4 ms·

There are hundreds of these mini-computers and they always have poor support because the community is small and the makers just abandon the product. They're lik

by arjie 12y ago

There are hundreds of these mini-computers and they always have poor support because the community is small and the makers just abandon the product. They're like Nokia phones back in the day, you get what you buy and that's it. The Raspberry Pi has a great community around it that's doing all sorts of things. Multiple independent distros exist and it's a well understood system. This alone makes it superior for many uses than any of these alternatives.

dekhn 12y ago
Yeah. I have purchased, then given away both my PandaBoard ES and Intel Galileo. because, compared to teh Pi, they just aren't well-integrated and the lack of support is a barrier to getting things done. I used to think the Pi was pretty underpowered, but for most purposes, it's a practical device. I can even code with a full screen editor, and push code to an arduino (a bit slowly). I'll take a slow, but well supported system over a fast unsupported one any day.
georgemcbay 12y ago
I agree though I'd mention that the community behind the BeagleBone Black, while not nearly as large as the Raspberry Pi community, has managed to reach a critical enough mass to mostly avoid the problems you're talking about. The killer on the BeagleBone Black for me for some uses is the rather terrible maximum resolution for HDMI display output. (For other uses the two dedicated microcontrollers make it a great device). Even the Raspberry Pi has it beat on display resolution, though in an increasingly high-density display world this is a problem that most of these systems suffer from (other than a couple of very high-end developer boards with [somewhat iffily-supported] displayports). For people who really want something with more oomph than the Pi or the BBB, I'd suggest something built on the imx6 like the Wandboard. Yes, the community is much smaller, but IME it is much easier to "go it alone" or with a small community when you have the sort of documentation that Freescale provides when compared to the usual-suspects of Chinese chipsets like the Rockchip or Allwinner SoCs.
ChuckMcM 12y ago
Was coming here to say this same thing, (although I think it is closer to thousands of ARM based mini-machines). The fact is that anyone with even a free CAD package, and something like OSHPark can put out a "ARM PC". And they can probably get enough Linux or Android running to have it throw something up on the screen. With the latter it will look really good on the screen, even when the hardware is ill supported. So you get one, and you try to do anything with it, and you start running into the 'oh, but that isn't supported' or a Forums link where there are a half dozen messages from a desparate new user that were posted 6 months ago, maybe 100 - 200 views of each, and no replies. A ghost town. (its worse if they don't manage spam but still). Getting the hardware running is perhaps 5% of the problem, getting a distro on it is perhaps another 10%, getting driver support and documentation for all the bits in the SoC that is like 90%, and then getting app support for the platform is another 90%. Then maybe, just maybe, you have something. Except if you've been relying on volunteers in your forums they have 'real jobs' to go to, if you hire people to do the work you can't sell the boards for the cost of parts and assembly + 20%.[1] SoC Manufacturer support is critical here since they can provide access to the secret bits on the chip. The BBB is the closest I've seen to being open. [1] A large number of Chinese manufacturers seem to operate on the assemble it + throw it over the wall model. Which is great if you have an organization which can take the result and support it, but not great if you are depending on community support.
- swah 12y ago
  That was actually also my experience w/ BBB in some degree. My next mini computers will be RPis until I've lots of experience. Felt into the "this is like a RPi but more powerful" trap :)
darklajid 12y ago
I feel that this is spot on and that's exactly what made me abandon my U3 and still use my Pis for daily tasks and pet projects.
drzaiusapelord 12y ago
How big of a community do you need? What's the critical mass? The beagleboard been around for sometime, except it used to run you around $200. You could trivially put a linux distro on a beagleboard before the Pi even existed. Heck, the Beagleboard Black comes with Debian installed and goes for $55 now. Not too bad. The reality is that the Pi just delivered a very low cost and now they sit in drawers and landfills because Joe Hacker got over the "shiny shiny" aspect of owning it pretty quickly. The same way he has a Wii and a Rock Band set in the basement in a box labeled, "Stuff." I suspect that the slighter higher cost of entry means that things like the beagleboards are in use doing something interesting while most Pis are either junked or running blinkinglights.sh and will never be touched again.
- Narishma 12y ago
  A lot of RPis are used as cheap media centers.
- Nursie 12y ago
  I'm not sure why people need this stuff either. Put debian on the machine, get access to everything from the debian repos. What more do you actually need?
ciupicri 12y ago
Though I read on some OpenBSD mailing lists that Raspberry Pi is not open enough. P.S. More details at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7679302 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7679302
- Narishma 12y ago
  As the comments on that page point out, that was years ago. A lot of stuff has been opened since.
joshu 12y ago
I've been trying to catalog them here: http://www.bigboardlist.com/ http://www.bigboardlist.com/ But it is hard to keep up sometimes. And many of them are frustrating crap.

by arjie 12y ago

dekhn 12y ago

Yeah. I have purchased, then given away both my PandaBoard ES and Intel Galileo. because, compared to teh Pi, they just aren't well-integrated and the lack of support is a barrier to getting things done. I used to think the Pi was pretty underpowered, but for most purposes, it's a practical device. I can even code with a full screen editor, and push code to an arduino (a bit slowly). I'll take a slow, but well supported system over a fast unsupported one any day.

georgemcbay 12y ago

I agree though I'd mention that the community behind the BeagleBone Black, while not nearly as large as the Raspberry Pi community, has managed to reach a critical enough mass to mostly avoid the problems you're talking about. The killer on the BeagleBone Black for me for some uses is the rather terrible maximum resolution for HDMI display output. (For other uses the two dedicated microcontrollers make it a great device). Even the Raspberry Pi has it beat on display resolution, though in an increasingly high-density display world this is a problem that most of these systems suffer from (other than a couple of very high-end developer boards with [somewhat iffily-supported] displayports). For people who really want something with more oomph than the Pi or the BBB, I'd suggest something built on the imx6 like the Wandboard. Yes, the community is much smaller, but IME it is much easier to "go it alone" or with a small community when you have the sort of documentation that Freescale provides when compared to the usual-suspects of Chinese chipsets like the Rockchip or Allwinner SoCs.

ChuckMcM 12y ago

Was coming here to say this same thing, (although I think it is closer to thousands of ARM based mini-machines). The fact is that anyone with even a free CAD package, and something like OSHPark can put out a "ARM PC". And they can probably get enough Linux or Android running to have it throw something up on the screen. With the latter it will look really good on the screen, even when the hardware is ill supported. So you get one, and you try to do anything with it, and you start running into the 'oh, but that isn't supported' or a Forums link where there are a half dozen messages from a desparate new user that were posted 6 months ago, maybe 100 - 200 views of each, and no replies. A ghost town. (its worse if they don't manage spam but still). Getting the hardware running is perhaps 5% of the problem, getting a distro on it is perhaps another 10%, getting driver support and documentation for all the bits in the SoC that is like 90%, and then getting app support for the platform is another 90%. Then maybe, just maybe, you have something. Except if you've been relying on volunteers in your forums they have 'real jobs' to go to, if you hire people to do the work you can't sell the boards for the cost of parts and assembly + 20%.[1] SoC Manufacturer support is critical here since they can provide access to the secret bits on the chip. The BBB is the closest I've seen to being open. [1] A large number of Chinese manufacturers seem to operate on the assemble it + throw it over the wall model. Which is great if you have an organization which can take the result and support it, but not great if you are depending on community support.

swah 12y ago
That was actually also my experience w/ BBB in some degree. My next mini computers will be RPis until I've lots of experience. Felt into the "this is like a RPi but more powerful" trap :)

darklajid 12y ago

I feel that this is spot on and that's exactly what made me abandon my U3 and still use my Pis for daily tasks and pet projects.

drzaiusapelord 12y ago

How big of a community do you need? What's the critical mass? The beagleboard been around for sometime, except it used to run you around $200. You could trivially put a linux distro on a beagleboard before the Pi even existed. Heck, the Beagleboard Black comes with Debian installed and goes for $55 now. Not too bad. The reality is that the Pi just delivered a very low cost and now they sit in drawers and landfills because Joe Hacker got over the "shiny shiny" aspect of owning it pretty quickly. The same way he has a Wii and a Rock Band set in the basement in a box labeled, "Stuff." I suspect that the slighter higher cost of entry means that things like the beagleboards are in use doing something interesting while most Pis are either junked or running blinkinglights.sh and will never be touched again.

Narishma 12y ago
A lot of RPis are used as cheap media centers.
Nursie 12y ago
I'm not sure why people need this stuff either. Put debian on the machine, get access to everything from the debian repos. What more do you actually need?

ciupicri 12y ago

Though I read on some OpenBSD mailing lists that Raspberry Pi is not open enough. P.S. More details at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7679302 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7679302

Narishma 12y ago
As the comments on that page point out, that was years ago. A lot of stuff has been opened since.

joshu 12y ago

I've been trying to catalog them here: http://www.bigboardlist.com/ http://www.bigboardlist.com/ But it is hard to keep up sometimes. And many of them are frustrating crap.