Raspberry Pi 2 Model B Released Today

[Monkeh]

i don't know guys why are you bitching so much about the RPi ethernet..... ok it uses more cpu, so what ? it was never intended to be a network gear ! for me and apparently many others (see how much of RPi boards were sold) the ethernet is working just fine if you need a board with high performance ethernet then change your budget limit one order of magnitude higher and there's a lot of options in that budget limit (and don't even try to comment like "Odroid got a 1Gbps ethernet" ... that absolutely doesn't mean it's high performance).

Why shouldn't I comment that the Odroid has a proper interface? No, it won't sustain high throughput, but it is vastly higher performance than the USB crap on the Raspi.

Again we see the typical argument "It sells a lot, therefore it is good"...

[Rigby]

If only they'd provide a real NIC to use, it might not be such a total pile of crap.

THE NIC isn't the real problem. Its the buggy USB controller. If they have fixed that, which I hope would be the case in a new chip, the NIC might seem perfectly reasonable. That nasty USB controller slows everything down.

Buuuut 100Mbit Ethernet on a 480Mbit bus...  What's the problem, exactly?

[Monkeh]

If only they'd provide a real NIC to use, it might not be such a total pile of crap.

THE NIC isn't the real problem. Its the buggy USB controller. If they have fixed that, which I hope would be the case in a new chip, the NIC might seem perfectly reasonable. That nasty USB controller slows everything down.

Buuuut 100Mbit Ethernet on a 480Mbit bus...  What's the problem, exactly?

100Mbit full duplex on a 480Mbit half duplex, CPU-driven bus, just to get started.

[Stonent]

Darn and I just bought a B model 2 year ago! 

[rolycat]

Why shouldn't I comment that the Odroid has a proper interface? No, it won't sustain high throughput, but it is vastly higher performance than the USB crap on the Raspi.

The Raspberry Pi was released three years ago, long before 'young pretenders' such as the Odroid. At the time there was no cost effective alternative to the integrated USB hub and Ethernet controller.

With the Pi 2 the developers made a deliberate decision that preserving compatibility with the original was more important than a largely pointless improvement in network speed. Given its target market in education this seems like the right choice.

Again we see the typical argument "It sells a lot, therefore it is good"...

A 'crap' product, to borrow a rather obnoxious and overused adjective, would not sell nearly five million units over three years, with steadily increasing volumes. Nor would it have received positive reviews from numerous very competent electronics engineers.

[Monkeh]

Why shouldn't I comment that the Odroid has a proper interface? No, it won't sustain high throughput, but it is vastly higher performance than the USB crap on the Raspi.

The Raspberry Pi was released three years ago, long before 'young pretenders' such as the Odroid. At the time there was no cost effective alternative to the integrated USB hub and Ethernet controller.

With the Pi 2 the developers made a deliberate decision that preserving compatibility with the original was more important than a largely pointless improvement in network speed. Given its target market in education this seems like the right choice.

Once again, progress is abandoned for irrelevant compatibility. It's fitting that it runs Windows now..

Again we see the typical argument "It sells a lot, therefore it is good"...

A 'crap' product, to borrow a rather obnoxious and overused adjective, would not sell nearly five million units over three years, with steadily increasing volumes. Nor would it have received positive reviews from numerous very competent electronics engineers.

China sells millions of fake, dangerous phone chargers. I guess they're fine, after all, they sell.

The 'new' CPU is an improvement. But it doesn't bring the Pi ahead of the competition, or frankly even level. It sells on hype and resistance to change.

And before I get accused again of being biased, I shall make a clear statement: I own no large ARM based devboard. I don't have any use for them. I evaluate them based on their capabilities, issues, and price, and the Raspi and Raspi 2 fall short of the competition.

[janoc]

Once again, progress is abandoned for irrelevant compatibility. It's fitting that it runs Windows now..

I would rather rephrase it - un-needed progress is abandoned for very relevant compatibility for their target market.

You are not their target market, Monkeh. If you don't like the design, you are free to buy something else, but I don't see your point of dissing a 35 GBP machine here.

[Monkeh]

Once again, progress is abandoned for irrelevant compatibility. It's fitting that it runs Windows now..

I would rather rephrase it - un-needed progress is abandoned for very relevant compatibility for their target market.

You are not their target market, Monkeh. If you don't like the design, you are free to buy something else, but I don't see your point of dissing a 35 GBP machine here.

Where is the compatibility relevant? It's a kernel module. It makes no userspace difference.

You are free to carry on buying whatever you like, but I'm also free to criticise and recommend IMO superior hardware.

But hey, I've said my piece. Carry on.

[rob77]

i don't know guys why are you bitching so much about the RPi ethernet..... ok it uses more cpu, so what ? it was never intended to be a network gear ! for me and apparently many others (see how much of RPi boards were sold) the ethernet is working just fine if you need a board with high performance ethernet then change your budget limit one order of magnitude higher and there's a lot of options in that budget limit (and don't even try to comment like "Odroid got a 1Gbps ethernet" ... that absolutely doesn't mean it's high performance).

Why shouldn't I comment that the Odroid has a proper interface? No, it won't sustain high throughput, but it is vastly higher performance than the USB crap on the Raspi.

Again we see the typical argument "It sells a lot, therefore it is good"...

let me correct this...   "it sells a lot, therefore it's good ENOUGH"

[rob77]

Again we see the typical argument "It sells a lot, therefore it is good"...

A 'crap' product, to borrow a rather obnoxious and overused adjective, would not sell nearly five million units over three years, with steadily increasing volumes. Nor would it have received positive reviews from numerous very competent electronics engineers.

China sells millions of fake, dangerous phone chargers. I guess they're fine, after all, they sell.

oh dear.... i love human stupidity.... 

comparing a sub-optimal but good-enough and cheap solution (USB ethernet on RPi) with dangerous fake phone chargers from china... man you definitely deserve a nobel prize !  live long and prosper ! 

[Monkeh]

Again we see the typical argument "It sells a lot, therefore it is good"...

A 'crap' product, to borrow a rather obnoxious and overused adjective, would not sell nearly five million units over three years, with steadily increasing volumes. Nor would it have received positive reviews from numerous very competent electronics engineers.

China sells millions of fake, dangerous phone chargers. I guess they're fine, after all, they sell.

oh dear.... i love human stupidity.... 

comparing a sub-optimal but good-enough and cheap solution (USB ethernet on RPi) with dangerous fake phone chargers from china... man you definitely deserve a nobel prize !  live long and prosper ! 

Not comparing the Raspi with phone chargers, simply pointing out the fallacy of equating sales with quality.

[rolycat]

China sells millions of fake, dangerous phone chargers. I guess they're fine, after all, they sell.

oh dear.... i love human stupidity.... 

comparing a sub-optimal but good-enough and cheap solution (USB ethernet on RPi) with dangerous fake phone chargers from china... man you definitely deserve a nobel prize !  live long and prosper ! 

Not comparing the Raspi with phone chargers, simply pointing out the fallacy of equating sales with quality.

You were doing nothing of the kind - it was a ludicrous analogy. Dangerous fake phone chargers do not have a consistent source or brand and if they did no-one would continue to buy them.

[Rigby]

i don't know guys why are you bitching so much about the RPi ethernet..... ok it uses more cpu, so what ? it was never intended to be a network gear ! for me and apparently many others (see how much of RPi boards were sold) the ethernet is working just fine if you need a board with high performance ethernet then change your budget limit one order of magnitude higher and there's a lot of options in that budget limit (and don't even try to comment like "Odroid got a 1Gbps ethernet" ... that absolutely doesn't mean it's high performance).

Why shouldn't I comment that the Odroid has a proper interface? No, it won't sustain high throughput, but it is vastly higher performance than the USB crap on the Raspi.

Again we see the typical argument "It sells a lot, therefore it is good"...

let me correct this...   "it sells a lot, therefore it's good ENOUGH"

No, it's good enough because it is good enough.  No other reason.

I prefer the Beaglebone Black to the Pi (A+ and B+) and that certainly isn't due to sales. It's just a better bit of kit. 

I haven't used a Pi 2, yet.

[linux-works]

The 'new' CPU is an improvement. But it doesn't bring the Pi ahead of the competition, or frankly even level. It sells on hype and resistance to change.

incorrect.

probably THE biggest reason to get a pi: the community support.  there are much lesser used and known boards and they have poor software support, overall.  the pi, while some of its design is pretty 'lame' (I especially hate the layout of the connectors, its not box-mounting friendly; they really could and should have put all connectors on ONE end, like pc motherboards do) - the software is pretty good and actually more stable than the BBB.  I tried for weeks to get a recent kernel and distro to be stable on the beaglebone and each day I'd come in to work to find the bone was frozen (nothing worse than a cold bone, lol).  I gave up for now and I hope the bbb gets to be as stable as the pi, but I've not seen the pi be anywhere near as flakey (kernel wise) as the bone.

so, the strength of any software based item is the community and the pi community is quite large.  same thing as arduino.  value is in the libs, not so much the hardware itself.  libs and apps and lots of people spending time to get the quality up there.

some 'much better' board from china that has only the vendor and a handful of people supporting it?  it will suck and suck badly.

[Kjelt]

Very true. Colleague of mine has a pi running for one and a half years 24/7 and he is still waiting for it too "hang".

[Rigby]

What BBB stability issues are you having?  I have several BBBs and they've never just "hung" or frozen or anything.

[linux-works]

I tried something like 3.14 kernel from a somewhat well known digikey guy (names escapes me right now) but he put together a few distro varieties and none of them stayed up for more than a day or two, tops, for me.  I rebuilt things so many times but each time I used anything more newer than 6mos old, it would be hung the next day when I came into work (I usually put a burn-in script on the system doing a while(1) build of the kernel).

there were multiple reports of instability and they had (maybe still have) problems finding what it was.

I liked the idea of the BBB but I gave up on it for now.  I'll revisit later, but I insist on a recent kernel (3.18 or so would be nice) and the ancient ones that are 'stable' don't really interest me.

if you have a distro that is recent and works, let me know what exact version and I'll grab it and give it another try.  I really want to love the BBB.

[Rigby]

Do you require a newer kernel or do you just want a newer kernel?

Have you tried compiling it yourself?

Maybe I haven't had issues because I haven't left the stable OS release.  I have no need for anything that isn't there.

[linux-works]

there is a general linux instability somewhere in the 3.13 thru 3.18 (or something close to that) kernel version and I wanted to jump to something at least 3.14 or better.  I don't remember what the hardware was but there was a good reason to go to a more recent kernel than the 'stable' distro had.

I'll check the BBB from time to time, and I think they'll get there.  its a better board and better design.  its just not as stable with the current userland and kernel versions, for some reason (for me).

[Monkeh]

Well, has anyone bothered to bisect it? It'd take a while but it's a pretty reliable method of finding the problem.

[linux-works]

Well, has anyone bothered to bisect it? It'd take a while but it's a pretty reliable method of finding the problem.

I can't find the thread, but what I did find (that now rings a bell) was that 3.8 was WAY too old for what I wanted to run, and the next jump was to 3.13 and that was not quite stable or usable.  even going beyond that wasn't making things any better.

also, its robert nelson (which should turn up a lot of search hits) that put the distro together and I think he was (is?) associated with digikey.  not sure if they are sponsoring his work or its all on his own time.  he seems to know what he's doing, so I'm sure the bugs will be worked out and it will be a fine platform to use.  but when I last tried (several months ago) it was 'not ready for prime time' as we say.

[Rigby]

Do you need a whole distro or just a new kernel?  Compile a new kernel if that's all you're after.  It'll take a while, but it'll get you what you're after.

[linux-works]

I think it was more than the kernel, being the problem.

again, its broken 'out of the box' with the robert series I tried.  I did not try his very latest, but a few months ago when I was doing lots of testing between the pi and bbb, robert himself knew there was an instability and was trying his best to find it.  I'm 100% it was -not- just a simple matter  of 'rebuild the kernel'.

[Rigby]

OK, fair enough.  I will restate that I've had several BBBs running for months with no issues.

[linux-works]

but at 3.8 kernel and associated OLD userland (and device tree, etc) right?

3.8 is ancient.