The Banana Pi BPI-M7 single board computer is equipped with up to 32GB RAM and 128GB eMMC flash, and features an M.2 2280 socket for one NVMe SSD, three display interfaces (HDMI, USB-C, MIPI DSI), two camera connectors, dual 2.5GbE, WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2, a few USB ports, and a 40-pin GPIO header for expansion.
“More reasons to Avoid the Raspberry Pi”
I didn’t know we even had reasons to avoid it
There aren’t really any reasons to avoid it. There are certainly reasons to choose an alternative product, namely the complete unavailability of 4B and 5 boards. My biggest issue so far is that the alternatives offer features that I don’t want, or have a price that’s way too high for a SBC
Is unavailability still an issue? My local computer store always has a lot in stock of them in stock these days.
Considering the 5 isn’t even being sold yet, I question the validity of your anecdote. The 3B and 4/4B are still hit or miss as far as stock goes. I just bought a 3B from Digikey and it’s the first I’ve seen them in stock since before COVID though it’s not as if I’ve been checking rpilocator daily for updates.
Yes it is. My local store had stock three weeks ago: https://x.com/centralcomputer/status/1719814131652440132. I didn’t buy one since I have enough computers, but I physically saw them at the store.
Every time I’ve been there this year, they’ve had the Pi 4B in stock.
Straight up some of those single board computers cost so much that I’ve just considered getting an old mini office PC
They’re really capable and can be had for like $100
Yeah, unless you need the GPIO or the lower power consumption of a Pi, mini PCs are better for 90% of the projects people use single board computers for. Plus you usually get upgradable ram, and more-resilient storage.
Last time I needed IO pins for a project I ended going with a circuit python compatible board
I think I went with a Qt Py with an esp32, it was like $15, has native type C, and was really easy to work with
You may want to have a read at this: https://lemmy.world/comment/5357961. The Pi is becoming the least consumer friendly SBC and a money grab like no other.
[Citations Needed]
What if you really hate support and ease of finding images online?
What if you really hate the fact that The RPi foundation is being hostile against people nowadays with proprietary PCIe connectors, telemetry, requiring a custom flash tool to get SSH and whatnot?
You can dd the iso without any problems.
Yes you can, but then without a display and keyboard you won’t be able to SSH into the thing right away. They’re using small tricks like that to push people into their tool and you’ll be seeing more of that crap in the future.
Don’t you just touch SSH in the /boot dir after you flash, then you can SSH in as pi and password raspberry?
The workarounds are either using their tool or doing what you suggested. Other SBCs do the reasonable thing and have it enabled by default like the Pi did in the past. This change simply pushes less-proficient users into using their tool.
Having it enabled by default is a pretty massive security hole. I preordered the raspberry pi 1 when it launched and I don’t remember SSH ever being enabled be default in their images. Where did you hear it was enabled by default?
I was, I remember it being that way. They later on made it so you would be required to change the password after the first login.
Most people are running those in a home network that is isolated either way. Most people even share their entire hard drives on the network with little to no security and you’re telling me a Pi with SSH access enabled by default is a risk? Professional deployments will be done by people who know how to change the passwords, port and use keys. There’s no reason to consider that an issue because of those reasons.
This is not true
https://roboticsbackend.com/enable-ssh-on-raspberry-pi-raspbian/
The workarounds are either using their tool and/or fiddling on the SD card. Other SBCs do the reasonable thing and have it enabled by default. This simply pushes people into using their tool.
The extra menu in the flasher does the magic on the sd-card. I’ve been setting up headless pi’s since before 3b came out, and the same options are available today.
The idea that ssh being enabled by default is reasonable is just like your opinion. Did you know you have to enable it during installation on both Debian and canonicals derivative? Maybe it’s still on by default on fedora (with root login enabled to help you!)
If editing your config is fiddling then I struggle to see your use of an sbc.
The difference is that Debian requires you to install with a screen/keyboard and/or use something generic like cloud-init not a proprietary tool that pushes people into telemetry and whatnot. Also a Pi is a lot less critical than a full system and almost always used by hobbyists. Professional users would change passwords / use keys so, yes, it makes absolutely no sense.
There’s definitely an argument for not supporting the Pi Foundation with their anti-consumer practices over the last few years. They’ve sold out to corporate interests and don’t give a shit about the educational/hobbyist mission of the original Raspberry Pi.
I think the reasons are they are pushing a competing product.
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