- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
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Great, more unobtainium
Have they been difficult to get? I’ve always been vaguely interested but never actually looked into getting one.
I mean uou can get 4’s at retail prices pretty easy right now.
Can’t wait for this to be impossible to buy from anyone but scalpers.
The Pi foundation screwed over its original customer base by diverting practically ALL available inventory to business customers. Good riddance.
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.
What ever happened with all that? Do they still work there?
What is a good alternative you would recommend?
Remember when they said the Rpi3 had 1Gbps speeds. That’s when they started to lose me. Pine64 has had a far better competing board going back to the Rpi3, and they don’t use scummy marketing practices like the Pi Foundation.
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.
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.
Why business would buy raspberries? I am out of the loop.
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.
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.
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
That’s so cool! Thanks!
For example:
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.
This thing looks so fucking cool and simultaneously somewhat dystopian
I’m excited to install retropie for the x time and then never ever touch it until the next iteration.
Are you me?
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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.
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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
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…
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
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.
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
I remember when the Raspberry Pi was the amazing $15 computer. Times have changed.
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?
- 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.
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).
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.
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).
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.
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Is it something you could run an arcade emulator from? Thinking of building my kids a tiny arcade.
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.
If you need something with power sure! RasPi has a huge community that supports it, that’s what sets it apart.
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?
$35 for 1GB RAM. 4 and 8 GB v4 are $55 and $75.
I didn’t see that in the article, but that’s a bit better, thanks.
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.
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.
If you could fine one, then maybe
At those prices you’re really better off getting a lower end NUC format computer which can be found for under $100 USD. Raspberry Pi was cool and innovative when it was new but those days are long gone.
I’ve bought a couple of cheap Beelink machines and I’ve been really happy with them so far.
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.
https://cheapskatesguide.org/articles/best-mini-servers.html
This article was trending at the time. On hackernews I think.
I really did get the $40 price for an m600 like he mentioned in it.
Thank you for posting this!
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.
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.
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It’s still lower power than most x86 SBCs overall, which matters with portable/remote applications
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Its schematics are usually available
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They’re easy to get and have a usually guaranteed availability, so when one dies you should be able to get another
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its got a decent ecosystem around it of hardware and software, which basically nobody else can claim
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it’s a fairly standard form factor, so fits into existing stuff well.
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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!
Easy to get?
Supposedly because there’s no through hole components, everything is surface mount, it should be much easier to manufacturer.
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?
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I gotta resist the urge… I have two Pis idle 🤦♂️
I have a 4 on server hosting and 3 3s idle. If I buy the 5 I would have 4 Pis idle
They go for good prices on eBay.
I loved Pi’s, but I hate the micro hdmi connectors
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.
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.
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?
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.
These things are great for !boinc@sopuli.xyz 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 :)
If they were more efficient per watt for scientific computing, you’d hear about researchers building HPC clusters from them.
*more efficient than regular PCs. Not more efficient than supercomputers lol
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.
I did a quick Google.
https://web.eece.maine.edu/~vweaver/group/green_machines.htmlIs 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
