Linked by Thom Holwerda on Wed 30th May 2012 22:21 UTC
It took the world a good while, but today, my Raspberry Pi finally landed on my doormat. Since it only arrived today, I haven't had the time to put it through its paces, but I do have a few first impressions to share with you all, while I also want to explain how the Pi will allow me to complete my already seven year long quest for The Elusive Three.
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RE: No good if you want to learn how to write an OS...
by Jondice on Thu 31st May 2012 04:00
in reply to "No good if you want to learn how to write an OS..."
Member since:2006-09-20
I was also quite sad about this, even though I don't plan on writing an OS or doing anything close to that anytime soon. Might not have purchased one had I known, though I guess in designing such a cheap system their choice in chipsets may have been limited ... just a guess though.
RE[2]: No good if you want to learn how to write an OS...
by zima on Thu 31st May 2012 18:27
in reply to "RE: No good if you want to learn how to write an OS..."
Member since:2005-07-06
What probably also played a role, I guess, is how the RaspberryPi Foundation is a stone's throw away from the UK Broadcom R&D branch in Cambridge - which also designs that line of SoCs, it seems.
And how one of RPi fathers (even the director of RPi Foundation?) works as a chip designer at Broadcom.
http://www.raspberrypi.org/about
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphamosaic
Edited 2012-05-31 18:27 UTC
RE: No good if you want to learn how to write an OS...
by sithlord2 on Thu 31st May 2012 07:56
in reply to "No good if you want to learn how to write an OS..."
Member since:2009-04-02
RE[2]: No good if you want to learn how to write an OS...
by Anachronda on Thu 31st May 2012 20:17
in reply to "RE: No good if you want to learn how to write an OS..."
Member since:2007-04-18
It's actually a bit backwards. The GPU is the main processor and the ARM is an auxiliary. When the system is started, the GPU wakes up, fetches the blob from the SD card, and that blob contains a program that brings up the ARM.
No matter what OS runs, the blob is needed in order to boot the ARM.
RE: No good if you want to learn how to write an OS...
by DexOSHacker on Thu 31st May 2012 15:25
in reply to "No good if you want to learn how to write an OS..."
Member since:2012-01-05
RE[2]: No good if you want to learn how to write an OS...
by SWC01 on Fri 1st Jun 2012 06:13
in reply to "RE: No good if you want to learn how to write an OS..."
Member since:2012-05-31
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/19/13 23:02 UTC, submitted by M.Onty
"Microsoft has sensationally abandoned its controversial plans to restrict the sharing of XBox One games, and has also removed daily online authentication requirements for its forthcoming console", reports The Guardian. They had no choice. Still a good move.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/19/13 22:28 UTC
"A snippet of code in the Steam digital distribution platform has revealed that Valve may be planning to let users easily share their games with friends in the future. The Verge has verified the code's authenticity, which was originally spotted by a member of the NeoGAF gaming forum; the code references a 'shared game library' and a notification that would alert a user when their games are currently in use by a borrower." This would change the, uh, game.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 22:33 UTC
Official Apple statement on PRISM and privacy: "Regardless of the circumstances, our Legal team conducts an evaluation of each request and, only if appropriate, we retrieve and deliver the narrowest possible set of information to the authorities. In fact, from time to time when we see inconsistencies or inaccuracies in a request, we will refuse to fulfill it." This is basically Apple re-publishing their earlier statement in a more official manner. You either believe it, or you don't.
Linked by Anonymous on 06/18/13 22:26 UTC
The open source Contiki operating system and its commercial Thingsquare distribution are making strides towards the connected home. According to a Computerworld article, a new LED light bulb manufacturer is putting small computers into their light bulbs. Each computer runs the Contiki OS, which gives each bulb an IP address and allows them to be controlled with a smartphone application. To connect the bulbs to the application, the bulbs use both Wi-Fi and the much lower power IEEE 802.15.4 mesh technology.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 22:25 UTC
"Google asked the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on Tuesday to ease long-standing gag orders over data requests it makes, arguing that the company has a constitutional right to speak about information it's forced to give the government. The legal filing, which cites the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech, is the latest move by the California-based tech giant to protect its reputation in the aftermath of news reports about sweeping National Security Agency surveillance of Internet traffic." Draining the ditch after the cow has drowned in it.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 17:45 UTC
"I can't find one person who has been using the Nexus 7 for an extended period of time, and hasn't seen a massive downgrade in performance. Just what kind of downgrade are we talking here? I cannot pick up my Nexus 7 without experiencing problems like a lag of ten seconds, or more, just to rotate the display; touches refusing to acknowledged; stuttering notification panel actions; and unresponsive apps." Fully and utterly agreed. My Nexus 7 was blazing-fast and awesome for a few months, and at some point, it just started sucking. Just like that. I've tried loads of ROMs, and nothing helps.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 17:32 UTC, submitted by poundsmack
A new release of the hobby operating system MenuetOS! The release notes are a bit non-descript, but you'll have to take what you can get: "updates and improvements (picview, httpc, ehci, ...)".
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/17/13 17:58 UTC
"The Internet is one of the most transformative technologies of our lifetimes. But for 2 out of every 3 people on earth, a fast, affordable Internet connection is still out of reach. And this is far from being a solved problem. There are many terrestrial challenges to Internet connectivity - jungles, archipelagos, mountains. There are also major cost challenges. Right now, for example, in most of the countries in the southern hemisphere, the cost of an Internet connection is more than a month's income. Solving these problems isn't simply a question of time: it requires looking at the problem of access from new angles. So today we're unveiling our latest moonshot from Google[x]: balloon-powered Internet access." Insane.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/17/13 17:52 UTC
"MineAssemble is a tiny bootable Minecraft clone written partly in x86 assembly. I made it first and foremost because a university assignment required me to implement a game in assembly for a computer systems course. Because I had never implemented anything more complex than a 'Hello World' bootloader before, I decided I wanted to learn about writing my own kernel code at the same time. Note that the goal of this project was not to write highly efficient hand-optimized assembly code, but rather to have fun and write code that balances readability and speed. This is primarily accomplished by proper commenting and consistent code structuring." Just cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/14/13 21:03 UTC
Jon Rubinstein, former CEO of Palm: "Well, I'm not sure I would have sold the company to HP. That's for sure. Talk about a waste. Not that I had any choice because when you sell a company you don't get to decide that. Obviously, the board and shareholders decide that. If we had known they were just going to shut it down and never really give it a chance to flourish, what would have been the point of selling the company? I think the deal we had with Verizon really hurt us, but who knew that at the time? These things are all hindsight."More News »
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Member since:
2006-01-02
I was initially interested in Pi as a tool to learn how to write an Operating System from scratch! Yes I know, a massively challenging task, but something that would be interesting none the less, especially on ARM.
However, my hopes were quickly dashed when I learnt that this thing required a proprietary binary BLOB to get the graphics and other sub-systems to load.
Back to attempting to do this with an x86 VM I guess!