On Wed 01 Jan 2025 at 16:46:37 (-0500), gene heskett wrote:
> On 1/1/25 13:48, Joe wrote:
> "Gene is a special case in that he uses non-standard hardware to do
> things that the rest of us don't do, working in ways that we don't
> work. We do our best, but that's often not good enough".
>
> The hardware I use has nothing non-std in the field I work in. But 99%
> of you folks haven't the foggiest idea of what we get the dirt under
> our fingernails from, or how we "get it done".
Agreed, most people here aren't running linuxcnc, nor BPI M5s;
patronise us if you like. But here are a few quotes from people
with a very different take from you on the difficulties of
using the M5:
Community
The Raspberry Pi is, by far, the most popular single-board computer,
with the largest community online. It means that finding help, even
for very specific projects, is pretty easy. According to Google
Trends, Banana Pi is at least 50 times less researched in Google
than Raspberry Pi.
In most cases, it’s not that big of a deal, as you’ll use popular
Linux distributions on it, you can always go to the Ubuntu or
Raspberry Pi forums to get help on general questions. The issue will
be more problematic if you start to use specific accessories (check
the part about GPIO / HAT at the end of this article).
[ … ]
I’ll get back to this later, but I think it’s one of the main
problems of Banana Pi. Not everything will be compatible, and you
can’t be sure that everything you can do on a Raspberry Pi will work
on it. There are probably workarounds but expect to spend time
finding them.
If you follow a tutorial for Raspberry Pi, get this kind of error,
and can’t get any help online because of the small community of
Banana Pi users, I think it’s a major issue.
[ … ]
Maybe I was just unlucky, and there is probably a workaround for
some of these errors. But as already mentioned, expect to waste time
regularly when you are trying projects outside the desktop
interface.
[ … ]
Weaknesses
But as you probably guessed if you read the entire article, I had
some major issues during that test of the Banana Pi M5:
The online documentation is horrible. The Raspberry Pi Foundation
has a full website with thousands of pages and projects to explain
how to use it, Banana Pi has one wiki page full of typo errors and
obsolete links.
Distributing system images via links to a limited Google Drive is
not professional at all.
Missing components vs Raspberry Pi 4: no Wi-Fi, no Bluetooth, and
no camera or display port.
The eMMC drive is a bit small.
Many compatibility issues (commands, Python, GPIO, etc.). It might
work with some time and effort, but not everything will, and
you’ll waste time on basic things anyway.
All that was from https://raspberrytips.com/banana-pi-m5-review/ .
This is from https://bret.dk/banana-pi-m5-review/ :
What you also have to be aware of though is that whilst there is a
community surrounding the Banana Pi boards, it’s naturally nowhere
near the level of the Raspberry Pi. If you’re willing to spend an
extra hour or two getting up and running, I’d say go for it. If you
just want something with a very low barrier of entry and a massive
community should anything go wrong then you will likely want to
stick it out and wait for a Raspberry Pi 4 to pop up near you.
> "Being a pioneer is a lonely thing."
This, from a 2014 review of an early BPI, made a similar point:
So. Should I Get One?
Here’s the thing. It looks like a well made piece of hardware. It’s
about 50% more expensive than the Raspberry Pi. The ARM CPU has a
bit more ‘oomph’, and it has some extra hardware features, SATA,
mic, IR, etc. But the software, support and community are not there
(yet).
If you don’t need/want your hand holding or you’re a hard-core
developer, you should probably get one. But, since the software side
of things is at a very early stage of development, and there isn’t
much support available, most of us would be better off sticking with
the Raspberry Pi. It might be worth it to some people who require
the extra CPU oomph, but I feel that the vast majority of users will
be better served by the Raspberry Pi because there are so many
resources, blogs, YouTube channels, Jams and people around to help.
and I think these quotes from https://forum.banana-pi.org/ might
illustrate a different motive of some of the BPI support communities:
I would be interested in speaking with anyone who has worked with
comparable configurations or who can offer advice on how to maximise
this [BPI M5] board’s generative ai performance.
[ … ]
This is the general aim of Armbian project. People who have deep and
long-term understanding of this hardware and (embedded) Linux
operating system are improving OS and integrated HW optimisations
into Armbian OS / build framework 4. I am sure you can get further,
but first you need to get to the level of those people before going
further. And I don’t believe you can get much further. They usually
try and have knowledge to pull out maxed from the SoC … if you
finance research, they can try. For fun, its your fun. There is just
a few of people that can do / have time to do that. And not specific
to this forum. [ … ] In case you are interested to finance research
to get further, try here [1].
[ … ]
I am a fairly new user of the M5. I have tried and am still trying
various os on this SBC to try and make the best use of its various
options. This includes Armbian, Raspbian and Linux Mate. [ … ] So
far I found Raspbian OS fairly lame. Armbian is the most up to date
software but I still do not know if the hardware options available
through armbian-config if they will work and in fact, just what they
do since i could find little or no information. [ … ] While I
understand @Igor’s request for financing this makes a lot of sense
for people using these boards for business but little sense for
people for whom these boards as just a hobby.
I don't see these people endlessly rubbishing those who give support
with these devices, nor those whose interests lie elsewhere.
Cheers,
David.
