cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ndlug.org/post/1001830
Today, we’re happy to announce the launch of the 2GB Raspberry Pi 5, built on a cost-optimised D0 stepping of the BCM2712 application processor, and priced at just $50.
The new D0 stepping strips away all that unneeded functionality, leaving only the bits we need. From the perspective of a Raspberry Pi user, it is functionally identical to its predecessor: the same fast quad-core processor; the same multimedia capabilities; and the same PCI Express bus that has proven to be one of the most exciting features of the Raspberry Pi 5 platform. However, it is cheaper to make, and so is available to us at somewhat lower cost. And this, combined with the savings from halving the memory capacity, has allowed us to take $10 out of the cost of the finished product.
So, while our most demanding users — who want to drive dual 4Kp60 displays, or open a hundred browser tabs, or compile complex software from source — will probably stick with the existing higher memory-capacity variants of Raspberry Pi 5, many of you will find that this new, lower-cost variant works perfectly well for your use cases.
The Pi is do damn overpriced.
For 80$ I can get an 8th gen HP Mini with 16 GB of RAM + 256 GB M.2., case, power brick, all cables and have a much more stable and powerful system (second hand on eBay).
If you want an new SBC: Intel N100 for as low as $60 with 4GB DDR5 RAM.
The raspberry pi isn’t a hobby/consumer product anymore. 2020 has shown that the Pi Foundation sees itself as an industry-first product. Also don’t forget that they went public a few months ago so who knows what will come out of this step.
Let’s face it: Intel driver support is great maybe even better than it is on a Raspberry Pi and proprietary is both hardware.
That’s another good pick yeah. N350 stuff will also be interesting.
2020 has shown that the Pi Foundation sees itself as an industry-first product.
I think they never saw themselves as anything other than an industry-first product. The “hobbyist” market was just a way to develop, test and enter the mass market and gain critical mass in terms of FAB capacity and support / mind-share. IMHO their goal was always to go into the industry and disrupt some markets* but you can’t just get there without the scale. They just played an entire generation of hobbyist making them addicted to their product to grow it and test it for them.
Now that they’re public and partially owned by Broadcom it will just get worse.
The Pi Foundation kind of held the SBC market hostage to their ecosystem because software support is important and all the shinny Python libraries people are used to are typically only fully compatible, stable and tested with the Pi GPIO. With the RP2040 chip they make it so software/library compatibility is no longer a barrier to other CPU makers to enter the market - Intel or even Rockchip and Mediatek SBCs can include the RP2040 and gain instant software compatibility with any software library made for the Pi GPIO. Note that right now when RK releases an SBC it take a while for libraries to catch up with the GPIO definitions and whatnot.
I’m sure they aware of this risk, however, there’s a much bigger market opportunity there - the SPI / i2C / GPIO bridge market typically held by FTDI. When you want to make low level hardware communicate with computers, usually on USB ports, you’ll need some kind of hardware to handle the low level SPI / i2C / GPIO signals and convert them into something the CPU and the OS can understand, this is where FTDI has a big market share, even the Arduino uses a chip made by them for that.
The RP2040 can do this exact same task - it is what it does on the RPI 5 after all - and that’s a very big market. Almost every peripheral we connect to our computers is using one of those bridges to connect low level hardware such as microcontrollers to the computer or to simply toggle LEDs. Broadcom is now an investor of the Pi Foundation and they do a lot of hardware that does require those kinds of bridges… maybe they were the ones pushing the Pi guys into this direction because business wise it makes sense - they can test the reliability of those chips on the SBC market and once they’re sure they perform as good as FTDI ones they can use them everywhere for a fraction of the cost.
Let’s see who gains more from the RP2040, the Pi guys obliterating FTDI or Intel and others taking chunks of the SBC market.
There’s already a couple of examples of what I’m saying here:
You mind dropping a link for that? I couldn’t find anything of Canadian equivalent in pricing and I’m interested
Okay, I just noticed that I might have mislead you, I forgot to include that I was talking about second hand hardware on eBay or something else. Lot’s of companies are getting rid of those machines and they’re selling around those price points. Try looking up “Hp mini i5 8th gen” or even 9th gen, sometimes older doesn’t mean cheaper, it depends on how much people are trying to dump them.
At that amount of ram, you’d be better buying a rpi 3 or a opi zero 3 one.
Not enough RAM to be honest (at least not to be useful in the near future). I ran an Emby/Jellyfin server with 180 GB of music (nothing else was running, not even the UI), and it ran out of RAM, and was swapping like crazy at 1 GB of RAM on my Rpi3. In this day and age, you need 2 GB of RAM for servers, but that won’t be enough within a couple of years (and that’s why I don’t suggest this new model with 2 GB of RAM). I personally would only get a new Raspberry Pi if it comes with 16 GB of RAM, so I can run a UI properly. You just can’t ever have enough RAM these days. Linux is using less RAM than Win11, but not by much these days. It’s growing too fast in requirements in the last 3-4 years.
It’s growing too fast in requirements in the last 3-4 years.
I haven’t noticed it tbh.
3 years ago XFCe needed on Debian about 450 MB of RAM (on a clean boot). It now needs 850. And that’s not so much XFce’s fault, it’s all the other stuff underneath that have been growing too much too.
I mean, heck, Cosmic should not need more than 500 MB of RAM overall, having such a clean codebase. And yet it’s the heaviest of them all, at 2.5 GB (even Gnome/KDE boots at 1.3 GB on Debian). And it’s not a matter of optimization because it’s an alpha. That’s a cheap explanation. It’s just heavy. Just as much as Windows in terms of ram usage.
I think it’s the “unused RAM is wasted RAM” technology. Try on a machine with no more than 2 Gb.
Not sure what you have going but I have plasmashell running right now at 680MB.
you should try damnsmalllinux, it had a revival recently. though the absolute smallest modern one is probably Slitaz? or alpine linux
though you can definitely set up debian to use less than 500 ram today, kde/gnome are kinda hogs
A raspberry pi isn’t and has never been a good choice for a server.
For an appliance like a pi hole, home assistant, or media center playing files from a real Nas it’s fine.
Did. you not read what I wrote? I used it as a media center and it was swapping like hell. That’s what Emby and Jellyfin are. Media servers.
No, you use it as a media server. A media center can also be a media server but often is not.
If your pi is just reading files from the network, it’s fine. If it’s serving files, you’re gonna have a bad time.
Use the right tool for the job.
half the time i end up using some sort of esp product that costs 2-5 dollars per unit and buy them bulk from china and daisy chain them
way better than a pi
It’s the plans to invest in Israel that bothers me at the moment. After all we’ve seen I just can’t put money into that. I’d rather not buy any tech that support that.
Is that $50 with the power adapter included?
