Rasberry Pi 3B

[booman]

I finally got to play with a Rasberry Pi
At my new job, there are audio engineers who test our software, drivers, firmware and other stuff on ARM processors using a Resberry Pi. So I figured, might as well ask if I could have one so I can be support for their Pi's. Now I finally got my chance to setup a Pi and play around with it.

I have to admit, it was fairly simple and all the Distros are readily available at first boot.
All you have to do is get a micro SD card, format it as Fat32 then download NOOBS and extract it to the SD card.
Pop it in, power it on and its ready to download/install the distro you want:

• Raspbian
• Pidora
• LibreELEC
• OSMC
• RISC OS
• Arch Linux

 

[cloasters]

Read that a super computer was constructed using 750 Raspberry Pi 3B's. Seems to work extremely well with some programming.

 

[booman]

Thats crazy! Where did you read it?
Imagine 750 Cores working together...

 

[cloasters]

Sorry, can't remember (along with my head) that I often leave on a pillow. Pretty darn certain that it is in China. It performs very well, but only on a few kinds of computin' iirc.

 

[danrok]

Found it here:
https://www.extremetech.com/extreme...-supercomputer-los-alamos-national-laboratory

Clever idea. Saves using their expensive supercomputer to test certain programs.

 

[cloasters]

Thank you very much for finding this link, danrok! I apologize for thinking that the thing is in China instead of the far more "patriotic" LANL.

Some folks assert that this 750 chunk of Pi 3B's is darn near useless. At least it's inexpensive if that is true.

 

[Gizmo]

To just generally call it 'useless' is a gross mischaracterization, IMO. Within the problem domain the Pi 3B is designed for, it is a highly competent product. Within the problem domain the Broadcom BCM2837 chip that forms the CPU core and peripherals is designed for, it is again a highly competent product.

Will a supercomputer built using nothing but PI 3s ever win the Linpack benchmark? Highly unlikely. There are many CPUs (and GPUs) out there capable of more raw computing power than the Broadcom chip. But the performance per watt is very good, and if your concern is more in the realm of bang/buck/watt than just BANG, then it's a viable solution to many problems.

Everything's a tradeoff. We used to have an phrase when I was doing display engineering, and it is (and I suspect always has been) true: "Better, Cheaper, Faster: pick any two (you can't have all three)".

 

[cloasters]

Beg pardon, but "near useless" isn't "useless."

 

[Gizmo]

No offense intended George; I wasn't ragging on you.

That said, it's been my experience that when someone says 'Darned near useless' that's code for "It might have a use, but I can't imagine one".

 

[cloasters]

That Gizmo guy--he knows much more than I do. About a plethora of subjects. I'm very glad that someone does!

 

[Gizmo]

We all know things. Sometimes we even know things that are useful. Just occasionally, that happens to be me.

 

[cloasters]

"Just occasionally" is far too modest. You pretty dang smart mi amigo! Very glad to have you on board!!

 

[Daniel~]

If he's so smart why aren't I rich? ":O}

 

[booman]

Rich just ain't in-the-cards for me!

 

[cloasters]

LOL. Rich in spirit and other worthwhile things beats rich in money alone by many a parsec. IMHO, others will disagree. You go Bezos baby, ain't he the cat's miaow? Not by my or any other thinking cat.

 

[Daniel~]

Far be it from me....
That's all. Everything that looks like money is far from me, ":O}

 

[Gizmo]

If he's so smart why aren't I rich? ":O}

Because I keep it all for myself.

Seriously though, I look at the stuff that people are paying money for and I just...........like......"seriously? You paid good money for that?"

My problem, I think, is that I'm just no good at marketing.

 

[Daniel~]

Because I keep it all for myself.

\

Oh! You one sharp cookie!