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Hello, |
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|
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> I've looked around at the Raspberry Pi 3 |
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> |
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> [...] |
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> |
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> I would prefer running Gentoo on it |
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> |
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> [...] |
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> |
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> Any opinions or use cases and stories would be much appreciated. |
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|
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well I'm running Gentoo on a Raspberry Pi 2. Getting Gentoo basically |
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running on it wasn't too hard. There's some good information on the |
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wiki: |
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|
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https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Raspberry_Pi |
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|
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I got the Raspberry primarily for multimedia type of applications and |
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experimentations. In the end I ended up with quite an array of extra |
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hardware: |
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|
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- a good USB power supply that can provide at least 2.0 A which is |
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recommended |
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- a 32 GB microSD card for holding the (mostly) read-only part of Gentoo |
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- a 16 GB USB drive for holding read/write partitions like /tmp which |
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speeds things up a bit and improves the lifetime of the microSD card |
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- the official raspberry pi touch display |
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https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/raspberry-pi-touch-display/ |
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- a USB wifi WLAN/Bluetooth dongle for wireless connectivity |
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- a USB soundcard, because the onboard audio on the Raspberry has a |
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terrible sound quality |
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|
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These are my experiences: |
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|
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- compiling your own Kernel for the Raspberry can be challenging until |
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all devices are running as expected. |
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- compilation for the Raspberry for Gentoo is *very* slow even with |
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using distcc to distribute the load on bigger machines. |
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- all kinds of file system writes tend to be slow due to the of memory |
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devices used (microSD card, USB flash drive). |
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- the touchscreen works fine so far even with the touch and some basic |
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gestures working. Some special drivers from Gentoo Portage overlays |
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are required, however. |
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- booting is acceptably fast. I'm running an X server and fluxbox as |
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window manager. It's finished booting after about a minute. |
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- I got hardware accelerated video decoding running but it was a real |
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pain. The broadcom graphics chip is only supported by either a |
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proprietary video player or by the gstreamer framework. I think I |
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compiled gstreamer and OpenGL/Mesa stuff for days in different |
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configurations until I got something out of it. |
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- Getting a fast and fully featured web browser for the Raspberry is |
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something I've still not achieved. Currently I'm running firefox on it |
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which is unbearably slow. |
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|
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So in conclusion it's a fun embedded device to work with. It was not too |
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cheap (especially because of the touchscreen). I use it regularly for |
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listening to music or watching short videos. It's too slow, however, for |
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web browsing and much interactive/GUI use. Compiling software on it |
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requires patience. And getting all the drivers and devices working in |
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the first place can be a challenge. |
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|
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Best regards |
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|
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Matthias |
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|
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-- |
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Matthias Gerstner, Dipl.-Wirtsch.-Inf. (FH) |
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Entwicklung |
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|
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NCP engineering GmbH |
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Dombühler Straße 2, D-90449, Nürnberg |
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Geschäftsführer Peter Söll, HRB-Nr: 77 86 Nürnberg |
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|
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Telefon: +49 911 9968-153, Fax: +49 911 9968-229 |
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E-Mail: Matthias.Gerstner@×××××.com |
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Internet: http://www.ncp-e.com |