"More reasons to Avoid the Raspberry Pi"
I didn't know we even had reasons to avoid it
Banana Pi BPI-M7 - More Reasons to Avoid the Raspberry Pi
Submitted 11 months ago by TCB13@lemmy.world to selfhosted@lemmy.world
Comments
Virkkunen@kbin.social 11 months ago
fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.world 11 months ago
What if you really hate support and ease of finding images online?
CmdrShepard@lemmy.one 11 months ago
There’s definitely an argument for not supporting the Pi Foundation with their anti-consumer practices over the last few years. They’ve sold out to corporate interests and don’t give a shit about the educational/hobbyist mission of the original Raspberry Pi.
TCB13@lemmy.world 11 months ago
What if you really hate the fact that The RPi foundation is being hostile against people nowadays with telemetry, requiring a custom flash tool to get SSH and whatnot?
dan1101@lemm.ee 11 months ago
I think the reasons are they are pushing a competing product.
dinckelman@lemmy.world 11 months ago
There aren’t really any reasons to avoid it. There are certainly reasons to choose an alternative product, namely the complete unavailability of 4B and 5 boards. My biggest issue so far is that the alternatives offer features that I don’t want, or have a price that’s way too high for a SBC
Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 months ago
Straight up some of those single board computers cost so much that I’ve just considered getting an old mini office PC
They’re really capable and can be had for like $100
dan@upvote.au 11 months ago
namely the complete unavailability of 4B and 5 boards
Is unavailability still an issue? My local computer store always has a lot in stock of them in stock these days. V
TCB13@lemmy.world 11 months ago
You may want to have a read at this: lemmy.world/comment/5357961
AtariDump@lemmy.world 11 months ago
[Citations Needed]
MeanEYE@lemmy.world 11 months ago
No need, RaspberryPi has been avoiding us. Finding to purchase one has become a tiresome errand.
ck_@discuss.tchncs.de 11 months ago
My experience with Banana PIs is that they require some obscure kernel to run because the developers cannot be bothered to bring their hardware support and drivers upstream. Same was true for uboot. Has any of that changed in the meantime? If not, that this is a no go for me.
RegalPotoo@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Yeah, this is an absolute blocker for me. If its not supported upstream then it’s a no-go. I don’t want to be running whatever hacked up Ubuntu image the manufacturer put together then stopped updating in 3 months when the next iteration gets churned out
PumpkinEscobar@lemmy.world 11 months ago
It’s the same, I picked up an Orange Pi 5 plus on sale and didn’t even think about the kernel and module driver situation. It’s rough. Joshua-Riek/ubuntu-rockchip and the other contributors do great work to un-fuck the situation and get a non-screwy ubuntu install cobbled together, but in the comments for issues even he gives off a “well, the situation is shit” sort of vibe.
I won’t buy another rockchip sbc.
ck_@discuss.tchncs.de 11 months ago
Yeah, I figured. I’ll stick to the Raspberries then, mainly because the "just work"™
pete_the_cat@lemmy.world 11 months ago
That’s a shame.
CmdrShepard@lemmy.one 11 months ago
That’s too bad because the specs OP listed are pretty great plus I’d love to see the Raspberry Pi Foundation (or whichever corporate entity controls production and sales) knocked down a few pegs due to their anti-consumer behavior over the last several years.
ck_@discuss.tchncs.de 11 months ago
Definitely, the specs are nice and I also cannot say I’m a huge fan of the RPi foundation. More competition in this space would be great, but not having mainline support is just too much of a hassle.
AustralianSimon@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Yeah they are a massive fuck around unless you already know how
cucumber_sandwich@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I had the same impression until I dusted off my banana pi one last month and there was an up-to-date armbian image for it. Totally pleasant surprise.
ck_@discuss.tchncs.de 11 months ago
Fair, but I’m not running armbian, so my requirements boils down to: Must run any up to date Linux distro without having to side-load custom kernels or anything. Should work out of the box.
dauerstaender@feddit.de 11 months ago
Does it’s run upstream Debian or SUSE? No? A custom distribution with proprietary binary blobs and no updates after one year you say? Sounds shit.
Jason2357@lemmy.ca 11 months ago
This is the only question that really matters. If it’s overpriced? meh, it’s a cheap alternative to a NUC. But if it’s going to be stuck on obsolete software forever, run.
TCB13@lemmy.world 11 months ago
That’s the reason why Armbian exists. So those devices will keep having newer kernels and software. Read into the things.
TCB13@lemmy.world 11 months ago
??? Armbian is open-source. Some boards eventually get stuff from Armbian merged back into upstream Debian however you’re still better running Armbian as it comes with optimizations to avoid burning SD cards etc.
Treczoks@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Good specs, but the rpi still has the absolute big advantage of it’s vast field of available turnkey software.
There is a big difference between “it works out of the box” and “it works so-so after a lot of fiddling, and I still don’t know why”.
ZILtoid1991@kbin.social 11 months ago
Also GPU drivers.
If you're mad at NVidia for their closed-source drivers, then remember that ARM seldom makes their Linux drivers available for free, so you have to either have to deal with absolutely no GPU driver while the CPU does the graphics rendering (might not be a big deal on a NAS though), or with open source drivers that are less capable than the Nouveau drivers and even fiddlier to install. The ARM Mali driver issue is so bad I was legit thinking on a solution to run the Android binary blobs (which at least are available by ripping them off from the Android kernel) on regular Linux, a lot of function call redirects would likely take care of that issue.
JustARegularNerd@aussie.zone 11 months ago
I’ve got one of those cheap Rockchip rk322x TV boxes and it took me fucking literal hours to get the Mali driver working and the performance, while noticeably better, was still way worse than if I ran it’s stock Android image on it.
TCB13@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Depends on your use-case. If you want to use GPIO and other low level features, yes the Pi is faster to get going, if you’re just using ir for a NAS/storage then a board like that will work out of the box.
atzanteol@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
At which point you’re better of with a mini pc.
Treczoks@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Well, it always depends on the use case. And if you think over the use case, maybe other solutions might even be better.
avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 11 months ago
It’s the software stupid!
doublejay1999@lemmy.world 11 months ago
What an unpleasant and unnecessary turn of phrase .
MangoPenguin@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 months ago
I dunno, this is going to be expensive, and I’m not sure what the advantage is over spending $150 or so on one of those mini Intel N100 boxes with dual 2.5GbE, they are x86 so can easily run normal software like Opnsense or similar without worrying about support going away down the road.
Or without 2.5GbE just one of those $60-80 8th gen Dell/Lenovo/HP USFF PCs off ebay.
SBCs just don’t seem very competitive currently because they’re quite expensive for what you get. Unless you need the GPIO of course.
TCB13@lemmy.world 11 months ago
So you share my opinion: lemmy.world/comment/5500098
bruhduh@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I agree with you, i wanted raspberry pi for my EE practice in uni but it was way too expensive for what it gives and i bought raspberry pi pico 16mb type c for 2$ on sale
Decronym@lemmy.decronym.xyz 11 months ago
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
Fewer Letters More Letters NAS Network-Attached Storage PCIe Peripheral Component Interconnect Express SBC Single-Board Computer
[Thread #294 for this sub, first seen 22nd Nov 2023, 14:15] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]
Evil_Shrubbery@lemm.ee 11 months ago
Well, I do kinda want a new router (but would also need to switch from opnsense to openwrt).
TCB13@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I’ve better suggestions for you than that board… way better.
- wiki.banana-pi.org/Banana_Pi_BPI-R3
- openwrt.org/toh/…/bananapi_bpi_r3_v1.0_v1.1?s[]=b…
- firmware-selector.openwrt.org/?version=23.05.2&am…
There’s an upcoming board the BPI-R4 with optional Wifi and 10G SPF cage: wiki.banana-pi.org/Banana_Pi_BPI-R4
Evil_Shrubbery@lemm.ee 11 months ago
Oh, waw, this is amazing. And exactly why I don’t follow this kind of things :). I don’t need a new router. But then again, need is such a weird word …
tagginator@utter.online [bot] 11 months ago
@TCB13 Tagging Lemmy Post 'Banana Pi BPI-M7 - More Reasons to Avoid the Raspberry Pi' (https://lemmy.world/post/8603826): #Selfhosted
(Replying in this thread will appear as a comment in the lemmy discussion.)
RobotToaster@mander.xyz 11 months ago
I assume this bot is for mastodon users or something?
db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 months ago
Yes, see here: github.com/db0/lemmy-tagginator
splendoruranium@infosec.pub 11 months ago
Unless it can natively run all the existing ready-to-go Pi images and software packages and will also receive community support when I ask for help in a Pi-adjacent forum it’s not really going to be a competitor to the Pi. The hardware is pretty much irrelevant.
deleted@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Hopefully it’ll beat pi4 prices as well
TCB13@lemmy.world 11 months ago
If you’re looking for cheap… I** what would recommend is instead a Mini-PC like the HP EliteDesk 800 G2 DM or the Dell OptiPlex 3050 Micro.**
For a small NAS and self-host a few services even an old laptop will do it, however there are advantages to picking a mini PC. Those machines are quiet, don’t require much power and some can even fit a 2.5" hard drive so you won’t need external hard drive enclosures. More on that later.
For eg. for 100€ you can find an HP Mini with an i5 8th gen + 16GB of ram + 256GB NVME that obviously has a case, a LOT of I/O, PCIe (m2) comes with a power adapter and outperforms a RPi5 in all possible ways. Note that the RPi5 8GB of ram will cost you 80€ + case + power adapter + cable + bullshit adapter + SD card + whatever else money grab - the Pi isn’t just a good option.
Aside from the big brands like HP and Dell there are other alternatives such as the trendy MINISFORUM however their BIOS comes out of the factory with weird bugs and the hardware isn’t as reliable - missing ESD protection on USB in some models and whatnot.
DaGeek247@kbin.social 11 months ago
100$ isn't cheaper than 55$. That's 200% more than the pi. If someone is looking for a pi because of the price, a 100$ computer isn't an option.
PeachMan@lemmy.world 11 months ago
So it costs more up front, and it uses more electricity which costs more in the long term.
eclipse@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Where on earth are you buying HP Mini machines for so cheap? Even the older gen seem to be 5 times as expensive as your estimate.
deleted@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Thank you for your detailed suggestion.
I’ve got HP ProDesk 600 G5 Mini i5-9500T off ebay for $190. Best damn purchase ever. Running 21 docker containers and transcode 4k with ease while consuming only 35w.
However, sometimes you need GPIOs especially for school projects.
FlavoredButtHair@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Damn, I got a Pi 4 8GB ram. Still planning on putting recalbox on it though.
TCB13@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Do you research very well before buying other boards than a Pi. It may be for you or now, depends a lot on your use-case.
possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 11 months ago
I recently bought a Quartz64
TCB13@lemmy.world 11 months ago
The full PCIe slot on those boards is just gold. I have a NanoPi M4v2 that also has PCIe in a M2 slot, used a cheap board to get 6 sata ports out of it.
possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 11 months ago
I actually got the B version but there is an adapter if I change my mind down the road. I wanted the wireless and ir sensor
sic_semper_tyrannis@feddit.ch 11 months ago
Pretty cool. I’d compare this one to the Odroid H3±
TCB13@lemmy.world 11 months ago
That “SBC” has a strange price point because it is Intel and costs 250$. For 100€ you can find an HP Mini with an i5 8th gen + 16GB of ram + 256GB NVME that obviously has a case, a LOT of I/O, PCIe (m2) comes with a power adapter and outperforms a RPi5 in all possible ways.
sic_semper_tyrannis@feddit.ch 11 months ago
I found it for $165. Definitely wouldn’t pay $250.
aard@kyu.de 11 months ago
Will be interesting how much that’ll cost - but generally it looks like we’re finally approaching a point where you can buy small systems with enough RAM and network bandwidth for cheap enough that it makes sense to create ceph OSDs with just one or two disks attached each.
DaGeek247@kbin.social 11 months ago
Is it $60 or less? Everytime one of these alternative boards with an assload of more features pops up, nobody bothers to mention the price. Obviously we could spend more money to get more features, that's what spending more money does. You can't replace something without actually offering an alternative. The pi's biggest selling point was that it was cheaper than a steak dinner. If you dont match or beat that, you aren't actually competing with the pi.
AbidanYre@lemmy.world 11 months ago
It looks like it’s ~$100. But when I’ve used similar SBCs in the past the issue ends up being drivers. Even if something is faster and better specced than a RasPi, you end up outside that ecosystem with very little in the way of support for whatever oddball hardware your board has.
ItCantBeThatEasy@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I have a BananaPi M3 and the software support was horrific. Getting a kernel to compile with the hacked drivers and firmware was like black magic.
CmdrShepard@lemmy.one 11 months ago
For $100 you can buy a micro form factor Optiplex PC which has several orders of magnitude more computing power, but it does have a bit larger form factor and less ports than what OP listed.
TCB13@lemmy.world 11 months ago
The RPi does have a nice ecosystem but the trick is to pick a board supported by Armbian - that will ensure future kernel updates and low level things working fine. For instance I’ve been using a NanoPi M4v2 since 2018 with a RK3399 CPU mind that at that time it already had a PCIe x2 interface, 4GB of RAM and was cheaper than the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ from the same year that had Ethernet shared with the USB bus.
BreakDecks@lemmy.ml 7 months ago
There’s an AliExpress link in the article that clearly prices it at $260…
Lutra@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Thanks for saying this. It’s features at price point.
“It’s better than the Pi at only 3x the price.”
And what’s with the “Avoid the Raspberry PI” sentiment? They are hard to get (?). I’ve been using the Pi for forever, and have zero ‘product’ complaints that would make me want to "Avoid the Pi’. If anything, I have plans for more. Again, the price - A Zero2W is $15 MSRP. For $15, You can put that in everything. A Pi4 is $35. Its just a great deal.
Oisteink@feddit.nl 11 months ago
This and support. My dad could set up a pi, and he doesn’t know what a kernel is or how to compile.
TCB13@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Have you considered that if you buy a RPi5 today it wont be 60$? Either if that’s your price point, depending in your use case, there might be better options. For a NAS for 100€ you can find an HP Mini with an i5 8th gen + 16GB of ram + 256GB NVME. For electronics Radxa Zero 3W / Zero 3E.
Bondrewd@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Those zero 3W sticks have been unavailable ever since I saw it.
RobotToaster@mander.xyz 11 months ago
Current prices for the 8gb pi5 are around £80 which is about $100, and it won’t ship until some-when next year.