Comment on Banana Pi BPI-M7 - More Reasons to Avoid the Raspberry Pi

• TCB13@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  I get that you love this board and think that “the establishment” is evil. But you come off as someone not having the knowledge to back your assumptions.

  No, no. I like “the establishment” as long as it doesn’t turn out to end up like Google Chrome. Think about it, few things against the Pi:

  • Overpriced / last to market:
    • Only the model 3B+ had gigabit ethernet - however still shared with the USB. At that time the majority of other brands already had gigabit for about two years. To make things worse also remember that in 2009 (yes 09) the “original” SBC, the SheevaPlug also had gigabit ethernet and it wasn’t USB;
    • In 2018 there were tons of SBCs with PCIe x2 on the market. The Pi only got it in 2023 and it’s x1 only;
  • Questionable practices:
    • We now have PCIe just to end up with a custom connector that is yet another push for selling more hats, boards and adapters. Other vendors did the right thing and used generic PCIe interfaces or the M2 format that is also very common and cheap to work with;
    • Instead of pushing the OS to be something truly open by contributing to a project such as Armbian they’ve kept running their own thing - just image if every PC manufacturer out there developed a custom version of Windows/Linux just because they didn’t feel like using generic MS Windows / Linux;
    • Microsoft repo and key are automatically added to Raspberry Pis - even if not installed by default the fact that the repo is included leaks information and for what’s worth “installation binaries come packed with some proprietary stuff, like telemetry and tracking”. I believe we’re all aware of the fact that VSCode isn’t true open-source nor it plays nice;
    • Showing the middle finger to consumers during COVID: I get it, profit matters but still they could’ve handled it better;
    • Disabling SSH by default when the old policy of “mandatory password change on first login” was enough. The interesting part is that change was made close to the time when telemetry was included on their flasher app;

  Overall the Pi is isn’t even great at anything specific besides “holding the hand” of beginners and whatnot. If you’re looking for a networking / storage solution you’re better using another SBC with real PCI and/or a Mini PC. If you’re into electronics an ESP32 will be more than enough to drive a couple of GPIOs and will cost 3$, in short too little CPU for computing tasks and too much CPU for basic electronics. If you’re under heavy industrial environments the Pi won’t be up to your certifications or you’ll require protective gear that is so expensive that a solution from Gateworks will be cheaper at that point.

  It looks a lot like the Pi Foundation knows about this market-fit issue and is just trying to push more and more stuff into the hobbits as a way to keep growing and making money. The SSH/telemetry/app bundle thing isn’t objectively bad alone, but people aren’t complaining and it is just opening the door to a LOT of more custom stuff and eventually a closer ecosystem and a situation like Chrome market dominance.

  On a side note, just notice how the Pi bulldozed the Arduino business by simply integrating the GPIO in the CPU and then now they’re going in the opposite direction into the classic “big CPU talks to small microcontroller architecture for low level stuff” with their “innovative” RP1 chip.

  …and I’m not the only person with that 1 2 opinion it seems.

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