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Comment by Roark66 | Hacker News Reader

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.

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> 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.

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.

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 :)

You might check https://rpilocator.com/

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/

[2]: https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-n2l-with-2gbyte-ram/

[3]: http://www.orangepi.org/html/hardWare/computerAndMicrocontro...

> 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 :)

> 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.

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

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

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

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%3DI...

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.

Oh thanks for the warning, i never changed a card but good to know!

It's no problem. I only found out about it when I got a free old 3rd gen intel Lenovo minipc from work and spent $20 to get a better wifi card for it.

Apparently, the only solutions are to either use only approved lenovo devices for that specific hardware or to export, edit, and reimport the BIOS after removing the bootloop protections from it, which while feasible isn't worth the time and effort to me just to have a small PC to use as a media player on my TV.

I'd add to this warning that Lenovo has a history of shipping malware infested systems often in exchange for money, even putting malware in UEFI so that even after reinstalling the OS your machine just reinfects itself.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenovo#Security_and_privacy_in...

What I see here are 3 used computers for US$ 200 with the warning: “For Parts/Repair - Units DO NOT Power on”.

I don't see how that's comparable with a Pi in either price or reliably (or sanitation, really). Seems like buying other people's junk. I don't find compelling.

>I don't find compelling

Pussy! Turn it on with a fire-extinguisher next to you...whats the problem?

I hope you’re not serious.

What can happen? A bit magic smoke?

Yes, aside from lost time and money.

You don't have the right mindset for things like that...you can leave now ;)

You kids can get back to playing with your expensive toys. We grown ups need to keep the world spinning.

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.

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.

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

[2]P4Pi: P4 on Raspberry Pi for Networking Education (slides):

https://opennetworking.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2021-P...

[3] P4Pi codes:

https://github.com/p4lang/p4pi

[4] Building an Internet Router with P4Pi:

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

[6] Lichee Pi 4A:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34137185

[7] Why the Cessna is such a badass plane (2019):

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23253067

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