Last Updated on October 19, 2023 by pg@petergamma.org
| Nr | Device | question |
| 1 | Pinephone | Is it developed further after Pinephone developer Martijn Braam has left Pine64? |
| Aren t the peripherals tricky to use? | ||
| Shipping and import taxes to Switzerland are high. Can this not be optimized? A Pinephone & keyboard incl. shipping and import taxes costs around 400 USD which is shipped separately, combined shipping is as far as we know not possible. Can the Pinephone compete here with Raspberry Pi’s which are offered in every Pi shop in many countries around the world without high shipping and import taxes? If we only use the PP as a mini PC it is around 280 USD in Switzerland a similar configuration based on Pi’s costs around 100 USD | ||
| Is software installation on the Pinephone not tricky? LibreOffice installation on the Pinephone took us almost a month working every day a little bit on it. We received great support in the Pine 64 forum, without that it would have been very difficult for physiologists like us. Now LibreOffice can be installed from the postmarketOS app store which is great. We now have installed Abiword and Gnumeric instead of LibreOffice on our PP but we have not used and tested it. We have invested a lot of money and time in the Pinephone but still cannot use it for our purpose. We are interested in mobile office and to use it as a mobile physiological data aquisition system. We are on a long term project and did these investements. What alternatives do we have? | ||
| The PP is not available in Switzerland from sellers who offer 24 month warranty. | ||
| 2 | Ubuntu Touch devices | Isn’t software installation on it as tricky as with the Pinephone exept for applications which are in the app store? And is the app store of Ubuntu touch not still little populated? Is the battery life as poor as with the Pinephone? |
| It cannot write to the external SD card | ||
| It cannot boot from to the external SD card | ||
| 3 | Raspberry Pi 4 | Can Raspberry Pi get our trust back after Corona? What will happen at the next Corona break-out? will happen again what happened before? Did Raspberry Pi change anything? |
| The Pi 5 is faster, why should we still use the Pi 4? Because the Pi 5 will not be available in the best stores in Zurich at the end of October, in most stores around the world only at the beginning of next year. The Pi 5 is only available for pre-order in the best shops in Zurich. | ||
| The Pi 4 with 4 GB RAM is not available at Digitec Switzerland | ||
| The Pi 4 with 8 GB RAM is not available at Digitec Switzerland | ||
| 4 | Raspberry Pi 5 | Can Raspberry Pi get our trust back after Corona? What will happen at the next Corona break-out? Will the Pi 5 not be available for years? |
| Can we trust offers with no clear shipping date and unclear conditions? | ||
| Do not most accessoires have to be updated? | ||
| Does not the software need to be updated and tested? | ||
| 5 | Raspberry Pi zero 2 w | Can Raspberry Pi get our trust back after Corona? What will happen at the when the next Corona break-out? Will the Raspberry Pi zero 2 not be available for years again or be very expensive? Is only the Raspberry Pi zero stable in price? |
| At stores listed at www.toppreise.ch where we usually buy it is not available in a single store. | ||
| Is only 512MB Ram sufficient for our application and our OS? | ||
| Is the community of users an developers big enough so that this SBC is an interesting device? | ||
| Would DiedPi not be a good choice as an OS for this SBC? Or is DiedPi only for developers? | ||
| What can we actually do with this this device? | ||
| 6 | Orange Pi 5 Plus | Why is it not available from Digitec Switzerland? Because hardly any software runs on it? Digitec sells almost anything which we are looking for, but also things like Radxa zeros, and LattePandas. But only www.Techstudio.ch sells the OP5. |
| Where can we find a forum for Ubuntu on the Orange Pi 5 Plus? In the Ubuntu forum this SBC is not mentioned. | ||
| Home Assistant runs on it but who uses it with the OP5? | ||
| Which software next to Kodi, LibreOffice, Gparted, pdf reader, Firefox is shown in a YouTube demo and runs stable? | ||
| Bluetooth works on the Orange Pi 5 Plus, but we suppose not Bluetooth keyboards and mice. Is it not possible to install drivers an other applications to solve this problem? | ||
| Can we install Pyton on it in the Ubuntu Software Center and use it on the OP5? Can we control the GPIO pins of the OP5 with Python? | ||
| Are there any applications which use the GPIO pins of the OP5? Or do we have to read the manual and code it by ourselves in C++? | ||
| 7 | armbian SBCs | Some of our posts where sensored by the armbian forum and we therefore do not trust armbian. We are banned from the armbian forum, why? We experienced before a similar phenomena, for instance in the Matlab community where our posts where deleted. Was it becaues there is something better than Matlab and that is Python? So is there something better than armbian but what exactly is it? |
| Which software can be installed on armbian SBCs exept from games? | ||
| 8 | Mango Pi MQ Quatt | Is only for developers, and if so are there any developers who use it? |
| There is no lightweight distro image available such as armbian. | ||
| It is not available in Switzerland from a seller who offers a 24 month warranty. | ||
| Which software can be installed on it? We only know of a headless demo. There is a Debian image available. Can we install and run Python on it? Is there software available to control the GPIO pins, how can we control those? | ||
| There is no image available where Bluetooth and Wifi works out of the box, we have to fix it by ourselves. | ||
| 9 | Latte Panda SBCs | Did stock market speculation with those as soon as we showed interest in those. How can we trust DF Robot not to increase prices for their SBCs to the infinite as soon as we use those for developements and mention those? |
| LattePanda offers a big variety of very powerful SBCs, but there is only a small community in their forum. | ||
| We found no newer version than Ubuntu 16.04 from DF Robot also for their latest of SBCs. Is Ubuntu not a real alternative to Windos on LattePandas? Or has it no community? And is Windows a suitable OS for SBCs? | ||
| Which desktop software can be installed on it? Does Matlab run on it which requires a x86 cpu which LattePanda SBCs have? Windows OS runs on it. Can we install and run Python on it? Can we control the GPIO pins in Python, or how can we control those? | ||
| 10 | Pi EEG | Can Raspberry Pi get our trust back after Corona? What will happen at the next Corona break-out? Will Pi’s not be available for years again? Should we choose a platform which is based on Pi’s for our own developements and depend on Pi’s? Or more precise, on the latest Pi’s? Is it better to rely on older Pi’s Does Raspberry Pi Inc. try to force us to buy Raspberry Pi for industry at the next Corona break out if we urgently need a device during this time? Is it not better not to rely on Pi’s and have an alternative SBC which we choose as soon as we want? But is there a Pi alternative which is worth mentioning? Pi EEG for instance is not available for the Orange Pi 5 Plus as a shield. And we do not know if the software for PiEEG runs on the OP5. |
| 11 | Raspberry Pi for industry | Will Raspberry Pi offer us a Raspberry Pi 5 for industry when the next Corona break-out happens tomorrow? For Home users the Pi 5 will not be available until the end of Corona, but only for professionals for a special price? For those professionals who money does not matter, a special offer from Raspberry Pi Inc. for all professionals who need it urgently for their special application which are willing to pay any price? As for instance a Raspberry Pi 5 for industry for 25’000 USD with 4 GB RAM? This is the price example for the latest OpenBCI product Galea with 16 channels which was offered to us recently. And a Raspberry Pi 5 for industry for 50’000 USD with 8 GB RAM? This is the price example for the 32 channel EEG heatset by g.tec medical was offered to us recently. Are openbci, g.tec medical and raspberry pi companies which are threatened with bankruptcy? And are they being put under pressure by banks to make such offers? If so should we not look for alternative products from alternative developes as soon as possible? Are all of these prices calculated by a marketing software to achieve maximum profit to save those companies? But will users buy these devices? Do we have to expect things like this from Raspberry Pi in the future, and are we confronted with these kind of questions? If so what to do? |
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