Linux 5.6 Can Boot The Original Amazon Echo, But It's Not Really Practical

[NotMine999]

danmcgrew,
Eben Upton's real answer for why the Pi doesn't innovate nearly as much as competitors is, "People keep buying them by the millions with the features we have now. I earn more profits by innovating slowly."

Let's not forget one of the original reasons for the RPi ... to learn how to do stuff with technology.

If the RPi came with an On/Off switch, how would prospective hardware engineers learn how to add one to their own RPi? Reverse engineering an already installed device? I doubt it, since "reverse engineering" tends to come later in the education process.

In real engineering, you first learn how stuff works, then you learn how to implement it, and finally you learn to sort the ways that others implemented it. Easy peasy.

[starshipeleven]

I guess that's cool. Google and Android has made me paranoid about technology to the point that I do not trust any device like that.

Hah, those are rookie numbers. I didn't trust any device like that even before Google and Android.

[starshipeleven]

The RPi has been a joke for a very long time

pretty much any other board at its price point is garbage with little support. Of course if you compare it to 50+ euro boards it's worse.

Upton has admitted, in print, that the reason they went with a 64-bit processor was to get additional processor speed, and NOT for 64-bit capability

And so do a lot of embedded systems too. The reality is that for their usecase (running a kid learning distro with very very high level interpreted languages) there is no real need for 64bit.

AN ON-OFF SWITCH FOR THE DEVICE.

why would it need that? Do Arduinos come with power on buttons? What about most other SBCs?

Overall, your post is 90% hatred and 10% bullshit, 9/10 for the effort.

[starshipeleven]

If the RPi came with an On/Off switch, how would prospective hardware engineers learn how to add one to their own RPi?

It's not for hardware engineers. It's to teach software development.

[kcrudup]

Overall, your post is 90% hatred and 10% bullshit, 9/10 for the effort.

Not only that, short-sighted; I've had more than a few of my clients glue their prototype HW onto an RPi 'cause of its ubiquity. OP might as well be calling out the people who invented the (plug-wire) protoboard.

[Ardje]

"I would go for any alternative with eMMC..."
That means that you'd go with ANY other currently-available SBC rather than the RPi.

That's what I said, but in a phrase that wouldn't offend anyone.

The RPi has been a joke for a very long time-- a toy, compared to what's been available, for a very long time, from the competition with its / their on-board mass storage; true gigabit Ethernet; NO heat problems; real engineering DESIGN going into the product BEFORE ever being released; pathetic excuses from Eben Upton ("What? Oh, right...I GUESS we'll have that fixed--maybe--in the next board release. Or two..."); 64-bit operating systems for a long, long time. Upton has admitted, in print, that the reason they went with a 64-bit processor was to get additional processor speed, and NOT for 64-bit capability ("We are sticking with 32-bit--and not even offering 64-bit for those who could use it--for the sake of backward compatibility and all those poor little 8-year-olds who would be absolutely devastated by the lack of backward-compatibility...").

That's what I thougt, but left out in order not to offend anyone.
My customer had a warehouse full of RPI's never to be used because, well you said it. Rolled out with odroid U3 and then XU4. Don't touch the C1 or C2 or anything amlogic, because although hardkernel's hardware is unbelievably sturdy, amlogic's linux support is crap.
So the future will probably be rockchip unless Samsung decides to allow a cheap SBC to be build again, or continues producing the exynos 5422.
It's amazing how long Samsung sends in patches for older SoC's in newer kernels.
* The RPI's were sold fortunately

[andrewjoy]

The RPi has been a joke for a very long time--

How is the RPi a "joke" ? The RPi was designed to teach programming and allow children access to a system they can code on right away. Think of it as a modern day Commodore 64. Its not for real work , its for learning.

The use of the Pi in an embedded role or in industry and similar was a happy accident. I use them quite a bit for many things, lighting controllers information screens you name it. Could i get hardware that is cheaper or would do a better job ? Sure! But i have better things to be doing, the Pi has loads of support and loads of software ready to go.

[danmcgrew]

Think of it [the Raspberry Pi] as a modern day Commodore 64. Its[sic] not for real work...

As most Raspberry Pi apologists, you have a very selective memory, if indeed you have any memory at all of the "facts" you manage to dredge up, and pass off as first-hand knowledge, to wit:

What, by any stretch of the imagination, has any Raspberry Pi version got in common with the Commodore 64? You are only putting on display your total lack of knowledge of the C64; and--like most Raspberry Pi fanboys--your total lack of knowledge of the Raspberry Pi, and its history, as well. You glibly pass off dependence on hearsay, and 'urban legend'--which has no place here--and expect it to be believed and you to be considered an expert.
The C64, for your information--which you obviously, desperately need--was a complete, totally self-contained computer, ready to go out of the box, replete with case, keyboard, and display...which was not subject to self-destructing by turning it 'off' and 'on'.
The LATEST version of the Raspberry Pi is only capable of being made into a crippled version of a true laptop or desktop computer (in whatever home-made box you decide to put it in), at great cost, aggravation, and frustration, no matter what is chanted in the 'echo chamber' which passes for the Raspberry Pi forums.
You need to read more. You need to develop (an almost impossible task for a Raspberry Pi fanboy) true critical-thinking skills...which absolutely includes the the SERIOUS questioning of the propaganda being spewed by the Raspberry Pi Foundation, its Trading Group, Eben Upton, his wife, or any other RPi fanboy.

To your everlasting credit, you got the second part of your post absolutely correct...you nailed it:

"...Its[sic] not for real work..."

[debate-sushi]

Did you lose your life's work because the lack of a proper shutdown mechanism on a Raspberry Pi?

[starshipeleven]

What, by any stretch of the imagination, has any Raspberry Pi version got in common with the Commodore 64?

both were cheap-ass relatively weak computers for the mass market, in an age where a "computer"'s tasks are more similar to what people do on Raspi and other SBCs than what we do on PCs.

Really, C64 were not crucial for any job or any task at the time. Computers were still in their infancy and would become crucial later.

The C64, for your information--which you obviously, desperately need--was a complete, totally self-contained computer, ready to go out of the box, replete with case, keyboard, and display

The C64 was integrated in a keyboard and didn't have a display at all.

...which was not subject to self-destructing by turning it 'off' and 'on'.

raspi does not self destruct when power cycled

The LATEST version of the Raspberry Pi is only capable of being made into a crippled version of a true laptop or desktop computer

So did the C64 back in its day. A modern Arduino Uno is faster than a C64. The C64 did not and could not replace a whole lot of stuff, even a fucking mechanical typewriter was better for a true job than a C64 (good luck printing anything on paper back then).

"...Its[sic] not for real work..."

Depends from what is "real work" for you. If you are a corporate drone in a cubicle probably not, if you are prototyping and testing hardware yes it very much is for real work.