Posts by James Hughes 1

Re: Still a PoE hat?

Yup, that's basically the story of Raspberry Pi, doesn't matter what we do, someone always wants something else, AND ITS OUR FAULT.

Re: Good stuff

USB3-ethernet adapter should do the trick. Putting two on the board would be expensive, and a cost passed on to all users despite it being a tiny use use. Probably isn't even room.)

Re: Still no damn onboard flash

SD cards are still the best way for the 'desktop' Pi, cheap and easy to use. And yes, we are entirely aware of lifetime issues, which you can mitigate hugely by avoiding writing to them unless you really need to (ie logs to tmpfs etc). Some people have had Pi's running for multiple years with no SD card issues.

The cost of adding EMMC would be a real problem - margins on devices like this are small - we don't want to make them even smaller.

If you want industrial, use the compute module, which has EMMC. (No Pi4 version yet).

That said, there is some flash on the Pi4! Not a huge amount, but it contains the bootloader. In the long time, it MIGHT be possible to leverage that, but that is subject to change.

Cannot comment on the Google stuff, we are not Google.

Re: Worst product launch ever!

I can weld you up a stand in the garage, proper metal etc. £999. It'll be massively overpriced though. I could even put a magnet in it for keeping paperclips safe.

Re: victims of own success

Your point is obscure - what are you talking about?

Re: Upton reckons that the 2GB version will be the most popular

In our testing, for general desktop use, the 2GB was fine. Big compiles (kernel etc) would benefit from 4GB.

Re: Ethernet

Er, bollocks. Forced to eat own dog food. The ethernet is a native interface on the SoC, it's the USB3 stuff that is on PCIe. Note to self, think before posting.

That said, the GiGE is GigE, and not via USB2.

Re: Pi-top

PiTOP were in the office Friday, so they are aware of the change, and presumably have things in hand.

As above, read the specs. Yes, it will make quite a good NAS, the networking is full GigE, and the USB3 means attached drives are very fast.

Re: Ethernet

No, which had you actually read the specs, would have been obvious. Its on a PCIe bus, and gets very close to theoretical max (1Gbs) in testing.

Re: B****r!

I think if you go in to the shop in Cambridge, you could exchange that....

Re: Sata

USB and PXE boot is on the list of stuff to do. Won't be long. WIth the new EEPROM based bootloader, this sort of thing is much easier to implement.

Re: Gone is the full-sized HDMI type A connector,

There simply isn't room on the PI4 for two full size connectors, so it had to be done.

I think the Zero is mini-hdmi....

Re: Debunked?

For the system to work well they need to know where all the satelite are at all times...

Re: Far Side of the Moon

A little Google goes a long way. These are LEO satellites, and the licence to launch them also included extensive requirements on deorbiting. And beause they are LEO, atmospheric drag will bring them down quickly upon request, and within 5 years I belevie if they are completely dead and cannot deorbit themselves.

Cost, pure and simple.

As for the other requests, not possible with the current SoC. As the launch article from the boss said, this will be the last with this era silicon - we've reached the limits.

Re: the leader becomes the follower

Difficult to see how we can be following something that's based on a form factor we originally produced 6 years ago, and uses two thirds of our naming scheme.

TBH, I'd never head of the Orange Pi Zero+

It's not just the download time. When doing an update it can take ages to install, so much so that people have thought the device had locked up.

If you add up all the extra 700MB over all the Raspbian downloads from the last 5 years, (100 million? Dunno, might be worthwhile finding out) that adds up to, er, quite a lot of wasted bandwidth.

Re: not skookum

The MPG2 thing is a PITA. Unfortunately there are still two regions where the licence is required, and since we do not region encode the Pi we cannot guarantee that any Pi will not be used in those regions. We would dearly love to get rid of the whole thing - it costs us more than we make back, to run the licencing system.

Re: Works on my switch

I belevie it was a bit more involved than that, but in future we will be much more thorough. Once bitten etc

Re: Any update on otehr problems?

It's not random, it's if you short out certain pins on the GPIO its can kill the PMIC. Its more comon on 3B+ becuase its the only one that uses a PMIC.....

Just dying is extemely rare, but can happen. Just like any other equipment. If it dies under warrantee, get it replaced.

Are you talking about something from 6 years ago?

In fact, I'm a bit confused by your timing issues on usb bottlenck statement because that doesn't ring any bells at all.

Re: not skookum

Wow. Quite the rant.

Just to inject semblence of truth in, we have never provided full schematics of any of the Pi boards. so to say we are geting less open is an exageration. We have had to change a little due to to becoming more competitive - ie we need to maintain our competitive advantage to remain in business. Easiest way to do that? Keep certain aspected under wraps.

Mising component labels is a cost saving measure, and what we can fit in limited space. Not much more to it that that.

We do not have an elistist atitude. We welcome anyone to contribute to our linux kernel, our documenation, our projects etc. As we do get some really good contributions in all those areas. What we cannot do is open csource the GPU binary blob, because we do not hold the copyright on it - that is held by Broadcom. We release what we can.

We screw up, everyone does. This is a case in point. But we've come clean, which is more than most other companies. Be nice to understand what you mean by your last paragraph, taking in to account this exact example.

Re: So what you're saying is...

Actually, not enough....

Re: Hats off to 'em...

TBH, we should have spotted this in testing, so there will be changes to help ensure it doesn't happen again!

Re: Oh dear, a fan

You can turn the fan off if you wish. Usually it's controlled by the Pi itself, so only turns on when required, and will be sped up/slowed down as necessary. If off, then the Pi will use its normal temperature control system, which may throttle the CPU if it get too warm.