Re: rPI Goes Public

On 6/29/24 3:11 AM, rbowman wrote:

On Sat, 29 Jun 2024 01:02:18 -0400, 26xh.0712 wrote:
 

    So, for now, I'm into Arch derivatives. Manjaro is now very good but
    there are a couple others I'd consider. My one gripe with Manjaro is
    the update model ... which quickly gets to basically reloading the
    entire 2+gb system, rather like Tumbleweed, and that takes time and
    bites into the monthly data allotment.

 I avoided the Red Hat family after the gcc 2.96 fiaso in the early '2000s
but recently gave Fedora a shot on one of my backup machines. I knew what
i was getting into but the KDE spin 40 has a huge number of updates.
They've even managed to copy the Windows 'Don't turn you machine off'
message.

   Fedora is 'fair' these days - although there's still not
   a version that'll boot properly on a Pi5. Do not care for
   KDE - too "fat" - and Gnome ... oh my gawd !!! My faves
   are LXDE or XFCE ... light and To The Point.
   RHEL and direct derivs ... the IBM buyout messed that up.
   Basically you become a beta-code tester for IBM. This is
   not what I'd want to build a biz server on.
   Anyway, for now, I'm gonna go with Arch derivs. Arch
   is still more Linux "traditional" under the hood. Have
   NOT been able to get Samba to work with Manjaro alas,
   and I've tried every trick I know. ALWAYS some kind
   of auth error. Had to go to the No File Security system ...

    Clearly boards like BeeLink and BMax fit into a different niche from
    Pi's - for some apps you WANT all those I/O pins and there's no
    substitute. However I had been using Pi's for apps that did not need
    those pins. Pi5/WORM has forced me to a fork in the road, Pi doesn't
    do it all anymore.

 I've got a few Pico Ws and may go the route of using one Pico as the
loader/debugger for the target Pico to get around the pin problem with a
conventional Linux box. They're cheap enough.

   Well, the Pico is a micro-CONTROLLER ... much more like
   an Arduino than a Pi. I've built a lot of things on, or
   including, PIC microcontrollers (assembler programming
   is such a BUZZ !) and Ards as well. They have their solid
   place in the computing universe.
   Pi's are kinda unique ... a mid-point between microcontroller
   and microprocessor PCs. You can get most of the goodies of
   a PC, but you also get all those I/O pins and ports and
   libraries for dealing with them. I've tried a Banana and
   Orange Pi, but they're a bit more "weird" to deal with.
   I've reached an age where "computer adventure" is less
   important that "computer that Just Works".
   Hmmmm ... animal nervous systems are rather different than
   the way most people use computer analogs. Most obviously
   with the eye, but really all the way down, the nerves
   serve as signal "pre-processors" ... characterizing,
   prioritizing, encoding, data to be sent to the brain.
   This streamlines brain design as a lot of the hard
   work is already done for it. Annoyances like peripheral
   neuropathy are not due to dead nerves, but the encoding
   system getting messed up. In any case, this sort of
   model might be interesting to extend into "robots",
   with tiny low-power uP's doing the environmental
   characterization/encoding thus allowing a smaller
   "real CPU" or data link TO one, to require less power
   and bandwidth. What's happening to your robots "toe"
   becomes a compressed/pre-processed serial data stream.