]? To me, the very point of RPi is to be cheap, slow, and hacking-friendly, with all these GPIO pins to control peripherals like a 3D printer, or a toy car / robot platform, etc. It was intended and initially promoted as an educational toy for schoolchildren, I remember it well. It fits fits to that purpose, and has nothing to do with higher-performance compute. [1]: https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-n2l-with-2gbyte-ram/ https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-n2l-with-2gbyte-ram/ [2]: https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-n2l-with-2gbyte-ram/ https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-n2l-with-2gbyte-ram/ [3]: http://www.orangepi.org/html/hardWare/computerAndMicrocontrollers/details/orange-pi-4-LTS.html http://www.orangepi.org/html/hardWare/computerAndMicrocontro...
    - codetrotter 4y ago
      > What is the point of using an RPi for heavier compute, and not something like ODroid [1] [2] or a beefier Orange Pi [3]? I have an Odroid XU-3 as well, and intend to buy some more Odroids also. But this thread is specifically about RPi and I still want more RPis because they have a much much bigger community than anything else :)
_8j50 4y ago
Being arm is also an issue, as well as being Linux when you need to simulate windows specific stuff. Rpi with keyboard and case is not cheaper than even a not so vintage low end laptop (3-6yo). Can you even run gns3 on a rpi? This is especially interesting when dealing with NACs and wireless clients (eap-*,.1x,client identification). Linux works too well sometimes in a lab, it will hapilly route traffic or have a trunk interface, the hostility of windows makes it a better (or rather required) lab client especially since you can just bridge linux VMs in my opinion.
- IIsi50MHz 4y ago
  I've seen Windows IoT running on RPi 3B…and the lags is…significant. As is the fact that it was done so that so that a C/C++ program could receive input from a touchscreen and an HID-emulator device, submit it to a database, and inspect the result. I would have expected a much more perfomant environment, that doesn't miss "keystrokes" and touches, and doesn't feel like I'm literally round-tripping the signal between Earth and Moon.
tambourine_man 4y ago
Can you post a link to this thin client PC? Is it new or used? How's Linux support for Wi-Fi? Thanks
- nix23 4y ago
  Just search for (INSERT SELLER) Lenovo ThinkCentre M75q or M715q. They are great for Ceph-Clusters, disk-less stations or down-clocked pi-replacements...well just anything. Linux works, also FreeBSD and OpenBSD. Typical example here: https://www.ebay.com/itm/185684535368?_trkparms=amclksrc%3DITM%26aid%3D1110006%26algo%3DHOMESPLICE.SIM%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D244525%26meid%3D9a02d27078f14f12b6ee742871d2a19e%26pid%3D101195%26rk%3D2%26rkt%3D12%26sd%3D304695955990%26itm%3D185684535368%26pmt%3D1%26noa%3D0%26pg%3D2047675%26algv%3DSimplAMLv11WebTrimmedV3MskuWithRevOptLambda90KnnRecallV1AndV6ItemNrtInQuery%26brand%3DLenovo&_trksid=p2047675.c101195.m1851&amdata=cksum%3A1856845353689a02d27078f14f12b6ee742871d2a19e%7Cenc%3AAQAHAAABMBTnULwZvkwwvWb54Sp3TESux6kFTXxeByyFeTbBEJTAHELVvJ%252BnpiRCZsaEJO6Sgil1c4QN96oSZNf1RJtASfjMty0OmD3Ak5%252BtNyamG%252B4xnQZc33B187j%252Bnu5Wz5GRJjg1ocA7%252F014lTi9pJcW%252BY3UTmfGBB%252Fq%252FH1hm0poLJDHneRy3Brsas93Xzo7NTXzYU3LimXbgsFApN8JSaAy%252BjpGERYEjnjZNNgiFHcgeoHCXUZj7tT4rfVs3IpJrpS2W0wTrCNUnPrTmYrpp5wFS%252BD%252F9MZdj%252B6RiVN0WMR%252F7b7uahybQ%252FPrTCSsAsSxIp%252BA9h9sP37YN96oq6uFrV%252Fbe2gSSeQt3QibPL58k6%252BRjvd6Hbd2na3O9oHlEN0KiFRjQFd%252Bh1fV3erLrdxAkjHK1is%253D%7Campid%3APL_CLK%7Cclp%3A2047675 https://www.ebay.com/itm/185684535368?_trkparms=amclksrc%3DI...
  - BizarroLand 4y ago
    Quick warning about Lenovo systems, you should reconsider using them if you intend on swapping any cards inside of the system (like WiFi, for instance). Many Lenovos are bios locked to prevent upgrading the system to either products that Lenovo doesn't personally sell or specific products that are in a hard-coded whitelist in the BIOS. The system will boot loop with a warning message if it detects a non-whitelisted device attached to the PCIe bus. I do not know if they have discontinued this practice, but if you want to, say, add a 10gig ethernet adapter to the device or upgrade the WiFi for use as a media pc you should check the specific system to see if that is an issue with it before buying this system and go with an HP or Dell or something first.
mschuster91 4y ago
> If one really wants small form factor and lower power consumption why not choose a pine64, orange pi or radxa boards? Community support is best for the original RPi. There are enough of them around to make sure that you can run them with a modern OS and supported kernel in a decade, with knockoffs you can never be sure when (or if!) bugs will be fixed or how long someone will maintain a kernel fork.
ilyt 4y ago
> If one really wants small form factor and lower power consumption why not choose a pine64, orange pi or radxa boards? Yes, certain features like hdmi(on Quartz64), or hardware accelerated video encode/decode is only supported in older kernels, but if one needs a generic network box even fairly new Linux kernels work. To not play "what the fuck doesn't work on it" lottery. Over years I had a bunch of different boards and it is always something that needs proprietary drivers that inevitably are pinned to some old kernel, or just something doesn't work very well. Now rPi4 still isn't 100% supported in upstream kernel but just installing raspbian just works. Same with all expansion boards, they will generally need only a little configuration on rPi but anything else is crapshoot. > but if one needs a generic network box even fairly new Linux kernels work. There are dedicated ones with multiple NICs for that purpose, both ARM and x86.
teleforce 4y ago
Raspberry Pi is currently being used as educational tools in computer networks laboratories in many university around the world, like Oxford and Yale, for hands-on education and learning of modern networking technology with software defined networking (SDN) and P4 [1],[2],[3],[4]. With readily available Ethernet port, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, it come default with multiple standard networking technology. If you want multi-port Ethernet just use one of the available USB ports with USB-to-Ethernet converter as being practices by the mentioned references. The main points that are probably missing from the people here is that the low cost nature of RPI and it cheaper clones for examples Banana Pi (MediaTek ARM) and Lichee Pi (RISC-V) are great for networking labs [5],[6]. As of now, if you want to learn hands-on computer networking you go straight to the big vendors equipment from Cisco, Juniper, Huawei, etc. This is not the current practice for properly learning car driving or plane piloting where the new learners will start form the most basic vehicles. Starting learning with the big vendors is like learning to drive with a Mercedes car or piloting with a Boeing plane, where the normal practice is to use entry level Daihatsu or Caessna [7]. This article coming from big vendor like Cisco is a big endorsement for this sane approach from the industry albeit subtly. [1]P4Pi: P4 on Raspberry Pi for Networking Education: https://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/soule/pubs/ccr2021.pdf https://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/soule/pubs/ccr2021.pdf [2]P4Pi: P4 on Raspberry Pi for Networking Education (slides): https://opennetworking.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2021-P4-WS-Sandor-Laki-Slides-2.pdf https://opennetworking.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2021-P... [3] P4Pi codes: https://github.com/p4lang/p4pi https://github.com/p4lang/p4pi [4] Building an Internet Router with P4Pi: https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3493425.3502762 https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3493425.3502762 [5] Low Cost Banana Pi BPI-R2 Pro 5-Port Gigabit Ethernet Router Board: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28440718 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28440718 [6] Lichee Pi 4A: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34137185 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34137185 [7] Why the Cessna is such a badass plane (2019): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23253067 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23253067

highduc 4y ago

At current raspberry pi prices I'd just get an Odroid H3.

sidewndr46 4y ago
I picked one up recently, it's a pretty neat machine. The footprint is larger, but I doubt that matters for many people.

PurpleRamen 4y ago

You assume people need to buy a new RPi. But many people reading such an article already have one or two at home, just searching for more use cases for their (often unused) toys.

codetrotter 4y ago
I have three Rasperry Pi. One of them is the original model that they made first. That one I don’t use currently because it’s a bit slow. Well they are all slow, but the first one especially so. The two other Raspberry Pi that I have are Model 3B+. On one of these I run Raspbian. On the other one I run FreeBSD. I would like to buy a few more Rapsberry Pi, but they are not so easy to come by. I would especially like to buy the following: - Raspberry Pi 4 - Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 (CM4) If anyone has one or more RPi 4 or RPi CM4 that they are not using, I would be interested to buy them so that I can put them to use. I have an address in Norway, and an address in Spain. So if anyone in any countries nearby (Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Spain, France, Germany, Portugal, etc) have some RPi 4 or RPi CM4 that they are not using and willing to part with for a reasonable price, please let me know :)
- slowhand09 4y ago
  You might check https://rpilocator.com/ https://rpilocator.com/
- nine_k 4y ago
  What is the point of using an RPi for heavier compute, and not something like ODroid [1] [2] or a beefier Orange Pi [3]? To me, the very point of RPi is to be cheap, slow, and hacking-friendly, with all these GPIO pins to control peripherals like a 3D printer, or a toy car / robot platform, etc. It was intended and initially promoted as an educational toy for schoolchildren, I remember it well. It fits fits to that purpose, and has nothing to do with higher-performance compute. [1]: https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-n2l-with-2gbyte-ram/ https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-n2l-with-2gbyte-ram/ [2]: https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-n2l-with-2gbyte-ram/ https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-n2l-with-2gbyte-ram/ [3]: http://www.orangepi.org/html/hardWare/computerAndMicrocontrollers/details/orange-pi-4-LTS.html http://www.orangepi.org/html/hardWare/computerAndMicrocontro...
  - codetrotter 4y ago
    > What is the point of using an RPi for heavier compute, and not something like ODroid [1] [2] or a beefier Orange Pi [3]? I have an Odroid XU-3 as well, and intend to buy some more Odroids also. But this thread is specifically about RPi and I still want more RPis because they have a much much bigger community than anything else :)

_8j50 4y ago

Being arm is also an issue, as well as being Linux when you need to simulate windows specific stuff. Rpi with keyboard and case is not cheaper than even a not so vintage low end laptop (3-6yo). Can you even run gns3 on a rpi? This is especially interesting when dealing with NACs and wireless clients (eap-*,.1x,client identification). Linux works too well sometimes in a lab, it will hapilly route traffic or have a trunk interface, the hostility of windows makes it a better (or rather required) lab client especially since you can just bridge linux VMs in my opinion.

IIsi50MHz 4y ago
I've seen Windows IoT running on RPi 3B…and the lags is…significant. As is the fact that it was done so that so that a C/C++ program could receive input from a touchscreen and an HID-emulator device, submit it to a database, and inspect the result. I would have expected a much more perfomant environment, that doesn't miss "keystrokes" and touches, and doesn't feel like I'm literally round-tripping the signal between Earth and Moon.

tambourine_man 4y ago

Can you post a link to this thin client PC? Is it new or used? How's Linux support for Wi-Fi? Thanks

nix23 4y ago
Just search for (INSERT SELLER) Lenovo ThinkCentre M75q or M715q. They are great for Ceph-Clusters, disk-less stations or down-clocked pi-replacements...well just anything. Linux works, also FreeBSD and OpenBSD. Typical example here: https://www.ebay.com/itm/185684535368?_trkparms=amclksrc%3DITM%26aid%3D1110006%26algo%3DHOMESPLICE.SIM%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D244525%26meid%3D9a02d27078f14f12b6ee742871d2a19e%26pid%3D101195%26rk%3D2%26rkt%3D12%26sd%3D304695955990%26itm%3D185684535368%26pmt%3D1%26noa%3D0%26pg%3D2047675%26algv%3DSimplAMLv11WebTrimmedV3MskuWithRevOptLambda90KnnRecallV1AndV6ItemNrtInQuery%26brand%3DLenovo&_trksid=p2047675.c101195.m1851&amdata=cksum%3A1856845353689a02d27078f14f12b6ee742871d2a19e%7Cenc%3AAQAHAAABMBTnULwZvkwwvWb54Sp3TESux6kFTXxeByyFeTbBEJTAHELVvJ%252BnpiRCZsaEJO6Sgil1c4QN96oSZNf1RJtASfjMty0OmD3Ak5%252BtNyamG%252B4xnQZc33B187j%252Bnu5Wz5GRJjg1ocA7%252F014lTi9pJcW%252BY3UTmfGBB%252Fq%252FH1hm0poLJDHneRy3Brsas93Xzo7NTXzYU3LimXbgsFApN8JSaAy%252BjpGERYEjnjZNNgiFHcgeoHCXUZj7tT4rfVs3IpJrpS2W0wTrCNUnPrTmYrpp5wFS%252BD%252F9MZdj%252B6RiVN0WMR%252F7b7uahybQ%252FPrTCSsAsSxIp%252BA9h9sP37YN96oq6uFrV%252Fbe2gSSeQt3QibPL58k6%252BRjvd6Hbd2na3O9oHlEN0KiFRjQFd%252Bh1fV3erLrdxAkjHK1is%253D%7Campid%3APL_CLK%7Cclp%3A2047675 https://www.ebay.com/itm/185684535368?_trkparms=amclksrc%3DI...
- BizarroLand 4y ago
  Quick warning about Lenovo systems, you should reconsider using them if you intend on swapping any cards inside of the system (like WiFi, for instance). Many Lenovos are bios locked to prevent upgrading the system to either products that Lenovo doesn't personally sell or specific products that are in a hard-coded whitelist in the BIOS. The system will boot loop with a warning message if it detects a non-whitelisted device attached to the PCIe bus. I do not know if they have discontinued this practice, but if you want to, say, add a 10gig ethernet adapter to the device or upgrade the WiFi for use as a media pc you should check the specific system to see if that is an issue with it before buying this system and go with an HP or Dell or something first.

mschuster91 4y ago

> If one really wants small form factor and lower power consumption why not choose a pine64, orange pi or radxa boards? Community support is best for the original RPi. There are enough of them around to make sure that you can run them with a modern OS and supported kernel in a decade, with knockoffs you can never be sure when (or if!) bugs will be fixed or how long someone will maintain a kernel fork.

ilyt 4y ago

> If one really wants small form factor and lower power consumption why not choose a pine64, orange pi or radxa boards? Yes, certain features like hdmi(on Quartz64), or hardware accelerated video encode/decode is only supported in older kernels, but if one needs a generic network box even fairly new Linux kernels work. To not play "what the fuck doesn't work on it" lottery. Over years I had a bunch of different boards and it is always something that needs proprietary drivers that inevitably are pinned to some old kernel, or just something doesn't work very well. Now rPi4 still isn't 100% supported in upstream kernel but just installing raspbian just works. Same with all expansion boards, they will generally need only a little configuration on rPi but anything else is crapshoot. > but if one needs a generic network box even fairly new Linux kernels work. There are dedicated ones with multiple NICs for that purpose, both ARM and x86.

teleforce 4y ago

Raspberry Pi is currently being used as educational tools in computer networks laboratories in many university around the world, like Oxford and Yale, for hands-on education and learning of modern networking technology with software defined networking (SDN) and P4 [1],[2],[3],[4]. With readily available Ethernet port, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, it come default with multiple standard networking technology. If you want multi-port Ethernet just use one of the available USB ports with USB-to-Ethernet converter as being practices by the mentioned references. The main points that are probably missing from the people here is that the low cost nature of RPI and it cheaper clones for examples Banana Pi (MediaTek ARM) and Lichee Pi (RISC-V) are great for networking labs [5],[6]. As of now, if you want to learn hands-on computer networking you go straight to the big vendors equipment from Cisco, Juniper, Huawei, etc. This is not the current practice for properly learning car driving or plane piloting where the new learners will start form the most basic vehicles. Starting learning with the big vendors is like learning to drive with a Mercedes car or piloting with a Boeing plane, where the normal practice is to use entry level Daihatsu or Caessna [7]. This article coming from big vendor like Cisco is a big endorsement for this sane approach from the industry albeit subtly. [1]P4Pi: P4 on Raspberry Pi for Networking Education: https://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/soule/pubs/ccr2021.pdf https://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/soule/pubs/ccr2021.pdf [2]P4Pi: P4 on Raspberry Pi for Networking Education (slides): https://opennetworking.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2021-P4-WS-Sandor-Laki-Slides-2.pdf https://opennetworking.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2021-P... [3] P4Pi codes: https://github.com/p4lang/p4pi https://github.com/p4lang/p4pi [4] Building an Internet Router with P4Pi: https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3493425.3502762 https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3493425.3502762 [5] Low Cost Banana Pi BPI-R2 Pro 5-Port Gigabit Ethernet Router Board: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28440718 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28440718 [6] Lichee Pi 4A: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34137185 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34137185 [7] Why the Cessna is such a badass plane (2019): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23253067 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23253067