Spyke
100reply
lemm.ee

Have they been difficult to get? I've always been vaguely interested but never actually looked into getting one.

3

Go to https://rpilocator.com/ and filter by your "region" and check for yourself. Most models seems to be available. The Rapsberry Pi 5 is available for pre-order from a number of suppliers.

2
lea
feddit.de

Even the Pi has lost its headphone jack...

121
talreply
kbin.social

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

54
lemm.ee

USB audio will always be better in pricing options, but the question is, which will give you better sound for the price. Of course, this only matters if you think audio quality is more important than price.

2
talreply
kbin.social

Why would you expect USB to constrain your audio quality?

You're not getting better 0s or 1s based on which bus they're sent over to the DAC.

2
lemm.ee

Please re-read my response. I never said that USB would always constrain the audio quality, but if you get a cheap USB to aux converter, the quality would be lacking vs a more expensive solution.

0

You are making just such a weird argument and it sounds like you are retroactively trying to salvage a bad position because you made a mistake.

  1. If you care strongly about audio quality. A built-in doesn't have any quality guarantees... why then does usb vs hat matter?

  2. If quality is your concern why bring up price in the first part? It is blatantly obvious that cheap parts *might" equate to cheap quality. This is blatantly obvious.

  3. Obviously there will be USB solutions that are equal or better solutions than prebuilt rpi dac hats since the primary dac hats are exceptionally niche.

This response just sounds like you got caught out in your mistake/bad argument. Why be a dick about it?

0
amioreply
kbin.social

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.

29
Wilsreply
lemmy.world

How do you mean, what sucked about it?

9

I remember when i wanted to make something like a chromecast audio with volumio and spotify connect on my Pi 2. I had to buy an audio DAC (~30€) because I could not get the 3.5 Jack to work correctly. It just sounded bad when cranked up to a volume you could actually hear something. You almost couldn't understand lyrics in songs due to the static noise. I read that this was due to being badly shielded from the power source.

The Audio jack on the Pi 3 I have is ok, but still not that good compared to the Audio DAC of course. But then again, the audio DAC i bought for 30€ was said to be on par with 1000€ standalone audio interfaces lol.

16

It was some hacked-together sound output that was terrible quality compared to a real sound card output, AFAIK. You could make it make sounds, but if you care at all about quality it was a non-starter, which is one reason a whole lot of audio hats exist.

12

Connectors seemed low quality and so did the audio. Crackling and sounding... sort of like a broken toy for kids.

3

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.

29

It's a shame that even the Pi Foundation is cutting corners. Cutting corners and removing features all while not even coming close to their target $35 price. Almost double for the base model. This doesn't feel like it fits the spirit of the original Pi Foundation goals at all.

6

Very cool they've added an interface to connect a peripheral that can have one though.

1
lemmy.sdf.org

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.

86
talreply
kbin.social

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.

45

We are dumping the RPI computer modules form our BOM too. The N100 is at a very low price point and readily available. Never again in my BOM.

5

It's gotten to the point with Windows 11 killing so many thin clients for businesses with TPM that you can typically find used ones for nearly as much as a Pi. Unless you need the size and efficiency I just struggle to find reason to buy another Pi if I need to selfhost something.

Pis are really cool but they really have become more corporate focused and it shows.

22
GustavoMreply
lemmy.world

Um... it's 2023 and there are other boards alongside the rpi, plus you can do that by spending much less -- $10 dollars, to be more precise. With decent performance and all, with the power draw at 3W and under!

8
el_abueloreply
lemmy.ml

Could you share some examples? I'm completely out of the loop...all I use my rpi for is emulation and an emby server...if there's better stuff out there for that, that is sub 10W, I'm all ears!

5

Orange pi zero 3. It delivers perfect PS1 emulation plus can do 4k streaming just fine. Linux support is still off however, but its 100% viable for retrogaming, web browsing and even cloud gaming (XCloud). All that with the power draw (barely) scratching the 3W mark. The only downside is that you are forced to use Android (again, for the time being.)

t. Got a Opi zero 3 1GiB, waiting for Armbian to deliver a proper version of their OS so I can play with it a bit more.

4
Eugeniareply
lemmy.ml

The problem is the software. Distros are best optimized for Pi.

4
GustavoMreply
lemmy.world

That used to be a problem way back. Right now is a whole different story. The orangepi 5 plus (which is the cheapest yet the "best" sbc as of now) has decent support and can even emulate nintendo switch (one of the most demanding nintendo videogames as of now) just fine. Thus, the distro itself has nothing to do with the optimization -- all distros are linux/gu at heart.

1
Eugeniareply
lemmy.ml

I'd disagree with that. Hardware acceleration and specific optimizations for the various chips are important. This is why some of these little machines can do youtube properly and others (most of them actually) can't. That's a big decision point for me as to what I should buy. OrangePi and some others are faster and more feature rich than pi, but their software is not as well thought of.

1

Hardware acceleration and specific optimizations for the various chips are important.

...which has nothing to do with the distro as you've emphasized earlier. And like I said previously, its on par with the other boards in a way its even superior than the rest.

1
lemmy.ca

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

76
lemmy.world

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.

44

What ever happened with all that? Do they still work there?

4
lemmy.ca

Yes, Pine64 is absolutely an organization that adheres to their stated ethos. They are what the Pi foundation should have been, but only pretends to be.

12

I dunno about ethos, but I do know Pine can also make false claims. I bought a Rock64 years back and they touted it as 4k60 video capable with an integrated GPU and that wasn't realistic at all. The software stack was still very immature on release. From their own wiki, years later, it still doesn't work and key parts still haven't been upstreamed.

7

Libre computer is pretty good too. I'm a big fan of the Libre computer renegade

3
ashok36reply
lemmy.world

The foundation prioritized customers relying on the pis to stay in business over tinkerers and enthusiasts. More harm and suffering would have been done by leaving those customers high and dry. Tinkerers were inconvenienced so that people could continue putting food on the table.

All of this caused by a once in a lifetime global catastrophe that killed millions of people.

Just, have some perspective.

12
lemmy.ca

Sure, for the first year, but it's been multiple years now. What's their excuse after the chip shortage ended?

They had goodwill, but that can't, and shouldn't be indefinite.

You're free to judge them on your own terms, as am I, but I don't think mine are unreasonable.

5
ashok36reply
lemmy.world

I would really recommend watching Jeff Geerling's video where he went to the UK to interview the rPi guys. It's really illuminating.

Also, we are even completely out of the chip shortage today. Demand for SBCs/ SOC chips in particular has skyrocketed. We are in stage 3 of the technology adoption curve, Early Majority, and people are still acting like it's 2018 and we're in the Early Adopter stage.

SBCs are everywhere around you now. You don't see them because they're small and easy to hide but they're being integrated into displays, signage, sensors and monitoring, even scooter rentals.

6

I have watched it. It was a very well done piece of PR and damage control. You're free to extend indefinite goodwill and understanding to their organization, but mine is used up.

They've basically cut off consumer supply for multiple years now, so you can keep on making excuses, but maybe ask yourself if you actually even have a line they can cross, or if your just being a fanboy.

I don't mean that as pejorative, but I don't know what else to call it, except for being a simp, but that's a much harder word to use and not come off as mean or angry at you, which I'm not.

1
lemmy.ca

There are good business use cases for Pi's, you can search online to learn more if you want.

That's not the issue. The Raspberry Pi Foundation stopped supplying retail resellers and shipped 99% of ALL of their inventory to business customers for the past several years. Which is why you can't find consistent stock, and why scalpers are mysteriously the only ones able to have reliable inventory.

It's not a secret, you can look up any number of news stories covering it. Originally they could blame the chip shortage, but long after that's over, they're still diverting almost everything they manufacture to business channels, and screwing over the hobbyists who built their brand.

Screw them. I'm not supporting them with my money ever again, and I have double digit amounts going back to the RPi2.

30

Lol. Maybe I should sell my inventory. Still have like 2 RPI zero, 3 RPI3B+, 2 RPI4 and one RPI400.. 😅 Their price is currently like 3-4x higher than I bought.

6

It's not even just built their brand, built the damn software, documentation, did a lot of the testing and put up with pis being a bit dodgy out of the box for a year every time a new model came out.

2
megopiereply
lemmy.blahaj.zone

So, they’re really easy to work with and relatively affordable, so great for prototyping, and acceptable for production if a company wants to get stuff out the door without getting a proper custom built solution that would be better in the long run.

When spin (electric scooter app rental company) pulled out of Seattle, they didn’t pick up a lot of the scooters there. People started pulling them apart when it was deemed they were legally abandoned, and it turned out they were all running on raspberry pi’s as their brains.

Ultimately it’s save money on the development side since it allows companies to use less experienced or specialized employees. It’s obviously expensive in the long term since a custom built system that only does what you need it to would cost less

18
matlagreply
sh.itjust.works

For example:

https://farm.bot/

There are others. Plenty of small/medium businesses just don't have the resources to develop small computers and the matching software stack. In that regards, the RPi is an appealing choice.

3
lemmy.ml

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

71

Sort of. I still haven’t been able to snag the top of the line CM4 (WiFi, 8gig ram, 32 gig emmc). I’ve seen a handful of CM4s with different configs that I don’t want. But for the 4B, yeah they can be bought now.

Edit: haven’t been able to snag one in my region*

7

Not really. Higher end models are regularly sold out. In stock Pis are sold at an insane premium.

6

We’d like to thank you: 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.

3
lemmy.world

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

57
infosec.pub

Oh come now, it's the principle of the thing.

But indeed I doubt I'll be able to buy one for a long time.

10
Schmuppesreply
lemmy.world

I'm pretty glad I got myself a Pi 4 for the normal price when it was relatively fresh on the market. I'm tempted to try and get a Pi 5 to replace it and use the Pi 4 for something else at some point. I'm not sure what that might be though, and I feel like the expected scarcity is what even makes me consider it at all. I use my Pi 4 for Kodi on my trusty dumb TV and have recently put my old 3B+ to use for my 3D printer. I'm now left with no spare Pi for whatever might arise.

5
DokPsyreply
infosec.pub

Might as well add some picos to scratch that itch. And the rabbit hole that micro controllers bring.... next thing you know, your work desk is also a solder station, a hot air station, PCB design, circuit design, and you've got two extra diy printers in various state of being built/rebuilt

I don't have a problem, you have a problem

8
lemmy.ml

I started out the same way and now my desk is cluttered with partially completed projects and devices in various states of taken apart. But for me the fun part is learning something new along the project journey. The microcontrollers were a game changer due to their low cost. I'm not trying to fry them, but hey if I screw up who cares it was a couple bucks anyways.

For circuits I design I've mostly been having them created overseas and I'll solder on the components but I'm really curious about hacking a toaster into a refry oven or whatever their called and soldering surface mount components. Not that I need the small form factor or I'm making enough circuits to warrant trying to save on cost, I'm just curious and want to try haha. Gonna need a bigger desk...

2

Honestly, get the flux and a hot air station instead, imo. Then again, I prefer being able to have control over where the heat is going instead of reflowing everything at once

2
toikpireply
feddit.uk

I have pre-ordered one for delivery in October. If you look at https://rpilocator.com/ you will find various models in stock at the official price. The Raspberry Pi clearly isn't the tool for you

-3
lemmy.world

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.

50

My main uses for them weren't ever desktop but tinkering with simple robotics / telepresence, automation, aprs / mapping, 3d printing (octoprint). Seems like the 5 is overkill for that. I guess there's always the pi zero.

2
lemmy.one

Haven't read the article but is it seriously 5V 5A for the power cable? It seems absurd that they wouldn't put a voltage regulator on board to accept a 12V 2A power supply.

1

It's pretty hefty.. and there's an official cooling solution to remove all that heat too..

They're basically going for the low end desktop market with it I think.

2
Nathreply
aussie.zone

The idea is they run off USB. Having said that, I'm pretty sure most of us just plug it into mains power.

0
lemmy.one

Even still I wonder if they could have added USB-PD capabilities in order to use 9V or 15V to bring the current down. A 5V 5A USB supply is very unique (even the previous 5V 3A was niche) as standard USB supplies that we're all used to typically max out at 2.5A. $12 for the official power supply is a decent price but you're severely limited on options if you don't have the official supply.

2
lemmy.ca

Looking at the power supply listing, it says that it is USB-PD. It lists output as "5A @ 5.1V, 3A @ 9V, 2.25A @ 12V, 1.8A @ 15V".

I fully admit that I don't understand USB-PD, though. Does the Pi have to support it too?

2

Yes, USB-PD requires a handshake confirming that both the charger and device are capable of using it.

I didn't look any further than the article listing the power supply as 5V5A so its good that it supports higher voltages, but really odd that it'd push out 25W at 5V as this is very demanding on the wiring since it has internal resistance which causes the voltage to drop with increasing length. The whole purpose of USB-PD is to up the voltage while reducing current to mitigate losses (and heat and wire thickness) and supply much higher wattage without having to use chunky wiring. This has been an issue with the Pi for quite a while which is why you always hear troubleshooting responses talking about having too small of a power supply. Now they've upped the power requirements while still using a 5V baseline. I did see the article mention that it has a voltage regulator capable of handling 20A of current so maybe it's just poorly worded with regards to the official power supply.

2
lemmy.world

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.

43

A friend of my dad's old PC recently shit the bed and recommended such a ThinkCenter purely by specs and price point. I did some remote setup last night and I got the impression that it was pretty snappy running Windows 10. Such a tiny computer is definitely on my list for the future.

4
lemmy.world

Is it something you could run an arcade emulator from? Thinking of building my kids a tiny arcade.

4

That would be more than capable. Retro emulation can run on very low end hardware.

But here's an ebay listing for same model that I bought earlier. It doesn't include an SSD but you can buy M.2 SSDs for very cheap which I also did. Plus they're much faster and more reliable than micro SD cards.

It's very easy to open the machine up which I liked.

RAM upgrades are cheap too but 8GB is a lot for most cases.

A lot of corporate environments use these so when they upgrade you can find them used for dirt cheap, if you don't mind some possible cosmetic defects. Mine are just stacked on a shelf and I just use them as servers for docker and whatnot.

6

If you need something with power sure! RasPi has a huge community that supports it, that's what sets it apart.

1

and far exceeded the $35 price point.

The answer to this is to wait until the price goes down.

Don't give them your money until they meet your standards.

0
lemmy.ca

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

41
floofloofreply
lemmy.ca

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

42
lemmy.world

Didn't it start at $35? I don't remember the mainstream Pi ever being $15.

And I get it, this thing is still more than that... But, the original model had 256MB RAM, didn't have WiFi or Bluetooth, and all IO was extremely slow. Plus the cheaper "A" model had no Ethernet and a single USB.

10 years later, for a board that now has PCIE, 16x the RAM, gigabit Ethernet, WiFi, Bluetooth, 2x the USB, and even more other connectivity, a $25 hike to $60 really doesn't seem that bad.

If you planned to use WiFi with your Pi back in the day, that's $20 right there, AND you just lost 1 of 2 USB ports.

Yes, times have changed. $35 in 2012 money is $45 in 2023 money, meaning realistically they've increased the price by 33%+inflation in the 10 years since launch. For all the value that's been added to the board, that really doesn't seem bad.

And if you don't need all the extra features I just listed, a Pi Zero is fantastic and still very cheap.

3
lemmy.blahaj.zone

Amazing for what exactly? I remember them being unreliable, slow af and not really good for much other than collecting dust.

I mean sure the idea was cool, in principle, but they needed a serious upgrade in specs. Now they got it and everyone bitches bc it comes at a price?

-12
frezikreply
midwest.social
  • Kiosks -- my makerspace uses one for guest signin
  • Pihole -- make your life less ad-infested without browser plugins
  • Octoprint -- run your 3d printers
  • Home voice assistant without relying on a big company of any kind, or sending them sounds of you having sex

The first models were rough on reliability, but they got a lot better around Model 2B and onward. SD cards with A1 or A2 rating help a lot.

18

I don't need any of those things tho. Mostly what I need is decent IO throughput which was unnecessarily constrained on earlier pis by poor design choices. The pi4 is the first to really shine in that regard.

I have a pi2 and I used it as a libreelec media center, and it was Ok in that capacity, but it's far too slow to transfer larger files regardless of how you do it (all relies on a slow usb interface).

1

Idk about everyone else but I was fine with the specs. A basic Linux machine that can hook up to the network and run simple python scripts was plenty for a ton of use cases. They didn't need to be desktop competitors. The market didn't need to be small form factor high performance machines, and I'd argue it wasn't.

9

They still sell the old slow ones don't they? from the website: "Raspberry Pi 1 Model A+ will remain in production until at least January 2026" "Raspberry Pi 3 Model B will remain in production until at least January 2028" etc etc.

If you like pain, go get yourself a rpi1 lol. As for me, idk... I'm drawn more to VMs and containers which can run very well even on a 2011 tower pc (with few upgrades over the years).

1

I mean they've found enough use cases that the power increase was a much-requested upgrade.

For the simple python script uses you just mentioned, you can still pick up older pi boards for cheap or just get a pi zero/zero w.

It's still not a desktop competitor in general, but if someone wants a really cheap computer that's widely supported, at least it's a viable option now.

1
zarquonreply
lemm.ee

Seriously. I was thinking about one for a home theater pc a bit ago. Bought a used thinkcentre off ebay for $40 instead. Much better performance and price.

8
anamereply
lemmy.one

Comparable power consumption too? Similar GPIO available?

Are you even comparing similar things

3
zarquonreply
lemm.ee

You can get similar power consumption.

As for gpio... Add a Pico as a USB pass-through for a few bucks.

1
anamereply
lemmy.one

So an additional device hanging in the breeze just to gain even some features and pico is hardly a replacement for full rpi gpio. Doesn't really seem like a better solution.

3
lemmy.ml

It all depends on what your usecase is. If someone's just starting out and wanting to do gpio stuff with a Linux os, yeah the pi may still be the best bet since it's got such a large following and guides written. But if someone's got more experience and just needs a cheap small form factor machine to run Linux and interact with some non mission critical gpios, a small nuc with a pico will give you a greater bang for the buck!

1

Obviously it is usecase dependent. But original comment claimed you are better off getting a small nuc for the same price, as if it is better for any usecase. Please, go reply to them :)

2

And are way bulkier with much larger power draw

2

Would you recommend a particular Beelink model?

I have been interested after seeing some reviews, but I'm not sure what would be the best deal.

Hence would greatly appreciate some recommendations.

2
lemm.ee

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?

38
divergingreply
lemmy.ml

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

34

They are talking about what the Pi 3/4 prices were. All that is mentioned about Pi 5 prices in the article is for 4GB/8GB.

1
lemmy.ml

Yeah, they didn't even try to come close to the $35 price point. That was always RPi's big selling point. I know COVID screwed that up but I was hoping it was a temporary thing, instead it seems they've used it as an excuse to raise prices permanently. Really stifles any excitement I had for the Pi 5 as RPi's biggest advantage over the competition has traditionally been their low entry price. The base model is almost double the $35 point and we all know it's getting scalped. Good luck getting a Pi 5 for a reasonable price.

9

One thing to notice, there are jumpers on the PCB for 8, 4, 2, and 1GB on the Pi 5. They're selling hte 8 and 4 variant now. I'm guessing a 2 or 1GB model will hit the $35 price point.

4
sh.itjust.works

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!

29

Supposedly because there's no through hole components, everything is surface mount, it should be much easier to manufacturer.

4

When I say easy to get, I don't necessarily mean "in stock" - and that is obviously a huge consideration. What I do mean that as far as I know the Pi foundation plans to keep manufacturing older boards for a long time since some customers can't just easily upgrade to the latest Pi, let alone move to a whole new platform. Is the Beelink x86 PC you got last week going to still be for sale without any significant revisions in 6 months?

3
kn100reply
sh.itjust.works

Lol I assure you I'm no bot. I just think that people forget that the Pi fills a niche that I know many self hosty types like myself no longer need it to fill, and the Pi 5 imo is another slam dunk in terms of nailing filling that particular niche. Other ARM SBCs tend to always have trouble with GPU hardware acceleration due to the weird MediaTek or rockchip SoCs they have or end up pinned to some ancient kernel version missing sources.

I too moved away from Pis to an X86 setup (https://kn100.me/erying-11800h/) something I talk about in great detail in that blog post, but appreciate the Pi exists and continues to evolve in the way it is. Not everything is about mac compute per dollar for everybody!

2

My bad then. The formatting looked like typical AI opening-bullet-list-closing. I stand corrected.

1
midwest.social

That sounds like something a bot would say!

I wanted to get a rpi4 when they were nowhere to be found. I refused to pay a scalper so I ended up with a few rockchip devices. I like tinkering and trying different things with them. I made one into an android streaming / dvr / emulation box. I turned a low power one into a pi hole. And I have an orange pi 5 that I still don't know what I want tondo with it.

I don't have any need for another x86_64 device. I have plenty of them already. That being said, I probably won't buy a rpi5 either. Or at least I won't rush to buy one.

1
kn100reply
sh.itjust.works

Beep Boop I'm in ur Lemmys astroturfin ur as yet unavailable SBCs.

Nah in all seriousness I too don't need a pi 5. I just respect what the people behind the Pi project are doing, and it upsets me that people are mad about what is in my opinion a very solid evolution of the Pi because of the availability issues of the Pi 4 during the largest supply shortage the world has seen in ALL consumer goods, not just hobbyist SBCs. Yes that sucked, but there were shortages in virtually everything else too. They also happen to be manufactured in my hometown which means they get a special place in my heart.

Brb sifting thru ur data and targeting ads.

2

They're manufactured in the UK right? You should probably go to bed!

The GPU crunch was way more painful for me. I waited as long as I could and even went igpu for a year. Finally I overpaid for a nvidia gpu that never played nice with slackware / wayland. It ended up forcing me to replace it with an amd gpu recently. Wanna buy a gently used 3060 ti?

Please serve me more beer and liquor ads. I haven't had a drink in almost a decade but that's all I seem to see when I'm not on my pi-hole filtered home network.

1
lemmy.world

I have a 4 on server hosting and 3 3s idle. If I buy the 5 I would have 4 Pis idle

8
mubreply
lemmy.ml

They go for good prices on eBay.

5
bitwolfreply
lemmy.one

But you should keep them because you could have a good use for it in a future side project.... right? .... right???

4
mubreply

Definitely. Got to be something that will come up.

3
lemmy.world

I was also planning to do one with a new 1TB hdd or ssd attached. This might be what the 4 will become due to its CPU and memory

2

Yes, this is exactly what I did, with a 1TB SSD. I tried to host a Jellyfin server as well, but it didn't have the oomph for that. A plan for my 10yo Mac Pro once I finally retire it lol

2
lemmy.world

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?

25

Considering single core performance was the main thing holding it back previously. There is a good chance Nintendo 64 emulation should be better. Other Arm based SBC have been able to do it relatively easily for a while.

5

N64 could be done before with overclocking by the looks of it, so this should handle it as a baseline.

Although nothing really gets you over the "our games are in 3D and we don't really know what we're doing" jank of the PS1 and N64 era.

1

I'm not a fan but I'm guessing it's form factor?

I had to buy a micro HDMI adapter. These video ports are slowly becoming like USB ports and it's really frustrating.

5

The most annoying part I think is because I so rarely need them. All my Pis run headless, but the one time I do need direct console access I have to find the bloody adapters. Leaving them attached and unused is just asking them to get damaged.

Rather than using micro-hdmi (which hardly anything uses), stick a pair of usb-c DP ports instead if size is an issue. at least then I don't need adapters that are ONLY needed for the Pi.

8
lemmy.world

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

19
GustavoMreply
lemmy.world

Should have went with stock support from the get-go, tho. Why? Because nvme lasts ""forever"" and is ideal for servers.

6
Kushanreply
lemmy.world

But that would increase the already quite high cost for all users, including those that don't necessarily need it.

Don't get me wrong, I think the price is arleady too high and for the price I'd have expected more than a faster SoC, but here we are.

5

I think f4om the comments on the blog it was that nvme would make the board too think, that's why they opted for a HAT

1
lemmy.ml

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 :)

18
bionicjoeyreply
lemmy.ca

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

14

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

Efficiency per watt is not the same as total cost of ownership. Pis are expensive for the amount of compute you get from them in total, but the compute itself is efficient per watt. You would need at least a dozen Pis to rival the latest CPU processors in terms of total output, a dozen Pis is more expensive to buy than a single CPU.

4

I did a quick Google.
https://web.eece.maine.edu/~vweaver/group/green_machines.html

Is the best actual test data I can find. It uses a physical power meter, so it's full system (not TDP or self reporting power consumption).
And it's a few years out of date.
Seems like Apple silicon is the winner (and will probably continue to be).
The Xeon that beats the rpi4 for GFLOPS/watt is an e5v3, which was launched in 2013 and EOL in 2021.
So there will absolutely be some new Xeon CPUs that will perform better.

However, for a $50 device, it's probably the best GFLOPS/watt/$ from what little empirical data I can find

11

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

17
Uncle_Irohreply
lemmy.world

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

47

I can't find them at any of the German retailers at least. Only one that claims it will probably be sold by 23.10

5

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.

14

There's a lot of people in this discussion taking about how raspberry Pi and the pi foundation isn't worth your money, whether on principle, or just dollars per unit of compute.

I get it, but I have a question. Is there a competing SBC that has official PoE support? I know there's half baked ways to sort that out separate from the device, but I have a few edge cases where the last viable option was the pi 3B+. The official pi 4 case is horrendous for airflow, and third party cases usually either assume you want no protection (and all the airflow) or you want to handle thermals by contact pads passively (making it difficult or impossible to use the PoE hat), or are just as bad as the stock case for airflow, but they have enough room inside to add a hat, in which case, why go third party when the official case is equally terrible?

The pi 3 had a PoE hat, and a case you could take the top off and get decent airflow. Too bad the fans in the first gen PoE hat are unicorns in terms of power draw, with no way to adjust the power curve for the fan connector to suit a different fan, and since they're unicorns, you can't find them for purchase, and if you find something remarkably similar, they're still slightly different enough that they don't work (I've tried). So the fans burn out and IDK, good fucking luck I guess. Buy a new PoE hat?

Then there was the gen 2 PoE+ hat which released alongside the pi 4, which supposedly works with the 3 as well, which I haven't tried yet, but I'm planning to.

In every case, I have done network monitoring and service nodes that aren't exactly local to a power receptacle and they need PoE. The pi 4 eliminated itself because of the garbage case design of the official case and the lack of thought by those doing the third party cases... so I'm looking at the 5 like, finally, they got it right.

Now everyone is talking shit about the pi foundation, which I can completely understand, but for the application I need these for (and my pi 3's have been in service for like ~5 years and probably need to be refreshed), what other option do I have? What's decent with a good case and PoE input? PoE or PoE+ doesn't matter, I just need to be able to package it up into a relatively small footprint for the application.

Anyone have any suggestions? I'm all ears. I've googled till I'm blue in the face and I can't even find an SBC that has an option for PoE, I never got to looking into whether it has a decent case or if it will run my software...

14
lemmy.world

The real exciting news is the possibility of the pi 4 dropping in price as it’s now outdated.

12

Not sure if that'll happen as the Pi3 never dropped in price after the Pi4 came out.

4
lemmy.world

I have no idea (yet) what I'll do when I buy one.

12
Cliv Henbyreply
feddit.de

Bit overpowered for that alone, isn’t it. Got Pi-Hole running on a first gen Pi Zero W without issues and resources to spare.

27
lemmy.ml

Some form of media center, or hosting a local game server would be cool to make use of all that power

2

Nice to see, that's pretty cool

And the good thing about pihole is that it's so light, you can always add it, too. I'm using a 1st gen pi for it, and even that is almost a waste of resources for how little a pihole actually needs

2
lemmy.one

Our newer, faster CPU is complemented by a newer, faster GPU: Broadcom’s VideoCore VII, developed here in Cambridge, with fully open source Mesa drivers from our friends at Igalia.

Idk about fully but the above is a good change imo

2
pastermilreply
sh.itjust.works

Open source driver is definitely a good thing.

This doesn't say anything about the firmware itself tho.

-1
lemm.ee

Will it handle all features of Plex? Like streaming high def and using all plexamp features?

9

But are there cheaper options... who am I kidding. Raspberry Pi 5 will instantly get scalped for 80+ dollars.

Edit: looks like they are already 60-80 dollars

9
storeply
lemmy.world

Any suggestions that you could make? I'm in the market for replacing my plex box.

5
M500reply
lemmy.ml

So, the pi is $80. That is without a case, power supply, or hard drive. Once you add these things to the Pi, you are into the $100-200 price range. At that point, you can just get an old desktop or a micro desktop. There are some youtube videos about it. I think they are maybe twice as big as a pi, but have intel processors in them.

They will be cheaper or similar in price and have better performance.

I just use an old desktop that has a 4th gen i5 and it runs significantly better than the pi4 does. Plus, I can just throw all my drives in the case and not need to worry about USB connected drives.

Also, I recommend Jellyfin over Plex.

6
M500reply

I guess, it’s not going to be a huge difference when you factor in using a bunch of hard drives.

The raspberry pi has its place for sure, but those micropcs are probably a better deal for most people who want them for home use.

1

Any Intel CPU 8th gen or newer with quick sync can do like 20 simultaneous 1080p transcodes. You could get a Celeron and have a powerful plex box. Look up guides for the HP 290 as a starting place.

1

I use a J5040-ITX ATM. I know it says Pentium but don't take that for granted. This chip is really just a lower binned i3 throttled enough to be passively cooled.

I run Plex as a docker-compose workload and bind mount /dev/dri which passes Intels quick sync accelerator into the container for Plex to use.

This enabled hw encoding. I also make sure I can direct stream from all of my clients. This setup can handle a few 4k streams and several 1080p streams.

I mainly use it hoard to losseless music and hard to find cartoons / movies.

I have an upgrade to a Pi Cluster planned but I don't recommend it unless you specifically want to run Pis.

1

4k decoding still drops frames, hardware is capable but drivers are not right now

4

I think it was a mistake to remove hardware video encoding. Even the hw encoder for H264 1080p 30fps was better than no encoder. Apparently they think sw encoding can replace it..yeah.. the cpu is more powerful, but not that much more. I think intels N100 processors will be more competitive for applications involving video/webcam

9

I wonder if the will make a Pi 500 the all in one form factor is so convenient when traveling

9
kbin.social

Are they still playing apologetics for the cops? Because if so, no thanks.

9
Kichaereply
kbin.social

Here's a google prompt for you: "raspberry pi police"

-57
YaBoyMaxreply
programming.dev

No need to be an ass about it. For those who don't want to sift through an article, the RPi Foundation apparently hired an ex-cop who had been known to use their products to conduct surveillance, and that caused a controversy.

57
Bappityreply
lemmy.world

everybody claps and cheers when you say jUsT gOoGLe iT instead of being a decent human being and providing context

32
Bappityreply
lemmy.world

I wouldn't know because I haven't used it in years, stuck to duckduckgo 😁

6
amioreply
kbin.social

"Are they still [irrelevant complaint]"
"What?"
"GoOgLe iT"

Sigh...

25

Well -- they never really backed down on what they did. Far as we know the out-and-proud espionage cop is still in their payroll, and the only response they ever gave to the story was a generalised 'We think the entire thing is being astroturfed and that no one reasonable is ACTUALLY against us hiring this guy who bragged about all the espionage he did' back in the day.

They never said anything about it since. So it's fair to assume they still believe in what they did.

13
lemm.ee

Am I correct in saying this Pi5 will be the best chance at a very performant desktop PC? That seems very much where they were headed with all these designs.

8

For not a lot more you can now get NUC like machines with Celeron's, Pentiums and get to choose NVMe SSDS and RAM amounts and even Wifi cards (so wifi 6e or 7) and 2.5 gbit/s ethernet. At these sorts of prices they are running into the low end of NUCs at $100 and they don't compete well on a whole range of factors. They are still cheaper but its not the 30-40 of the Pi before prices went nuts and this new higher price point isn't as clear cut.

17
pedzreply

AFAIK that's one of the goals of the ARM (and maybe eventually RISC-V) architecture. It's doing well on mobile and the low consumption is needed for a future that will require less energy. Or at least, do more with less. Having ARM desktops would also merge the mobile and the desktop environments.

Apple has moved to this architecture, and software wise, Linux is very compatible too. Even Microsoft knows and is trying (clumsily) to move to ARM.

The Pi5 will indeed open new possibilities on that front.

7
feddit.de

For performance you probably want something like a Orange Pi 5, in most workloads its significantly faster and uses less power doing so. But is also 20$ more expensive and probably doesn't have the community support around it.

3
lemmy.ml

Finally, a pi good for 4K video! (Apparently Raspberry Pi 4 could as well, but I am assuming this is an improvement. I still have a couple of Raspberry Pi 3's.)

5
Kushanreply
lemmy.world

It doesn't have h.264 hardware decoding though, so ironically 4k HEVC/h.265 will probably play just fine but 1080p h.264 might struggle depending on your cooling solution.

5
Kushanreply
lemmy.world

Are you sure they said it'll decode 4k h264 smoothly? I'm seeing them saying 1080p is good, but not 4k.

Here's a quote from the article you linked, emphasis mine:

RPi5 can software decode AV1, H264, VC1, VP9, and more at 1080p with ease. In our testing with YouTube and inputstream.adaptive a surprising amount of 4K media also plays.

Note that it's unclear from this quote what Codec the Youtube stream was using, but remember that Youtube is quite low bitrate even at 4k. The implication here is that 1080p h264 is good and low bitrate 4k stuff might be okay, but it will struggle beyond that. Keep in mind that it's not any worse than RPi 4 in that area, but I don't think it's going to be much better either.

3

You quoted those two sentences, but skipped the three sentences right before them:

BCM2712 supports HEVC 4K60 hardware decoding. It no longer supports H264 in hardware. This might sound odd but it removes the RPi4’s 1080p restriction on H264 decoding and the 4K H264 test media we have has played.

To my eyes this implies it works fine for 4K h264. The sentences you quote from are sort of a "furthermore, at 1080p it can handle these more complex codecs as well" to my initial reading.

I'm not saying you're wrong, just explaining why I parsed this paragraph a bit differently.

3

Then again, after learning about the crappy things the Raspberry Pi Foundation has done, I'm probably better off getting a used Lenovo ThinkCentre or HP EliteDesk Mini (which I already have) for a much lower cost. I was just excited about Raspberry Pi's finally being powerful enough to handle 4K, but that may be a stretch, too.

1

Sadly no hardware AV1 decode though. Though it can apparently decode AV1 in software up to 1080p.

1

Better support? Better drivers? Larger community? More open? Longer support period? More ethical product? More HDMI outputs? Cheaper? More third party projects available?

You have to be more specific. Better is a very broad term

3

"we notice everyone is having trouble getting our previous model due to scalpers, so we released a new version at double the price!"

/s

4
lemmy.ml

It's not "opengl 3.1" it's "opengl es 3.1" which stand for embedded system and roughly equals to OpenGL 4.3 spec.

9
lemmy.kde.social

Oh, my bad. But OpenGL ES 3.1 and Vulkan 1.2 is also not suitable to 2023. Hope the developers can make driver support Vulkan 1.3.

4

I told myself id give up all hope if there was no m.2 slot . Guess I'm going on a diet and never eating Pi again!

3
pawb.social

Very likely, although officially the guy isn't working on the boards at all but in building stuff like official cases and shit -- That's just the official story, and given their overall cageyness to speak of the controversy plus the fact that they can always rely on bootlickers to defend them -- Yeah. I wouldn't be trusting an RPi with anything sensitive at this point.

2
pawb.social

Genuinely no clue.

As I understand it if you want to have full trust on something, you'll just have to channel your inner Richard Stallman and never use any tool you don't fully understand. That means that to ensure your chips don't have some insidious state surveillance backdoor you'd be mandated to not just have boards that have an open-source design... But to learn advanced electronic engineering so you could personally study those designs and ensure beyond doubt that they are secure.

That said maintaining a healthy distrust of any megacorp is a lot easier, if less guaranteed.

2
pawb.social

Not bragging about hiring a dude whose entire portfolio is invasive mass surveillance would be a start.

Edit to add: Since the genie's out the bottle on that, a little bit of transparency over what the dude's role in their company actually is and what their intentions are, or heck, literally anything would be nice.

Like, personally I think 'ceasing to be a cop' is the best thing a person in the police could ever possibly do and pretty much proof they are salvageable as a person, so I'm already inclined to think positively of the espionage dude they hired. But their complete and total opacity, all the way down to blocking/banning anyone who criticised them over it, suggests that his presence in the company is not just a case of 'he's good with tech and we hired him', but rather that his expertise in surveillance specifically is the reason he was hired, and yes, there will be insidious things in new Pi models.

5
pawb.social

To be honest on my end I see this as a PR Disaster first and foremost?

Like, I generally prefer to assume incompetence over malice where it is possible, and in the incompetence hypothesis -- This is just some extremely bad room-reading skills considering who RPi caters to (Open Source people) and our personality (fundamental distrust of any authority, hatred for anything perceived as 'control', further intensified by the constant surveillance in modern proprietary software, etc.) -- I don't think having this man in the team or not is going to change what RPi is like in any way... Not because I assume he's a good dude, but because presuming imperial governments have any interest in backdooring and surveilling projects like the Pi, then that backdoor either already exists and has existed since the first model ever OR it was added much earlier, quietly, without them blabbering about hiring an ex-spy. That's just how it be with those things.

I generally assume anything I don't personally understand is going to have something insidious, to be honest. Like I told the other person, the only way to make sure your hardware isn't compromised is to have its schematics and the know-how to understand everything that goes on inside it.

2

We will see if this one is actually available, I mean I would definitely like one but not for 100€+ because scalpers got theie hands on the entire supply!

3
programming.dev

Great! Now we just need an announcement about the successor to the RP2040...

3
frezikreply
midwest.social

Custom IO is where the RP2040 shines. There aren't many like it.

2
Alexreply

There are rp2040 bits in the new RP1 custom silicon southbridge thing.

0
Riskablereply
programming.dev

I want more cores and more importantly, more ADC pins. Also, being able to use more PIOs simultaneously would be fantastic.

Furthermore I want one of those matrix modules aka "AI accelerators" to play with 😁

1
lemmy.ml

Goddamn it, just after I bought a Beelink mini PC a couple weeks ago.

3

A mini PC is the way to go if you want to self host a media server such as Jellyfin. You have to do a little research, but you can find mini PCs with Intel chips that have Quick Sync for transcoding for around $100 on Amazon.

2

For all of us bitter people who couldn't get an RPi 3 let alone 4 for less than a fortune during the recent dark times...

We’d like to thank you: 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.

So I will probably preorder one because why not.

2