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Louis

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Everything posted by Louis

  1. Hi lanefu, The heatsink I'm currently using is clearly not big enough. I'm still evaluating whether or not using the Orange Pi is really beneficial for this particular usage as I'm not using the SPR2801S NPU and as my code is in Python I'm not really able to take advantage of the six cores anyway -- coming from a Java background I was sad to see that Python's threading looks just like Java's but doesn't act much like Java's. My current solution is simply a Python class that powers up a cooling fan if the temperature goes over a configured threshold. The tiny brushless fans I got from AliExpress sell for under a dollar, and for the Orange Pi I'd use a heatsink-mounted fan that sells for $1.69 which is double-sided tape mounted right on top of the RK3399. So rather than throttle the CPU I'd just cool it. But thanks, I'm happy to check out the frequency governor, sounds like a good tool to have in my kit. A lot of designing and building robots is trying parts of the system out separately, then realising that firing up everything at once things start to break. I hadn't really looked into the armbian-config that much yet so thanks for the tip.
  2. Louis

    Louis

  3. Hi Igor, [No apologies necessary for your non-native English. My partner speaks English as a second language but her English is a lot better than my Japanese. I'm the one who has to apologise when we travel.] I agree that Broadcom has a business model that benefits from sales of the Raspberry Pi. The Pi wouldn't exist without that, nor would the community, nor would the ecosystem of vendors around the Pi, some who create really cool stuff, innovations over chips and hardware that they make accessible through carrier boards and supporting software libraries (like Adafruit, Pimoroni, etc.). They're also a business and need to survive and thrive, and like Canonical rely upon the free contributions of their users as well as years and years and layers upon layers of the product of hundreds of open source communities. I'm not an apologist for this arrangement, but I see that at least it works pretty well compared with whatever might be the alternative, which would be an entirely closed model like Apple, who a lot of people love for some reason (very clever marketing and nice-looking, expensive hardware?). I'd hardly call myself an avid capitalist, and I've (like I'm sure you) put in thousands of hours of my life into community endeavours. Sometimes I got sponsored to do it by whoever I was working for, but most of the time not. I don't think many people have any idea how much effort even a small project takes to bring to fruition, or maintain it. On the other hand, expressing anger over the situation with Broadcom or the Raspberry Pi Foundation shouldn't extend to the community of users of those products. They're just people, sometimes children, sometimes students, sometimes hobbyists (beginners to seasoned veterans), sometimes professionals (beginners to seasoned veterans). All sorts of levels of experience with hardware and software, all sorts of levels of experience in communicating in a healthy way within a community. As I said to NicoD, grouping people together and treating them badly because they are women, black, gay, or Raspberry Pi users, is all the same. People are individuals, and some just need a bit of gentle training in how to behave in a community. I find this especially true of younger people who've grown up with their primary social experience being staring into a cell phone. Bad social interactions have real costs: to the recipient, to the person acting badly, and certainly to the community. It's in everyone's best interests to try to smooth that out if possible, and if after trying to explain to someone what are appropriate expectations or behaviour (maybe point them to a web page) they don't behave, then sure, by all means tell them to leave. I do understand the time constraints of trying to be nice, but I can only say it probably takes more time to argue with someone than to explain that they should stop yelling and instead offer to help the community if they want help. In my day job I sometimes deal with people who are under a great deal of stress and that is sometimes erupt right at me -- I have to remember it's (usually) not me they're really angry with. In any case, thank you for replying. I've managed to 'do-release-upgrade' the Armbian on my Orange Pi and things look nice and stable (logs are clean, etc.), so I won't abandon it and go back to the Ubuntu I'd built on a different SD card. The Armbian experience was better and smoother than Ubuntu on the Orange Pi. Thanks very much to you and your community's efforts.
  4. Hi NicoD, Certainly, if one is underpowering any device (not just computers) the results are expected to be sub-optimal. The published voltage requirement of a Pi is 5.1v, with 4.75v being the low end for the Pi itself, where USB and other connected devices may fail before that point. As I mentioned, I've got a whole bunch of Pi 3 B+ and Zero Ws running on normal 5v USB power supplies and they've been 24/7 functional for years. I've got several robots with Pi 3 B+ and Pololu 5.0v regulators and yes, I do on occasion see brownouts (due to system load on the PSU) where the clock speed drops to compensate, but the Pi (and the robot) at least keeps going. I've ended up using variable PSUs set to 5.1v and the performance is much better. On systems with non-Pi SBCs I've had similar performance. The Orange Pi power consumption is almost twice that of a Pi 4 and runs a lot hotter, and I've not seen significant performance gains for my specific purposes so I'll likely go back to the Pi 4, maybe the Pi 3 B+ would suffice. I have been using passive heat sinks on the robots and software-controlled fans for the hotter SBCs. But I'm running most of this kind of thing on 5v 14A power supplies that are rock-solid. And thank you, I also appreciate friendly conversations. I completely understand the frustration in dealing with people who are being jerks. The world is difficult enough without resorting to name-calling, insulting or degrading language. It doesn't do anyone any good. I've found that everyone has value, regardless of background or experience, and while beginners and people with mistaken expectations can at times be truly annoying, it's better to try to explain to them the nature of volunteer labour and hope they understand. Or eventually leave. But as I'm sure you all have seen, sometimes the beginners grow up and become really valuable members of the community, and sometimes all it takes is a little bit of gentle explaining on how to behave.
  5. Hi NicoD, Thanks sincerely for your reply. Having read through the entirety of this topic I believe I understand the pros and cons of Armbian supporting or not supporting the Raspberry Pi. I wasn't addressing that specifically, more to do with the rather offensive attitude taken towards anyone who might have the temerity to actually admit using a Raspberry Pi. It's hardly a welcoming attitude. I think I've been participating in online discussions since USENET the mid-80s so I'm aware of the variety of people, personalities and attitudes displayed online. I'm not advocating censoring anyone, only that anyone who uses a Raspberry Pi coming into this community might think everyone here thinks we're idiots and noobs. Yes, everyone has a right to their own opinion, even when it is offensive. But that probably has turned a number of people away, intelligent people who don't appreciate being characterised as idiots simply because they choose (often for very good reasons) to use a Raspberry Pi. As an adult, yeah, sure, I can handle it, but I don't appreciate being insulted any more than the next person. Is that good for the Armbian community? And I haven't had the experience you've had on Raspberry Pi forums, either open or commercial. Yes, there are some children (literally) there and beginners, but most people seem pretty helpful. I've had plenty of light discussions and people have helped me through various problems, and I've done likewise for others. It's a community -- like this one. I bought my first Pi in 2011 -- it's still working fine. I've had about a half dozen of them around my house running 24/7 for the past six or seven years without a single problem. I've not found them particularly buggy (not more than any other computer), I've not had problems with undervoltage, overheating, etc. as you say. By comparison, I have had many, many problems with many of the alternative ARM boards, which are often almost undocumented, often buggy, require kernel hacks to function, have GPIO pins in odd places or not supported correctly, etc. My Orange Pi is running at 85°C doing much less than my Raspberry Pi is at 56°C. I've had nothing but trouble getting the I2C bus on my NanoPi Fire3 running, and every time I install the nvGRAPH library on my Xavier NX it bricks. But I accept that these boards aren't sold in the tens of millions like the Pi. I'm also not calling people who use them idiots. All I'm advocating is that people (some people) consider the effect of their not-so-gentle attitudes upon those who might be interested in Armbian, because my reading through this topic has turned me away. If it's too much to ask people not to needlessly insult others, then I probably wouldn't enjoy hanging around here very much anyway. As you say, I'm free to use or not use Armbian. And finally, the Raspberry Pi OS is actually open source and can be found at: https://github.com/raspberrypi
  6. Hmm. I'm trying to figure out how to respond to the overall tenor of this forum. It's difficult. I'm trying here to be generous and please note that this response is not to everyone. I turn 60 this year, with over 35 years in an engineering and IT career, including involvement with a lot of open source projects. I've worked on many standards committees and I have a demonstrable history of being able to communicate effectively. I'm not going to tout my credentials further because they mean nothing to the point I'm going to make, but please understand that I've worked in many places with strong engineering practices, with hundreds of millions up to billions of dollars in hardware and software. I'm neither an amateur nor a noob. Today I downloaded Armbian to run on an Orange Pi 4. I use a lot of different boards, including various models of the Raspberry Pi. Despite the fact that I've just gone to the trouble of installing Armbian and it looks fine, I'm going to remove it. Why? Because of reading posts in this forum, where I initially came simply to find some information but found instead a number of individuals (apparently among the leaders of the Armbian community) who I simply cannot abide because their attitudes, their anger, their sociopathy, because their deserved or undeserved hatred of the Raspberry Pi and the Raspberry Pi community is so explicit and offensive and ugly that every time I were to turn on my Orange Pi I'd think about those attitudes and that would just stink. If you guys can't be gentlemen, can't at least in public be diplomatic, can't stop calling people "clueless" and "idiots" and believing in "fairy tales and miracles", why do you think anyone exposed to your attitude would want to be associated with you? You sound like you're either 12 year olds or people severely on the spectrum who have no idea how to communicate in a healthy manner with other people. I can only assume you really don't care, or think your attitude is somehow cool, or feel there's little value in building a community. Or something. I don't know you, I'm neither your analyst nor your judge. But I would suggest seeking some counseling. No, you don't need my support. We don't know each other and I'm sure you won't miss me. I only hope before you decide that I'm simply another "idiot" (which I assume is how you deal with anyone you disagree with) you consider that having this kind of attitude towards other people doesn't benefit you, doesn't benefit anyone, is corrosive to the development of your own community. If you don't want the ignorant infecting your little pond it will dry up. The ignorant eventually learn and contribute mightily in a community. Despite their technical contributions those who disparage others in the way I've seen here will eventually destroy a community. If the Armbian project fails it probably won't because of any technical problem. Please learn to be nice to people, even noobs. Nobody wants the stink that you are raising on their hands. I certainly don't. I'll go elsewhere to find nicer people. Good bye.
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