Raspberry Pi 2 Model B Evaluation (III) - Soft Power of Raspberry Pi 2 Model B

freebsder · Published at 15:26 on March 11, 2016

Raspberry Pi 2 Model B Evaluation (III) - Soft Power of Raspberry Pi 2 Model B [Copy Link]

This post was finally edited by freebsder at 16:10 on August 14, 2015

A few days ago, I took a look at the hardware configuration related to the calculation and control of Raspberry Pie 2B.

Considering the cost, the device configuration of the raspberry pie 2B is not outstanding. However, considering that a card computer with exquisite workmanship can be obtained for 35 dollars, this restriction is insignificant. On the other hand, the hardware information provided by the official Broadcom and the Raspberry Pie Foundation is not very rich, even when writing, the raspberry Pie 2B schematic diagram It still does not appear on the official website of the Foundation.

Why is raspberry pie still popular all over the world under various restrictions and deficiencies? Is the $35 price the biggest attraction in the market? If other card computers can achieve 35 dollars and provide more open and detailed official information, will there be the decline of raspberry pie?

The future answer is unknown. Then let's take a look at the soft power of raspberry pie 2B with Demo Boy and feel its attraction to a technician.

1、 OS support

The raspberry pie community did get a lot Open source operating system community and Commercial operating system manufacturer With our full support. The processor of BCM2835/6 and Broadcom's attitude towards device data are unlikely to be introduced to the market in the way of single chip microcomputer. The popularity of raspberry pie and OS support seems to be a chicken and egg problem: is it because the popularity of raspberry pie has led to the support of operating systems, or is it because of the support of various operating systems? How should "popular" be defined?

Raspberry Pie Foundation officially uses the debian transplantation of raspberry pie as its official platform: Raspbian. like debian Officially supported arch port Similarly, it is natural to expect that raspbian is a complete debian system environment from basic commands to usage and configuration methods.

In a nutshell, Raspbian is an armhf system of debian+vcgencmd and other BCM2836 specific commands+a bunch of third-party products such as mathematica+raspberry pie drivers. A powerful combination of adaptations. It is said that the raspberry pie community spent millions of pounds on system adaptation and optimization for this platform.

The learning of debian system can go to www.debian.org , I won't be wordy here. It should be noted that this version of raspbian does not follow Debian 8.0 to adopt systemd for system management. The old management system is still used, and Boy said he was very used to it.

In addition, there are several officially recommended systems, including ubuntu, riscos, media optimized OPENELEC, OSMC, and of course, PINET for children.

Due to the time and energy, Boydidn't try these third-party systems in turn. There are a lot of articles on the Internet, and interested friends can try it.

Here's a word to add. I think Mathematica is the most valuable one in raspbian. I simply reviewed its support for raspberry pie, which can be used for general computing, mathematical learning, and peripheral input and output. Algorithm friends should like this set of free gifts: input ->calculation ->output ->feedback. This classic automated process is harmoniously covered in a set of platforms to model your application at a higher level, saving the trouble of writing your own algorithm. If one day matlab also gave free support to raspberry pie, it would be more suitable for China's national conditions.

In addition to Linux UNIX system Raspberry pie transplant. Demo Boy's favorite FreeBSD and NetBSD Also transplanted to raspberry pie. However, the performance of these systems in Raspberry Pie (or in the operating system ecosystem) is not as good as that of Linux. Therefore, their porting in Raspberry Pie should be more "feasibility proof", and have no obvious advantages over Linux. From communities to documents to materials to software, it seems a lot deserted.

Finally, of course, we must not forget Microsoft's great efforts in the IoT market layout this year: Windows10 IOT Core , which is also free for makers. Just released The first official version 。

What impressed Bow deeply was that the commercial company really made great efforts and the construction of resources was more systematic than that of the community. Detailed resource descriptions can be obtained from tools, documents, debugging, and management.

Although man and gnu info under Unix are excellent resources, they are a little simple and messy compared with Microsoft MSDN, and sometimes the manual cannot be consistent with the actual system; Although vim/emacs and other editors are really clever and can reflect a hacker's crackling spirit, compared with visual studio, they are too primitive and brain wasting; Although gdb and other tool chains have built the entire linux world, it is not considerate to compare vs debuggers. This is not a paean, it is a gap.

In order to prove the availability of Win10 IOT, officials have given several relatively advanced typical projects, including robots and weather stations. More officially recommended projects can be visited here Scan it.

In order to smooth the introduction process of Win10 IOT, the government has given several entry-level projects to guide everyone to get started slowly.

The official also prepared the introductory materials of step by step for everyone. Boy did the same thing, which was really more concentrated than the materials provided by the Linux community. It saved a lot of time for climbing the wall and searching, and could soon produce small results.

Documentation.

Example.

Not to mention quality, it is more standardized than organizations on Linux only in terms of quantity and layout. From the examples, we can see that the common peripherals such as spi, i2c, serial, and gpio have been covered, and the popular node.js, python, and other hands-on materials are also provided.

More examples can be found in github in Found. Demo Boy has checked it locally.

It can be seen that there are relevant examples from lighting to OLED display, to Bluetooth, to camera, as well as the basic operation implementation of popular devices such as ADXL345 and HMC5883, and also the basic operation implementation of OLED display screen that is easy to buy on Xbox. These popular device examples also reduce the additional burden of using Win10 IOT.

These examples cover a wide range. If you follow them, you should quickly understand the operation mode of most Win10 IOTs.

2、 Language and platform support

Raspbian is rich in development languages that can be used on raspberry pie. Except for special platform languages such as visual basic and objc, other general languages are well supported. After all, it is complete Linux.

Explore the popular languages that Boy focuses on, such as C/C++, Python, Javascript, PHP, and Java. The extent to which this support can be achieved has not been verified one by one. For example, under the Java language platform, can the jar package for the server be used in raspbian? Which Java EE servers can be deployed on raspbian? Is the connection pool consistent with the performance on the server? wait. Those who like C/C++can also directly use the LLVM compiler made by Apple.

Unix migration of C #: Mono can also be used, but when Win10 IOT is free, it is cheaper to use C # than to install Win10 IOT directly.

Many minority languages are also supported. For example, scheme, which has been used for teaching for many years in the evil capitalist countries, ml, which is used for automated axiomatic proof, guile and lua, which are popular in the configuration world, and r, which are popular in the statistics and big data world. Ah, don't forget about mathematica script support.

SQL (database) can see that mysql5.5 and postgresql 9.1 are relatively new versions.

The popular apache and nginx in the web server are undoubtedly available for you to dispatch in raspbian.

What about the support for MCU? Openocd, avr, gcc-msp430, mspdebug, sdcc and other tools are also roughly the same as the debian version of the pc/server version. However, the jlink driver and other non open source things seem to lack the support of the arm system.

In short, raspbian of raspberry pie is a complete platform. Due to system differences, it cannot be expected to be completely consistent with the PC/Server version of Debian, at least most of them are. You only need to skillfully operate apt/dpkg series tools.

This part is basically the Debian operation. However, it is better to configure a picture, or it will appear too many words.

Then look at Win10 IOT.

A long time ago, Microsoft gradually learned to be good and gave the free visual studio community version. For raspberry pie, it supports four native language platforms: C/C++, C #, javascrpit (nodejs), and python.

Thanks to the powerful IDE capabilities and the overall design capabilities of commercial companies, it saves the trouble of deploying C, C #, JS, and Python, but also reduces the use of other language support methods (or it is more troublesome to use other languages on Win10 IOT).

Other library supports, such as QT, OpenCV, and so on. It is difficult to figure out whether Boy does not try to integrate into the application and configure it.

3、 Finally

Demo Boy has no doubt that raspbian is a complete debian system: it provides software and operations that are almost the same as those of the pc/server version of debian. Combined with the relatively complete peripheral interfaces of raspberry pie: SPI, I2C, Serial, GPIO, PWM, Camera, USB, etc., it can provide powerful computing and control capabilities for makers. What does not seem to be sufficient is that the number of these peripherals is relatively thin compared with other development boards. After all, the BCM2836 is essentially a processor for the mobile phone market, and it has crossed the border to build development boards.

Win10 IOT undoubtedly injects a shot in the arm into the ecosystem of raspberry pie. Makers accustomed to the Microsoft ecosystem also have the opportunity to contact the embedded/Internet of Things that used to be the bottom and mysterious. Relying on the powerful development tools and complete resource construction of the commercial companies, Demo Boy has no doubt that Microsoft can take a share in the territory under the absolute control of Linux. I hope there will be a chance to try Win10 IOT on raspberry pie in the future.

Raspberry Pi 2 Model B Evaluation (I) - Commercial Victory of Universal Feelings

Raspberry Pi 2 Model B Evaluation (II) - the hard power of raspberry pie 2B