2 Jul
2012
2 Jul
'12
11:12 a.m.
Tony Duell skrev 2012-06-30 00:15:
Which operating system should it come preloaded with then? Debian=20
Any. AS you and others have said you can now get pre-loaded cards with a
bootable OS on them. I don't believe that was the case when the thing
was announced, My point is that you shouldn't _have_ to download anything
if you don't want to. It should be possible to just buy a 'complete'
system, plug it together and go.
I also agree that the board should be avaialble on its own, with no
OS-on-a-card, no manual, etc, for people who want to have more than one
and use them as embedded systems. It would eb silly to ahve to pay for
multiple manuals then.
Tony
*might* approve if the published documentation included detailed
instructions on how to mine your own copper ore, smelt it, build a
silicon refinery, fabricate your own CPU, spin glass fibre and
synthesize resin and then manufacture your own circuit board.
But I do emphasize the "might" here...
Actually, I'd be very likely
to approve of it if :
It came complete, that is to say I could just plug it in and go without
having to pay to download and print manuals, download the OS, etc A printed "Raspberry Pi users guide" is
almost redy, they take preorders=20
now. Better to buy one single book than one with each Pi. I can see them=20
Agreed on both points.
_When_ the Rpi was announced, there was no mention of pre-loaed OSes on
SD cards, no mention of a printed manual, and the availability of a
schematic was uncertain. I looked at what was said then and decided that
in that state the Rpi was certainly not for me. As a result I stopped
looking at it. Now that things have changed, I would reconsider it .
But I can't keep looking at products that don't interest me in case
they've changed to soemthign that does. There are simply too many
products out there.
2) I
understnad the's some kind of GPIO/user port. How many lines, are
they individually selectable for direction? Can this be easilly used fr=
om
C (I assuem there's a C vompiler included
with the OS).
17 GPIO lines, individually selectable direction and many with secondary=20
functions as UART, SPI, PWM, I2C... More GPIO pins are available on other connectors. Only
3.3V levels, no=20
5V tolerant I/O. But 3.3V and 5V is available on the GPIO connector.
Sure. And buffering/level-shiftign thenm is not a major problem. I would
want to buffer them anyway in most applciations, if only becasue the main
'chip' on an Rpi is probably difficutl to get other htan on an Rpi, is
certainly next-to-impossible to replace (BGA), and so on. I'd rather have
to change a SOIC or DIL buffer IC.
I understand the const reasons, but given that this is a user port, and
given that using it appears ot be covered in the printed manual (simple
interfacing, etc), I wonder just how many Rpi will have the main 'chip'
blown up by newbies. Nothign wrong with making mistakes and blowing ICs,
of course, that's how you learn. But I would ratehr it was something that
could be easily replaced.
-tony