What have we missed?

[abishur]

You did not miss the power switch, Liz has stated that at this point in time there is no power switch. It's either plugged in and on, or it's not plugged in and off. Seeing as how the device uses <1W power when running, standby seems a little superfluous.

For time keeping time, that's a great question. I know that while it's plugged in and has an internet connection it will keep time. I'm not very experienced with PCB masks, but I don't think I saw any sort of battery. It might be that external time keeping is outside of the scope for the first release. Just make sure you set up a command to sync to a NTP source at boot if you're worried about time loss after boot.

[Michael]

It is hard to tell from the PCB mask image posted, but there is possibly a battery or pads for a battery immediately below J1 (the DC jack). Looks to be vertically mounted, maybe something like http://parts.digikey.com/1/par.....0-vcn.html

[liz]

Quote from abishur on August 6, 2011, 15:46
You did not miss the power switch, Liz has stated that at this point in time there is no power switch. It's either plugged in and on, or it's not plugged in and off. Seeing as how the device uses <1W power when running, standby seems a little superfluous.

For time keeping time, that's a great question. I know that while it's plugged in and has an internet connection it will keep time. I'm not very experienced with PCB masks, but I don't think I saw any sort of battery. It might be that external time keeping is outside of the scope for the first release. Just make sure you set up a command to sync to a NTP source at boot if you're worried about time loss after boot.

Yup - no power switch. And at the moment, there's no external time keeping, although that might be an option for a later model - but we don't want to get ahead of ourselves at the moment!

[Emanuele]

Quote from IRBaboon on August 6, 2011, 15:24
That ARM11 CPU seems very slow. (only 1 integer unit + 1 32bit vector FP coprocessor?)


Well, personally I think it's very fast Of course, if you compare it with the latest
smarthphone costing twenty times as much, this is slow. On the other hand,
that smarthphone will become slow in 6 months time.


I wish there was dual core support to promote multi threaded programming.


I know what you mean, but I think that the skills you can get by playing with the GPU are even more relevant. Incidentally, the easiest way to keep the GPU well fed is probably to have two threads. I don't know how many will bother, though.


Funny enough we should save the enviroment with a faster CPU.


Sorry, but I don't get what you mean.

[IRBaboon]

Sorry, but I don't get what you mean.
I would use the Raspberry Pi more often then my desktop if it could do more work
and i won't upgrade so fast.

Well, personally I think it's very fast Of course, if you compare it with the latest
smarthphone costing twenty times as much, this is slow. On the other hand,
that smarthphone will become slow in 6 months time.

I bet there is no better mobile multimedia processors from Broadcom ready.

B.t.w. does a dark/black background help with energy consumption? (tft/crt?)

[edgester]

Can the device be a USB master and a USB slave? at the same time? I'm wondering if you could have the Raspberry Pi be a slave to a desktop PC, then be a master to a keyboard. The connection diagram would look like a hardware keylogger with the Pi being between the PC and the keyboard, but it could be used for entering passwords or OTP strings to another PC. Maybe you could code your own USB slave interface on the Pi to talk to the master PC.

[liz]

It can't be a master and slave at the same time, I'm afraid.

[liz]

Quote from IRBaboon on August 6, 2011, 17:10
Sorry, but I don't get what you mean.
I would use the Raspberry Pi more often then my desktop if it could do more work
and i won't upgrade so fast.

Well, personally I think it's very fast Of course, if you compare it with the latest
smarthphone costing twenty times as much, this is slow. On the other hand,
that smarthphone will become slow in 6 months time.

I bet there is no better mobile multimedia processors from Broadcom ready.

B.t.w. does a dark/black background help with energy consumption? (tft/crt?)


Well there *are* whizzier mobile CPUs available from Broadcom, but they're more expensive. We're striving to keep costs down as much as possible to make the device available for schools, the developing world and so on, which is always going to be our main focus. We had to calculate a balance between financial cost and CPU performance (as distinct from multimedia performance - on the multimedia side this chip actually outperforms Tegra 3); all the same, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by the performance of the chip we're using for the cost.

[abishur]

Quote from IRBaboon on August 6, 2011, 15:24
That ARM11 CPU seems very slow. (only 1 integer unit + 1 32bit vector FP coprocessor?)
I wish there was dual core support to promote multi threaded programming.

Funny enough we should save the enviroment with a faster CPU.

I would agree that by present standards a the ARM11 doesn't sound very spiffy but a powerhouse PC isn't really the mission of the R-pi Plus I've long felt that once we hit that theoretical wall of speed in terms of raw processing power, we'll finally see a cleaning up of coding. Presently programmers (myself included) can be rather lazy. We go for what works quickest (for us) rather than what works quickest (for the processor). And there's deadlines everything has to be out now, now now! So optimizing code takes a backseat (I mean just think about how many patches are release for any game or OS or piece of software the minute it's released)

My point in saying that is to remember that the OS which will run on the R-pi isn't a standard x86 or x64 OS. It's a mobile processor, and people who made an OS for it did a surprisingly good job with the code (at least comparatively speaking). I think we'll all be surprised by the power this thing puts out.

[IRBaboon]

Well there *are* whizzier mobile CPUs available from Broadcom, but they're more expensive. We're striving to keep costs down as much as possible to make the device available for schools, the developing world and so on, which is always going to be our main focus. We had to calculate a balance between financial cost and CPU performance (as distinct from multimedia performance - on the multimedia side this chip actually outperforms Tegra 3); all the same, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by the performance of the chip we're using for the cost.

I have studied the technical reference for the arm 11 architecture and it is bad for its purpose. I am sure Eben knows this himself.

On the other hand the GPU side looks nice.

I would agree that by present standards a the ARM11 doesn't sound very spiffy but a powerhouse PC isn't really the mission of the R-pi Plus I've long felt that once we hit that theoretical wall of speed in terms of raw processing power, we'll finally see a cleaning up of coding. Presently programmers (myself included) can be rather lazy. We go for what works quickest (for us) rather than what works quickest (for the processor). And there's deadlines everything has to be out now, now now! So optimizing code takes a backseat (I mean just think about how many patches are release for any game or OS or piece of software the minute it's released)

My point in saying that is to remember that the OS which will run on the R-pi isn't a standard x86 or x64 OS. It's a mobile processor, and people who made an OS for it did a surprisingly good job with the code (at least comparatively speaking). I think we'll all be surprised by the power this thing puts out.

This core is so thin it should be hard to optimize for more speed. It's like screaming to a one legged baby to pull the car.
My point in saying that is to remember that the OS which will run on the R-pi is Linux OS on a mobile processor.

[Krikunoff]

I would like input for a microphone and a transparent case for version B

[magnitux]

I want a VGA port and an SD card of 4 to 8 GB in memory with a small collection of software programming (perl, code:: bloks, kturtle) and a good big documentation.

[abishur]

Oh man, all I can think of now is throwing a little black light in the case

[Lob0426]

I am still of the opinion that the only upgrades for the future are a RTC and 512Mb memory. These should enter the price point of your program when the first versions show there is a market for the raspi. Many of the options people are asking for are available right now on the market. Dual core, Gigabit Ethernet, wireless, x86 support etc. All of these are available on my D945GCLF2 intel board at $85 32 to 66 watts and about $200 of accessories. But that board will not fit in my pocket, run on a battery or fit inside my router and be avaiable at $35. I am very enthused about the release of these boards. They are powerful and sized right and I have been waiting a long time for devices like these to appear. I followed the wearables site at MIT for years and never in the history of computing has this price point for the power level been reached! I am ready and the cash is waiting! LOL.

[RPhippsy]

It would be good to maybe have a USB 3.0 (or even a e-SATA), so I could use one of these as a basic NAS..... Would that be possible (a C Version?) Especially as Ubuntu Server supports ARM processors.

[abishur]

We had discussed USB 3.0 / eSATA briefly a couple pages earlier in this thread. The general understanding is that USB 3.0 and e-Sata in addition to Gigabit ethernet isn't feasible with the current chipset being used.

The idea with the LAN9512 is to save money by having a chipset provide both 2 USB ports and 1 ethernet port (via emulating an USB to Ethernet adapter). Unfortunately they don't appear to offer a USB 3.0 / Gigabit (or e-SATA) chipset, so adding on these devices would mean having to split the work between two possibly three different chips. This would cost more money and increase the physical footprint of the device.

Of course, all that really means is it's not feasible... at this time I too hope that one of the next iterations have these options, even if I have to spend a couple more bucks and use a little more space to get it!

[Lob0426]

Most of these features are only available on full sized chipsets. The chipsets for cell phones "usually" do not support storage "disks". This is not always true as iPods and some cell phone did support the "micro drives". Those chipsets being non standard are probably more expensive. USB is a very versatile interface. It is comparatively slow but works well. Some of the pico sized boards such as the VIA chipped boards do support IDE and SATA. I have had good luck using external drives as supplemental and backup storage.

[AmyS3]

talking about storage..
are there any news about the maximum capacity which can be used for the sd-card?
there are some cheap 32Gig ones on the market..

[MaK11-12]

Can't it be have WLAN instead of LAN?
Also, documentation on installing / upgrading other linuxes like ubuntu 11.04, android and chromium.
=D

[Cafe]

Quote from IRBaboon on August 6, 2011, 15:24
I wish there was dual core support to promote multi threaded programming.


We don't need dual/multiple cores to support multiple threads: We only need a (pre-emptive) multi-tasking OS.

[abishur]

Quote from MaK11-12 on August 9, 2011, 20:50
Can't it be have WLAN instead of LAN?
Also, documentation on installing / upgrading other linuxes like ubuntu 11.04, android and chromium.
=D

ah WLAN, I have to admit that when it comes to wireless I'm a bit of a Luddite! Wireless is really useful, but fortunately for me (and less so for everyone else who wants wireless ), is also much more expensive both in terms of the actual cost of the additional chip as well as the additional cost of the footprint (and cost of designing the data connection, making sure the chipset can be supported in driver...) and you rapidly begin to loose the ability to hit the $25 price target.

As the product begins to be released I'm sure we'll see a lot of official documentation and user generated content for OS installation and maintenance. I do know that one of the current idea for installing alternate OSes is an image that can be downloaded via bittorent and put on your sd card.

[liz]

WLAN - at the moment it's so expensive it would make us miss our price point quite spectacularly. We hope that prices will come down in a Moore's Law style, and also that our bargaining power will improve as we demonstrate we can sell a good number of Raspis - which is where you lot come in!

[Lob0426]

I believe I have shot down many of the items posted here due to their additional cost for production! So to get in the spirit of this thread I propose:
Compact Flash Interface:
Pro; these cards are very fast, some rivaling SSD's, they support "micro drives" which though slower allow a huge number of write cycles (virtual memory). Cards of 2Gb to 64Gb readily available and larger ones are also available. Micro Drives are usually from 1Gb to 8Gb. Power consumption varies with the size and type of card, the larger the card the higher the power consumption. In most cases power consumption is relatively low. If I remember correctly SSD's are available in this format.

Con: the interfaces needs a lot real-estate when mounted on the board. And of course the price of a chipset that can support it. I paid 29.95 for a PCI board that supported up to 4 CF cards in RAID! The primary chipset on the board bigger in size than an ARM processor.
http://www.jtecdirect.com/comp.....-2446.html

IDE-zif interface:
Pro; there are quite a number of 1.8" drives available on the market. They are readily available up to 120 Gb. This would open up storage into the territory of netbooks. These have been supported in devices like the iPod classic, digital cameras, camcorders and smart phones. A chipset could be available in the size range of this ARM board. Power consumption is very low.

Cons:
Most of these drives have relatively slow spindle speeds and therefor rather poor seek performance (not the SSD's of course). The connector is big enough to cause some cramping on small boards though it is generally on the bottom side of the PCB in most designs.

PCMCIA:
Pro: just about everything under the sun has been built into a card for this slot! Is there anything that hasn't been built to fit it? Ethernet, Wireless, HDD, Sound, router (yes I saw one of these) testing interface etc. So on and on!

Con: really eats up some board space, probably would have to be mounted under the board or over the top of everything. I would assume, since it is a jack of all trades, that it has a very large and expensive chipset. Not used as much as it used to be, may be on the decline.

[obarthelemy]

I'm looking at the R.pi for home use as a barebones NAS/Torrent server, upstaging the NS K330 (http://www.dealextreme.com/p/s.....rver-26320). My wishes would be:
- power from USB. In many instances, the thing will be connected to a powered USB hub, so that would save a power brick, at the cost of one port on the hub if the "power" up connexion has to be distinct from the "down" data connexion, at no cost if you can get data to flow downstream on the same USB cable used to flow power upstream. And even when no hub is connected, USB (micro) power supplies are as easy to find as older ones anyway.
- more USB ports. Even 2 means a hub is almost mandatory: keyboard, mouse, touchscreen, external drive, bluetooth, wifi...

That's it for the pure hardware stuff. But I think software and services will be as, if not more, important:
- optimized, validated OS. Ubuntu is fast becoming Linux's Windows: top heavy with much stuff that isn't used by most people. Hopefully the community will quickly come up with a much-pruned variant, but I'm sure you're in the best place to do that.
- make sure the basic stuff works. Looking at the Plug Computer saga, there seem to be lots of quality issues. Hopefully your simpler design won't run into them, especially thanks to the external PSU and fewer interfaces, but I'd hate for USB to crash regularly.
- validated peripherals. Again, I'm sure the community will quickly come up with which wifi/BT sticks work or not, and which USB hubs are solid enough to handle hard disks and more... but I'm also sure you already know those answers.

[MaK11-12]

Quote from obarthelemy on August 10, 2011, 01:24
I'm looking at the R.pi for home use as a barebones NAS/Torrent server, upstaging the NS K330 (http://www.dealextreme.com/p/s.....rver-26320). My wishes would be:

--SNIP--


Use the ubuntu headless image on arm to get the base image and then install LXDE. Then you have a really small and really fast system. On the desktop PC, get a alternative Ubuntu CD and select Command line install. Once finnished you will have a really small and really fast system on your desktop. From there, you can use aptitude to easily install your favourite apps.
Therefore, there isn't a need for custom ubuntu distributions.
The Pi drivers should allready make ubuntu 'optimised'. Ubuntu allready has support for ARM11.
Validated peripherals? Just go to the ubuntu website and look at the compatibility of your peripherals there. They should be the same on the Pi unless the drivers would cause interference and bugs in the system.
For such a small device, i'd say 2 USB ports are good enough. One for mouse and other for keyboard. Besides, you can allways get small usb hubs that don't need an extra power source (though devices like hard drives would need a full powered hub).
=D