[Wylug-discuss] Raspberry Pi

[sh2515+linux]

On 20.11.2013 22:54, Paul Brook wrote:
>> They are good, but I may have bought beaglebone for webserver if 
>> doing
>> it again. If you have the money the udoo looks good, but at that 
>> price
>> is it better to get a microserver?
>
> "microserver" is a sufficiently generic term that it's hard to say.
> But there
> are definitely an increasing number of alternatives to a Pi. The 
> beaglebone
> black, and cubieboard being the examples that spring to mind.  For a
> bit more
> money (say £100) then there are many much more capable alternatives,
> both Arm
> and x86 based.

Which ones do you recommend for the above price?

>
> Personally I think the Pi is a particularly poor piece of hardware.
> The only
> technical benefit of the Pi is the hardware video decode (assuming 
> you're
> willing to pay for the proprietary codec licence). The rest of the
> hardware is
> distinctly sub-standard.  I don't deny that it was one of the first 
> linux
> capable boards in its price range, and arguably a staggering 
> publicity
> success, but its age[1] and extreme cheapness really show.
>
> If you're looking for a NAS/server system then I'd strongly recommend
> something with proper ethernet[2] and ideally SATA. It makes 
> everything a
> whole lot simpler and more reliable.
>
> Paul
>
> [1] The arm core around which the Pi is built is substantially older
> than the
> Pi itself. So much so that most modern Linux distributions (and many 
> Android
> vendors) consider it obsolete and not worth supporting.
> [2] The Pi ethernet is implemented via an onboard USB-ethernet 
> bridge.  This
> is a questionable solution to start with, and only gets worse when 
> you
> consider that issues that the Pi USB implementation seems to have.