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Comment by 015a | Hacker News Reader

Their mass production of the Pi keyboard should clue you into at least one direction that they believe "the Pi is all about"; education, and increasing access to modern computing hardware. Enhancing the performance envelope and connecting to a monitor do, to me, seem like worthy steps toward that end.

Everyone uses general purpose computers differently. I feel your statement "they've forgotten what the RPi is all about" isn't just ignorant; its hurtful. Maybe their direction isn't parallel with what you want out of the products they make, but you should at least have the empathy to recognize that you aren't the main character in this play.

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How are two niche ports requiring adapters more accessible than one full-size HDMI port? Are two ports on such constrained hardware really worth it? If my adapter cable breaks (which already happened) I have to order a new one and can't use the device while sitting on a pile of unused but unsupported HDMI cables. Meanwhile iirc it took until after the launch of the Pi 4 to get USB boot support without first flashing and booting a microSD card, another piece of hardware not known for its longevity.

The RPi project is amazing and I'm glad it exists, but some decisions are just weird considering their goals. Though to be fair the RPi 4 & 5 improved the situation significantly.

The weird niche port for video is the #1 reason I stopped using raspberry pi. I have one adapter, somewhere, but I'll be damned if I can find it in less than an hour. It's at the bottom of some bag or drawer of infrequently used adapters

Why don’t you just keep it with the Pi?

I have like five or six pis they get packed and unpacked every time I move

Amen. Micro-HDMI is trash and should NEVER be used, because it will break promptly... especially on a dinky device that moves and shifts a lot.

If a full-sized HDMI port is somehow too big (which it isn't on the regular-sized Pi, and definitely not on the 400), they should just use USB-C ports with DisplayPort capability. I'd rather use a DP-to-HDMI adapter (which is cheap and effective) than a shitty micro-HDMI port.

I have mixed feelings about that.

Personally, I found the mini HDMI ports themselves a downgrade. One is forever looking for adapters. However, having two displays is nice!

It boils down to whether someone is using the device like a computer.

The Pi 400 is a nice, respectable computer and I use one for development. Two displays makes sense and is high value.

Now you can absolutely use the device.

I have an epaper project in development. I have the epaper setup and attached to a Pi 3. That makes sense and it works well. Code output goes there and I have it all in one place.

I use it in two basic ways:

One is headless, using VNC to access dev tools and code located right on the Pi. I keep various wi-fi setups handy and can copy a new one onto the SD card if needed. Usually, I am powering the Pi with my laptop in that scenario.

The other is via plugged in displays with keyboard and mouse.

I do both of those with Pi 3 and 4 devices.

The Pi-400 needs the display adapter and though I have not lost or broken one yet, it seems to me simply attaching an adapter permanently to the computer would make a lot of sense.

This thread makes me want to 3d print a different case so that I can incorporate the adapters properly and just expose HDMI slots like we see on the earlier devices.

Finally, just a tip:

I will often use my laptop as a display for the Pi with one of those HDMI capture devices. Power the Pi with the laptop and bring up a display to work with.

> I will often use my laptop as a display for the Pi with one of those HDMI capture devices

Then why don't you just...use the laptop? It's unlikely the Pi has better performance or compatibility.

I agree if they are running it strictly for Linux needs however they may be using it for gpio and not be aware there are gpio USB boards out there that basically do the same thing.

Using it as a dev environment for e-paper at the moment. Once I have a Pi setup for a task, it stays that way. That is nice and I do not need speed.

I like to set up the dev environment on the Pi.

For a lot of reasons, my primary laptop runs Windows 10. It has a lot going on. Sometimes a setup on the pi is easy. When that is true, I just leave things on the Pi.

The two HDMI ports are worth it for me. I have a project with Raspberry PI 400 in multiseat kiosk mode.

It has two monitors, and an extra keyboard and mouse. The microHmdi->HDMI cables you can get for 2 dollars each.

It paid for itself in saved electricity bills in about a month (it replaced older computers and I set it up just when electricity went through the roof here in Europe).

On the other hand I did not need wifi or bluetooth. But wireless, and the extra HDMI probably does not add much to the price. I think Raspberry made reasonable choices regarding ports, etc.

I have mixed feelings about that.

Personally, I found the mini HDMI ports themselves a downgrade. One is forever looking for adapters. However, having two displays is nice!

It boils down to whether someone is using the device like a computer.

The Pi 400 is a nice, respectable computer and I use one for development. Two displays makes sense and is high value.

Now you can absolutely use the device.

I have an epaper project in development. I have the epaper setup and attached to a Pi 3. That makes sense and it works well. Code output goes there and I have it all in one place.

I use it in two basic ways:

The other is via plugged in displays with keyboard and mouse.

I do both of those with Pi 3 and 4 devices.

The Pi-400 needs the display adapter and though I have not lost or broken one yet, it seems to me simply attaching an adapter permanently to the computer would make a lot of sense.

This thread makes me want to 3d print a different case so that I can incorporate the adapters properly and just expose HDMI slots like we see on the earlier devices.

Famously the devices have been difficult to acquire because RPi was putting all their manufacturing output into fulfilling commercial market needs (1,2,3). Filling a market need -- well-specced hardware with long support horizons -- is perfectly fine, but Upton et al. have made it very clear that this is the priority and pretending otherwise is weird. Mass producing generic USB keyboards in corporate livery does not meaningfully communicate corporate ethics here.

Meanwhile, most of the competition focuses on beating the Pi on specs, availability, or price -- and none of them seem to have noticed that long support life as being the differentiator which leads to business adoption of the Pi hardware. So I suspect the status quo will persist for the foreseeable future.

1 - https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2022/you-cant-buy-raspberr... 2 - https://www.elecrow.com/blog/why-is-it-so-hard-to-buy-raspbe... 3 - https://www.tomshardware.com/news/raspberry-pi-ceo-eben-upto...

> direction that they believe

Fortunately we don't need belief, since the foundation has years of volume-based sales data on market segments, e.g. for the last two years they have prioritized industrial business users over education, during supply chain shortages.

Is there a published market segment breakdown for each generation of RPi?

Their existing contracts and focus should clue you more into their desired direction than an accessory that they can produce for consumers that is tangentially related to raspberry pis.

The pi foundations focus(be it intentional or just out of a desire to stay open) has been to have prototypes created with raspberry pis that go into production without replacing the raspberry Pi so that device manufacturers are locked into large long-term contracts.

The inability for consumers to find devices available and the odd io choices(IoT video devices like kiosks would benefit from the double ports rather than a single full size HDMI) are IMO the intention of the pi foundation. Their focus is on generating contracts and fulfilling them, consumer devices are secondary.

That's to say they've "forgotten what the pi is about" insofar as they've made choices to grow the business/contract side of the pi foundation more than the education and consumer availability

It's odd then that a single alternative hasn't risen to prominence to serve their original hobbyist market. There are millions of clones out there of course but any with a trusted brand name and support behind them?

I don't know about you, but if one of those clone manufacturers made it as simple to install Linux on their machine and have it not be an utter pain in the ass, that would go a long way toward me wanting to trust them.

The problem with the clones, and with clones in general, is that they're never quite 100% compatible. There's always some sharp edge there to cut yourself on. Fix that, and I'll definitely try a non-Raspberry Pi SoC.

This is by far the largest problem with the clones. The software story is absolute crap compared to RPi.

The thing you are looking for can be achieved by buying something on the DietPi hardware compatibility list. https://dietpi.com/ I personally have had good luck with NanoPi boards from that list.

The biggest problem all the Pi-like devices seem to suffer from is poor software and driver support. The only exception seems to be the ones Intel made.

People are both complaining about cost and then complaining that the RPi foundation subsidized the cost of the RPis in order to prevent a viable competitor from emerging.

Beaglebone Blacks have existed and been in stock through the entire RPi fiasco. They are almost completely documented unlike the RPis. The boards have full schematics unlike the RPis. You can buy the main SoC unlike the RPis. The boards have lots more IO and some really nice real-time units. You can get the documentation from TI without an NDA. And the BBB even has eMMC so that it isn't dependent upon horrifically crappy uSD cards. And it runs straight up Debian instead of some weird build. I can go on and on.

RPi has kicked the end users in the teeth over and over and over and people still won't change. People at my hackerspace are willing to spend a bunch of money on RPi to do Octoprint rather than buying a full blown x86 computer for half the total cost.

What the hell do the Beaglebone people have to do to get people to pay attention?

Beaglebone Black link: https://www.beagleboard.org/boards/beaglebone-black

Some modernization would be nice. I like the am335x, and have a product that's been made with it for the past decade - but the am335x is a 32-bit single core processor (with some additions) from 2011, and that's getting a bit long in the tooth.

The Beaglebone people put out new ones, but the volumes were so dismal that they simply weren't worth it.

One engineering problem is that the power envelope is kind of tight. While the RPi simply will not work with 5V@500mA, the BBB does. If you bump the frequency, your power supply needs shoot up and you start needing heat sinks.

It really feels like the Beaglebone Black got the engineering aspects correct. Shame that even hackers are suceptible to marketing.

At this point, being able to use the Beaglbone Black is practically a superpower for me as an engineer. I can buy it. My end customers can buy it. It's real Linux so my end customer can bang on it as required. It's documented, so I can generate the embedded drivers I need and document them.

I suspect that with the industrial etherenet built in, the BeaglePlay is about to take on some of that character.

The issue I’ve had with the BBB is that they always seemed to be a premium cost item. Why am I paying more for something that gives me less compute than a most of the RPi boards. I have one and when I got it it cost me something over $150 AUD, I don’t remember the price exactly but I remember how ripped off I felt, at the time the premium RPi 3 was under $100 AUD

I’d the BBB cost me ~$50 AUD I’d be much more keen on them… for all the well outlined reasons. It it just seems to always cost more than I’m prepared to pay for that hardware.

What part of "subsidized by Broadcom to create suckers and exploit them" is not clear?

The BBB Bill of Materials is public. What parts of that BOM should they throw out to get to you that $50 AUD target?

The AM3359 is $11 in 1K units by itself.

This is about what you can get for $50 US without subsidy: https://www.toradex.com/computer-on-modules/verdin-arm-famil...

Interesting points about the BeagleBone; I will check it out.

But this is not credible: "People at my hackerspace are willing to spend a bunch of money on RPi to do Octoprint rather than buying a full blown x86 computer for half the total cost."

I run Octoprint on a 4GB Pi 4. Total cost was probably $75. What kinds of setup are you talking about?

Power supply, plastic case, heat sink, powered hub for webcams, etc., put everything north of $100.

I can pick up a refurb x86 NUC with 8GB RAM and a 256GB M.2 SSD for right about $50 locally retail.

Got a link for that? I looked at NUCs for a long time, but the reviews sucked... replete with stories about drivers that didn't work.

But for $50... hey.

https://discountelectronics.com/computers?sort=NEWEST

I'm sure if you trawl Alibaba or any used computer dealer in your area you'll find something similar.

Thanks. Needless to say, that site doesn't exactly have glowing reviews. But to be fair, some of the reviews have absurd complaints about refurb computers, like "came with outdated USB drivers." Wow, do ya think?

The prices are dirt-cheap though. How much stuff have you bought from them?

I've bought a handful of random things, but I tend to go there in person so I don't know what their online purchasing pathways or guarantee handling look like.

But, I mean, the computers are what they say they are. They don't lie as far as I can tell. So, if I go look up what I'm buying, I can see what kind of problems I'm in for.

It's a used computer store. WTF do people expect?

NUCs also have weird radio noise issues sometimes blocking wireless mice and keyboards in some ports.

The strong point about Pi in my opinion is the software being simple and solid. It just works and any general software you can imagine has been compiled and installs without a ton of effort compared to general Debian or Ubuntu Linux which a lot of the clones use.

Otherwise at this point and prices if you're looking for a low power Linux computer I'd urge anyone over to the big three 1L families like the M7x Lenovo has or HP Elitedesk used machines since they are sub 60w and run circles around basically any single board pc

If doing that means more well supported, useful and fun computers, that is fine with me.

I have few complaints and fins the devices useful, affordable and fun.

While I admit that I am a bit envious of the large 4k monitors that my coworkers use, I have managed to make it through life without buying anything larger than a 1440p monitor.

What exactly is the educational advantage (for the demographic that the raspberry pi is supposed to be educating) of the inclusion of 2x 4k ports and does that advantage override the opportunity cost of including the ports?

In other words '1080p ought to be enough for anybody learning how computers work from an SBC.

Raspberry Pi is many things today. The foundation is indeed focused on education, but the company behind it has a much broader focus and sells many (most?) of their devices to commercial customers, where 2x4k outputs might be beneficial, e.g. in digital signage applications.

Honestly, I'm just spitballing here, but it's not like the Raspberry foundation is making its own silicon. They're using what exists. It's probably a simple case of the chipset they chose supporting it, so might as well include it.

They are making their own silicon (see the RP1 at [1]) and obviously have very significant input as to what Broadcom puts into the main SoC, a chip that is primarily now made for RPi needs.

1: https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/raspberry-pi-5/

Rp1 doesn’t deal with video, and having two displays is very reasonable for all kinds of things, including display kiosks, points of sale, etc Even for a robot. They don’t need to be 4k, it I guess that’s just normal these days

I thought the RP1 was made because broadcom took out gpio functions of the doc so they were forced to move it to another chip?

I could be wrong, but iirc the HDMI they use and full size HDMI are pin compatible. It's likely they just chose the smaller connector so they can break both out and have a smaller board footprint(as opposed to having a larger board or only providing a connector for one HDMI port)

You can get $60 android tablets brand new on Amazon that don't need a monitor, keyboard and mouse and can use the vast amount of education apps in the play store.

The education part is tinkering with hardware and linux.

IMO arch or similar is going to do more towards teaching Linux than raspian will. Just install that on a cheap laptop/phone and play around with different apps/configs.

For hardware learning pis arent even that great, an stm32, Arduino , or esp32 is a fraction of the cost(so you don't have to worry about burning the io pins out as much) and the toolchain is basically the same(simpler I'd argue even)

You can use arch on raspberry pi too. https://itsfoss.com/install-arch-raspberry-pi/

But not sure I agree that arch is the best linux distro to start with for someone new to computers that grew up on an Ipad.

Yeah, but devices aren't very useful for education if the students can't type on them.

I got a pretty decent chromebook on eBay for 70 euros. With pretty good display, keyboard, touchpad, touchscreen, 8Gb of RAM and a battery. Runs linux great. Apparently chromebooks dominate education market nowadays, very inexpensive and arguably more useful than a Raspberry pi.

Agreed.

Their little 'breadbox' pi4* certainly points in that direction very heavily.

Their cheaper 'embedded' version (the zero series, and the pico) is doing what this guy wants.

* https://vilros.com/products/raspberry-pi-400-vilros?variant=...

If you can get one, which was (still is?) impossible pretty much ever since it came out.

They seem to be in stock at the link he gave you. Amazon has numerous vendors with them in stock (I've had good luck buying from Seeed Studio, but not for rpis, YMMV). I bought 3 of them in the middle of covid when there were almost no rpi 3 or 4 SBCs for consumers anywhere on the planet and if you did find on they were 1 per customer. I think I got them from AdaFruit, who have 78 in stock right now. They were and are anything but unavailable.

Oddly, rpilocator doesn't seem to track them, so if that's your definition of "available"...surprise?

Not sure why you would need dual monitor outputs for education use. I seem to remember at the time of release them talking about how it would actually be useful in telephone call centres.

If they want to increase access to computing hardware, their 'industrial customers first, everyone else can pick over whatever odds and end are left over' sales policy is a really strange way of showing it.

Call centers are dominated by thin clients typically. you can replace them with a pi but after you get software, an SD card, a case, a power supply...the pricing is moot and you don't have vendor support.

Parent should know that the hurtfulness of having a different opinion about the best use of a computer cannot be overstated. Imagine if my great grandfather who survived the holocaust read this comment--it would kill him even worse than hitler tried to.

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