Raspberry Pi B+ - Still Slow, But A Small Improvement

[caligula]

Two more USB ports when it didn't even have enough to power one before >.> The only features that might matter is the supposed audio improvement and more GPIO pins.
Power was already low, I doubt anyone cares too much about it or that it's a significant difference. SD --> microSD doesn't make much of a difference, speed and prices are about the same IIRC.

Even with better power supply the sound output on RPI is ugly raw PWM. 44,1 kHz and about 12 bits. Not really hi-fi.

[caligula]

How are interpreted, high-level languages more obscure? They're made so that you have the same results by writing less code that's also easier to read in the process, if you do it properly. They're generally used for tasks where the speed of C or C++ isn't worth the complexity.

The Raspberry Pi wasn't made to be the home to a generic and ?full? OS, it's normally more intended for appliance uses.

RPI was designed so that kids learn to set up a cross-compiler for arm11

[caligula]

The problem with the Pi is that it uses a very old ARM6 architecture that makes it hard to put new Linux distros on it. For pure computing you could get a MK802 which has much better hardware but no ports like the Pi has for hobby projects but it's the same price $35. The Hummingboard is $45 but you get so much more. Unlike the MK802 it comes with GPIO header and it's ARMv7. The thing is a beast with more ports than a PI and 1 Ghz and it doesn't require you to purchase video codecs to use video acceleration like the Pi.

There are much better choices than the Pi right now. Take it from a Pi owner.

Well the problem is that it's $10 more than RPI and Pi users can't afford it. Especially the programming hungry kids in 3rd world countries. That's why Pi is still needed.

[riklaunim]

Well the problem is that it's $10 more than RPI and Pi users can't afford it. Especially the programming hungry kids in 3rd world countries. That's why Pi is still needed.

There were some photos from a Indiegogo or Kickstarter campaign to fund RPis to some are in Afganistan or around. The fun part was that people were sitting in class full or refurbished old Dell PC boxes running Win XP The "low price" is not the key factor. Both RPi and that HummingBoard are not end-user PCs and need some sort of "maintainer" or hobbyist. Corpo-refurbs IMHO do better and people can learn MS Office and Windows - which is vastly more likely to be required in a job than Linux, Gnumeric or Abiword (even if we Linux guys don't agree with that).

[libv]

I may be pointing out the obvious... but you flamed the china junk, then recommended a few other bits of... china junk.

I am very much aware of that. The great thing about the Allwinner A10 and A20 is that there is a very active community there, simply because Allwinner was so chinese that it didn't bother putting proper controls on their software, and they ended up being pretty much the first to be GPL compliant as the source trees fell out from several device makers

But there is still a difference between cheaply produced boards aimed to make a quick buck on the small cheap ARM board market that RPI opened, from companies which will drop the product or itself just as quickly as they appeared, compared to the OSHW devices from olimex or the original cubieboard which developed with the sunxi community.

[nomadewolf]

i would gladly pay more for a faster processor.
the speed of this is laughable

Please make a faster version!!!

[Vim_User]

There were some photos from a Indiegogo or Kickstarter campaign to fund RPis to some are in Afganistan or around. The fun part was that people were sitting in class full or refurbished old Dell PC boxes running Win XP The "low price" is not the key factor. Both RPi and that HummingBoard are not end-user PCs and need some sort of "maintainer" or hobbyist. Corpo-refurbs IMHO do better and people can learn MS Office and Windows - which is vastly more likely to be required in a job than Linux, Gnumeric or Abiword (even if we Linux guys don't agree with that).

If you want to become an office worker, yes MS Office and Windows might be better. But that wasn't what the Pi was intended for, it is intended to bring young folks back to what we had with home computers like the C64, Sinclair, ... , a cheap and easily programmable and hackable computer. It is intended to teach those kids how the machine works so that they can alter it, not how to create spreadsheets and Powerpoint presentations.

[Vim_User]

i would gladly pay more for a faster processor.
the speed of this is laughable

Please make a faster version!!!

If the performance of the Pi is not enough for the tasks you planned then it is not the speed of the device that is laughable, but your capability to choose the right hardware for the right job.

[caligula]

If the performance of the Pi is not enough for the tasks you planned then it is not the speed of the device that is laughable, but your capability to choose the right hardware for the right job.

Well the weird thing is RPi is non-profit and other ARM boards are for-profit. OTOH if you pay $5 more, you get multiple times more performance. Obviously the RPi guys have wasted money on useless efforts like marketing. It probably also cost them a lot to fix the firmware (usb and sb bugs), upgraded hw revisions since the usb power was crap all the time.

[nomadewolf]

If the performance of the Pi is not enough for the tasks you planned then it is not the speed of the device that is laughable, but your capability to choose the right hardware for the right job.

I know that.
I only mean that i'd rather give my money to a project like Pi, than others.

I've been checking the HummingBoard caligula mentioned, and it looks impressive.