Raspberry Pi

[Barney]

Yeah. I want one to upgrade my cab with (full speed PowerDrift in RetroPie will be nice even though it's full speed on my 600MHz single-core ARM OpenPandora) but I'm not gonna go for the first release. I'll wait until the bugs have been ironed out.

[zip accident]

Looks like the Pi 4 has a USB-C problem:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/07 ... -chargers/

Yeah, that's so, but it the date of that article was 9.7.2019. The way the 4GB version seems to be selling, there's some hope that'll be the first to be fixed, maybe they'll announce it?

[Cloudane]

USB-C has a USB-C problem. Great idea, awful execution.... is a cable capable of quick charge or Power Delivery (same for the charger).... is it USB 3.x over type C or USB 2.0 over type C.... is it 3.0 which is now confusingly called 3.1 gen 1, or 3.1 gen 2.... does it have Thunderbolt.... it's utterly mind boggling and once you have a handful of cables it's hard to keep track of what's capable of what.

[KlaxonCow]

Posting from... Raspberry Pi 4.

Well, slightly more complicated than that. Posting from a Raspberry Pi 4, running an unofficial Ubuntu Server build that I've installed the desktop onto... via RDP'ing into it, with Remmina, from my gaming laptop, as the only spare monitor I've got is an 4:3 thing - which is fine for its usual purpose of being hooked up to headless servers, which is all command line stuff, so it doesn't matter that it's crap resolution and aspect ratio - but my gaming laptop here has a far nicer 4K screen.

So, yeah, my weird setup writing this is stress testing it and I can say that the claims that it's "desktop performance" are, in my view, perfectly sound. Because all the above actually works, without much fuss involved, and this is completely usable.

In my case, I never had a previous Pi, so the compatibility stuff doesn't apply to me and I could happily throw my money down on one. And I'm plugging it in with the official Raspberry Pi power cable, so the Type C issues also don't apply here. Works just fine and dandy with the official power adapter with the little raspberry icon on it.

There's also been talk of it running hotter. It does, but I got myself a "fan shim" thingy from Pimoroni that you just slide over a few of the GPIO pins - which both secures it and provides the power, whilst not getting in the way of other stuff being plugged into the GPIO on top (though, at time of writing, I've not tested this yet) - and with the little fan on top (which does not add much to the height above the rainbow Pibow case I'm also using and is still well below the height of the Ethernet / USB ports on the side anyway), then it runs 35-40C in idle / light use and I've not yet got it over 60C with heavy use.

Before the fan was added, though, it was hitting 80C+ with CPU intense stuff and was throttling itself back.

Technically, it can be run without cooling - it'll throttle itself back, if things get too hot. But, in practice, you should get a heatsink and / or fan. Because with "desktop performance" comes heat.

Though, once I'd got my "fan shim" added, then the heat issue is now a non-issue. It needs cooling, but once given it then the heat dissipates away easily. As I say, I'm reading 35-40C when not doing anything intense.

The performance is good. I mean, using this unofficial Ubuntu build, I've not got everything running on all cylinders - the hardware codecs for H264 and such are reporting as "disabled" and a few things like that - as this is a hacked together custom kernel, just to get Ubuntu working, so the drivers and support ain't there yet. But, even so, this feels perfectly comparable to "entry-level desktop" performance in actual use.

As I say, I'm hardly using it here in ideal conditions - support missing, on a "testing" level OS, RDP'ing into it from a laptop over wi-fi - but this is still perfectly usable to pop on Chromium, log into the forums, write and post this.

I like it very much.

But, again, I have no Pi legacy to account for. I'm starting with the Pi 4, so I have no compatibility to worry about.

(Why am I running Ubuntu on it? Well, I do still have the Raspbian SD card, but grabbed a new one - 256GB capacity - to try it with Ubuntu. Partly because I know Ubuntu so I could more easily judge how well it's performing - and it passes that test, as the experience is as good as an old "entry level" desktop PC I've got - but also because I'm a Linux guy day-to-day anyway, so Raspbian just feels a bit limited to me. It seems great for newbies and kids. But I'm used to doing mad stuff like remoting around servers, and I just know where everything is and how to make it work under Ubuntu. You know when someone's got a messy desk but they insist "don't touch any of it, as I know exactly where everything is, even if it is a horrid mess to look at"? Basically, that.)

By the way, it was this Computerphile video that was primarily responsible for my rash impulse purchase:



I've always been tempted by a Pi, and hearing the specs, I had to give it a try (and this is also where I found out about the "fan shim" thingy, as they've got one, so I followed suit).

[Misfit]

Thanks for the 'review'

My Pi4 just turned up, but I won't be doing anything with it for a few weeks as it is for the Picade I'm getting for my birthday (ie using the birthday as an excuse to get tech into the house...)

The main issue I'll have is RetroPie isn't ready for the Pi4 yet. In fact, it seems quite a lot isn't ready for the Pi4 yet. But hopefully, it will be there by the time I get to make the Picade.

I didn't go for a fan, instead, this heatsink case for £12 seemed like a good idea...

https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/alum ... berry-pi-4

[Baggypants]

Yeah, Zynthian hasn't been building for the Buster image particularly easily.

[KlaxonCow]

In fact, it seems quite a lot isn't ready for the Pi4 yet.

That is a thing.

I'm being the "early adopter" here. As mentioned, the Ubuntu server I'm trying out is unofficial. Something someone hacked together to get Ubuntu working - and it does work - but the drivers and stuff aren't fully exploiting all the hardware yet.

Even with the official Raspbian OS, it's based on Debian "Buster" and that's strictly not finished yet. They seemed to have aimed deliberately for the next release, so that once the Pi 4 and Buster are ironed out, it'll be current, not lagging a version behind. Which makes some sense, but it's arguable that they've "jumped the gun" a little in doing so.

There's also little things here and there. You have to boot from the microSD card currently. So if you're hooking up an SSD to the Pi - which is now become a good idea, as you've got USB 3.0 ports, so the transfer rates are an order of magnitude faster to actually exploit your SSD's speed properly - then you can't yet boot from it, but have to Frankenstein it a bit, booting from the microSD card initially to transfer control over to the OS on the SSD.

(And, later, I might well splash on an SSD for it, as reports are that this is the upgrade to the Pi 4 that makes the biggest difference to everyday use, with stuff popping up near instantly. But I'll wait for the SSD booting fix, as I've already splurged enough cash on this little "toy" already.)

They are working on that - and other little fixes - but they released before everything is 100% nailed down.

They might have also been pushed for an early release like this, as nVidia have got their "Jetson Nano" thing, which has strikingly similar specs to the Pi 4. It really does look like nVidia are trying to jump on the Pi bandwagon with something that, in broad numbers, is much the same product - but, as this is nVidia, the GPU side of their board is much more impressive. If you use your Pi for bitcoin mining or something, then perhaps the Jetson Nano would actually make more sense for that, as it's much the same thing but with a stronger GPU (and notably higher price tag, it must be said).

My source for that being this video making the comparisons:

I didn't go for a fan, instead, this heatsink case for £12 seemed like a good idea...

Aye, I also saw one like that, but which had two fans strapped to it. Which seemed like tremendous overkill to me. Though it did look cool, admittedly.

Yes, I'd say it needs cooling. But it doesn't need insane cooling. The heat dissipates away quickly and easily. The SoC has a metal lid this time, not a plastic one, and so the heat escapes the chip easily. So a heatsink or fan to take that heat away is needed, but that's all that's needed. This is not some 64-cores threadripper or anything. The design brings the heat to the surface well, so as long as you've got something to take that away - a heatsink and / or fan to pull it away with a gentle breeze, then it's all good, in my experience.

In fact, from watching some tests a YouTuber did, once you've got a cooling solution there, it actually then does better than the previous Pi 3 did on the thermals. The 35-40C I get for light normal / idle use with the fan is cooler than a Pi 2 / 3 without. With the fan running, it's perfectly cold to the touch.

But, as I say, I'm new to the Pi. So, for me, I'm just thinking of the fan as another component, just like you equally wouldn't run a desktop without a heatsink and fan either. It might look different, I can imagine, if you're used to not having to need to do that from previous Pis.

I'm waiting on better drivers. Because I'm looking to do graphics things with it, so the latest OpenGL ES or even Vulkan would be swell (as I've read the VideoCore VI in the Pi 4 is theoretically capable), but it's OpenGL 3.0. Which is not to be sniffed at and is good. But it's always a bit annoying to know that you've got hardware that can do better, yet you can't quite get there yet. It's a bit of a "cock tease", as the youngsters might say.

[venusian]

The Jetson Nano isn't for general home hackers or mining, it's for computer vision and machine learning. It has custom hardware blocks for stereo vision and inference along with all the usual GPU stuff. The software stack that NVidia have put in place isn't entirely FOSS, but it is very good.

[KlaxonCow]

The software stack that NVidia have put in place isn't entirely FOSS

Of course it isn't.

I mean, nVidia has improved with their Linux support over time - though this is really "playing catch up" to AMD, now that big players like Google Stadia are going to run off Linux servers, so that they don't miss out on a slice of that pie - but Linus Torvalds was essentially saying what all of FOSS was thinking about nVidia, when he famously "sent them a message":

[snaff]

I'm using my Pi4 with a USB3 to SATA adapter connected to a 2TB 2.5" HDD with no extra PSU needed. Then sharing that over NFS. Performance has been fine for backups, movies and such. Then moved a load of network services over to it:

* DNS
* DHCP
* Hostapd providing a separate wifi network for internet of things things. Then I'm not doing internet banking on the same network as my light bulbs.
* OpenVPN
* Motion with an old web cam
* Docker running Home Assistant and Owntracks

Still feels underutilised.

The Flirc case looks nice. I haven't found the Pi4 version available yet but apparently it acts as a heat sink and passively cools it nicely.

[Rubisco]

The Flirc case looks nice. I haven't found the Pi4 version available yet but apparently it acts as a heat sink and passively cools it nicely.

Pi Hut have stock:

https://thepihut.com/collections/latest ... -pi-4-case

[snaff]

The Flirc case looks nice. I haven't found the Pi4 version available yet but apparently it acts as a heat sink and passively cools it nicely.

Pi Hut have stock:

https://thepihut.com/collections/latest ... -pi-4-case

Cool, thanks.

[Misfit]

Might be a good time to buy a Picade.

Pimoroni currently has a 'talk like a pirate day' sale until the 22nd with 10% off and a free Pi4 if you spend over £150...

https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/pica ... 0087489619

[Baggypants]

I got a pi4 for my Zynthian and it's been night and day compared to the pi3b+. The pi3 struggled with the cpu intensive plugins like OB-Xd but the pi4 can happily run 5 or six of the plugins simultaneously. Secondly regarding heat, I've been monitoring the temperature on my pi here: https://io.adafruit.com/Baggypants/dash ... ia-cputemp and tbh it's not been a problem. I've no heatsinks on my pi at all, no fans in the case and it's been sitting at 60-70C. Now, I can totally understand why people feel that's hot, I wouldn't want 65C metal sat directly on my face, but as the pi only throttles at 85C it's hardly a problem for me.

A bit of precision engineering and the pi4 fit in the pi3 case fine: https://discourse.zynthian.org/t/success-cases/41/226

[snaff]

The latest firmware update reduces power consumption and heat.

https://www.tomshardware.com/uk/feature ... twork-boot