27 Feb
2013
27 Feb
'13
5:13 p.m.
On 2/27/2013 2:57 PM, Tony Duell wrote:
The Broadcom chip is probably used
because it is useless as a phone or
other chip, and is just out on the market being sold to people who don't
care a fig about changing the drivers.
there are a lot of other chips that are now in small Rpi type gizmos
that do have all the docs available.
You are focusing on the Debian model. They make the sources and
binaries easily available in a manner that requires internet access. If
you want to go with one of the other OS's you are welcome to. I don't
know if any of them offer source other than as a net download.
Debian was quick and easy to adapt and there are a lot of people who can
work on it, hence it is the foremost choice, but certainly you can
download a copy to some media and sell your own. That is the way with
things now days. I wouldn't bet my business model on shipping paper
manuals like you wish and having any of them current by the time you
sell product. things change way to fast to commit anything to dead tree
for shipment.
Jim
>has the
kernel and various other bits. Yes, the GPU specific code is
>still binary only - you can thank Broadcom for that.
Alas yes. I do wonder
about havign a so-called educatuional machine where
a major section is covered by an NDA, but... >
> > >them (since this is supposed to be an educational machine, it fails
> > >spectacularly here). There are also all sorts of thigns misisng form the
> > >standard distribution. YEs, you can install them, but. you ened the
> > >internet conenction.
>
>The packages you consider important and the packages that I consider important
>and finally those that anybody else considers important probably don't have
>that much overlap. What should they do? Install the world and require a
>32 GB SD-Card (guessing on the size here). Offer a 16 GB download (compressed)
>for the "base image"? Similiarly for not including source in the standard
>image. The checked out kernel tree alone is several hundred MB.
It should
be_offered_. In otehr words I should be able to go to one of
the suppliers of the Rpi abnd buy some device that can be conencted to
the Rpi -- be it USB stick, a USB hard drive, or whatever --
pre-instaleld with all the soruces and binaries. I am not saying is has
to be included with the machine, jsut easy to get.
Althought IMHO at least the kernel source should be included. Many people
have learnt a lot byu deliving into such things...