this post was submitted on 28 Sep 2023
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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[–] [email protected] 149 points 1 year ago (3 children)
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[–] [email protected] 123 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Even the Pi has lost its headphone jack...

[–] [email protected] 57 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I mean, if you have USB, for a non-mobile platform, it doesn't really matter. It's not hard to get a USB audio interface.

For cell phones or laptops, I can understand not wanting another thing to plug in, but for something like a Raspberry Pi...shrugs

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago (6 children)

And you can just get an audio dac hat.

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago

To be fair, the pi's have always been famous for low quality sound cards, so there's plenty of hats that can add the functionality.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I generally hate the "just get dongles lol" argument but... maybe it's not a huge loss in this one specific case. I've had four models over 3 generations (B, 2-something and 3) and the audio jack always kinda... sucked.

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[–] [email protected] 93 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I want to be excited about this, but I just don’t believe I’ll actually be able to get one for retail price. For much of the RP4 lifecycle they prioritized corporate sales, and regular consumers were out of luck. I don’t have a lot of faith in them right now.

[–] [email protected] 47 points 1 year ago (2 children)

we’re going to ringfence all of the Raspberry Pi 5s we sell until at least the end of the year for single-unit sales to individuals, so you get the first bite of the cherry.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago

They’re probably doing that for first batch bug fixes.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

To keep alive the community that maintains the packages that businesses use? /s

There are a few things you won't forget and the last years were one of those events. Thankfully the competition made leaps forward regarding software support.

Do you remember FTDI-gate 1 & 2 (approx. 1 decade ago)? I do and FTDI never made it back onto my BOM and probably never will again, at least until SiliconLabs, WCH, and Holtek screw it up.

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[–] [email protected] 79 points 1 year ago (14 children)

The Pi foundation screwed over its original customer base by diverting practically ALL available inventory to business customers. Good riddance.

[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Once they hired that former cop who bragged about using these RPI's for "legal" surveillance police operations, I was done with them. This goes completely against the DIY spirit. There are so many better options out there without cops and without snarky Twitter social media managers.

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[–] [email protected] 78 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm excited to install retropie for the x time and then never ever touch it until the next iteration.

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[–] [email protected] 74 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Can't wait for this to be impossible to buy from anyone but scalpers.

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[–] [email protected] 59 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (7 children)

In a store nowhere near you. And not on the interwebs either.

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[–] [email protected] 57 points 1 year ago

For the small price of 250 scalper dollars you will be able to buy it

[–] [email protected] 48 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Its not very price competitive now. Its moved into the low end N100 territory with ITX boards and while its smaller and a bit less power its no where near as performant. They will still have some use in smaller applications but 5V x 5A is a chunky cable. I am not convinced this is the way now.

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[–] [email protected] 45 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Realistically probably not getting one for less than $160CAD.

At that point, might as well just buy a used Dell optiplex or something. These boards are absurdly priced, and you'll never get it for MSRP.

Even with the added power consumption of the Dell you'll pull out ahead lol

[–] [email protected] 45 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I remember when the Raspberry Pi was the amazing $15 computer. Times have changed.

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[–] [email protected] 44 points 1 year ago (4 children)

While I love Raspberry Pis and have a few older ones, it's a shame that the latest ones were very hard to come by and far exceeded the $35 price point.

I was looking to upgrade to a Pi 4 a while back but prices were outrageous or it was sold out completely. I eventually discovered tiny form factor PCs.

I bought some used Lenovo Tiny ThinkCentres (which are about 10x more powerful than a Pi 4), off eBay for ~ $70. I upgraded the Ram and SSDs and they are quite capable, low power units!

So to anyone looking for a low power computer to run Linux, consider buying used off eBay. You can get some pretty good deals on used hardware that's more capable.

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[–] [email protected] 41 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Priced at $60 for the 4GB variant, and $80 for its 8GB sibling (plus your local taxes), virtually every aspect of the platform has been upgraded, delivering a no-compromises user experience.

Ehhhhhh, that's pushing it. Didn't the v4 and v3 cost in the $30-$40 range?

[–] [email protected] 36 points 1 year ago (2 children)

$35 for 1GB RAM. 4 and 8 GB v4 are $55 and $75.

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago (9 children)

While there are now X86 SBC / Mini Computers that aren't far off the Pi in price, the real benefits of the Pi aren't just the fact that it offers a certain amount of compute for a certain price.

  • It's still lower power than most x86 SBCs overall, which matters with portable/remote applications

  • Its schematics are usually available

  • They're easy to get and have a usually guaranteed availability, so when one dies you should be able to get another

  • its got a decent ecosystem around it of hardware and software, which basically nobody else can claim

  • it's a fairly standard form factor, so fits into existing stuff well.

  • It's likely we will see a compute module for the Pi 5 as well at a guess, which means you can treat the vanilla Pi 5 as a dev board for whatever product you're developing, and then use a potential CM5 as the core of your product once it's ready to go!

If all you need is a home server or a Linux box, then sure get an X86 SBC, but the Pi isn't irrelevant, not by a long shot! Congratulations on releasing yet another sweet spot product, I'll be picking one up as soon as I think of a use for one!

[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 year ago (2 children)
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[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago (11 children)

I gotta resist the urge.. I have two Pis idle 🤦‍♂️

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

These things are great for [email protected] often time leagues more efficient per watt in terms of computation than regular PCs. I have a couple of 'em working on cancer research and computing to develop an open-source patent-free covid antiviral. You don't need a PhD to make a difference, all you need is a processor :)

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (2 children)

If they were more efficient per watt for scientific computing, you'd hear about researchers building HPC clusters from them.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago

*more efficient than regular PCs. Not more efficient than supercomputers lol

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I assume this will be prohibitively expensive (I really can't shell out any more than £60 and that's pushing it already), and probably impossible to get my hands on.

But if it's affordable and actually available? Hell yeah, this thing looks fantastic. I love that we're making something awesome here in the UK and sharing it with the world.

Will we finally be able to run N64 games on this hardware, do you think?

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I loved Pi’s, but I hate the micro hdmi connectors

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (4 children)
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[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (6 children)

No nvme support? Oh come on. Still using microhdmi? OH COME ON

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago

Love the PCIe interface upgrade. Hope they expand on it even more in the future.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

🎶 I know what I’m gonna buy soon 🎶

[–] [email protected] 44 points 1 year ago (11 children)

Not a raspberry pi 5 because you won't be able to find that shit in stock anywhere lmao

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

I kind of moved on to other devices or older models, depending on what is needed. If you just need a low power computer that can run Linux for simple tasks and projects, there's now lots of alternatives. So far I've tried a Banana Pi BPI-M5 and a Le Potato and they're both promising.

There's a few instances where an original Raspberry Pi is still needed. For example, it's super easy to install Home Assistant on a Raspberry Pi while not really supported on other experimental boards. Same with GPIO tinkering with some hit and miss implementation on alternative boards.

The only negative thing that I've began not to like about the Raspberry Pi was/is the power management and consumption on the version 4. The fact that I had to use a "dumb" USB-C charger and that everyone on forums and in comments were always "screaming" that you needed a beefier or more powerful power supply kind of killed the enthusiasm for me. Like, I can charge my laptop using a power bank and PD, while the Raspberry Pi 4 complains that it doesn't get enough power from the same bank. I'm sure they fixed their power issues and PD negotiation in the version 5 but apparently, it will also necessitate a pretty "good" power supply because it can pump up to 25 watts. Personally I don't need that much power for most of my projects and it's even annoying because it significantly reduced/reduces the number of ways that I can power the board.

Still, I'll certainly try it if I can get my hands on one. They are very nice devices and their popularity makes them very standard and compatible. But I'm not in any rush because I've since tried alternatives and some will also do just fine too, or even better.

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