RPi with 512mb Memory?

Now it's official. A 512MB Pi, and we certainly as more often than not heard it here first.

Thank you all deep miners of the Pi caverns to keep us all on the forefront of knowledge.

Ray

P.S. Dear Distro maintainers please do not suddenly make all your Pi OS distros twice as big and only suitable for the larger memory machines.

Ray Hughes wrote:

 

Now it's official. A 512MB Pi, and we certainly as more often than not heard it here first.

 

Thank you all deep miners of the Pi caverns to keep us all on the forefront of knowledge.

 

Ray

 

P.S. Dear Distro maintainers please do not suddenly make all your Pi OS distros twice as big and only suitable for the larger memory machines.

 

Pretty sure that the people here had no more idea that a 512 was imminently on the way than anywhere else. Lots of people predicting it eventually (well, obvious it was going to happen at some point), but not sure anyone predicted it so soon. Anyone can make Pi in the the sky predictions, its getting the timing right that's the important bit, and I don't reckon anyone saw this one coming so soon.

Making a distro twice as 'big' doesn't mean you need twice the memory - the kernel stays the same size (within reason) on any platform. Linux uses swap, so lower memory system will still work, but slower.

Bill.

jamodio wrote:

 

Well you are failing in your mission and even if you were in front of my face I'll still call you a moron, I don't feel the need to be polite with people like you that seems to have every intent to create flame wars.

Good luck with that. Next time you are in the Far East give me a shout.

ps. See my previous comment.

Since my original reply stating that the 1GB ram package quoted by Jamodio has been deleted, presumably because he didnt like to be shown to be wrong, I'll reiterate. That package will not work on a Raspberry Pi. It's the right physical size, and the right sort of DDR2, but it's interface is different and it has a different number of balls in its BGA array to find on the Raspberry Pi SoC. I leave it as an exercise for the reader to compare the datasheet with those of the current 256 RAM chips used on the Rasberry Pi for the exact reason.

Billy Thornton wrote:

 

My prediction now; there will never be a 1GB version. You heard it here first! (Citation : no one makes 1GB ddr2 PoP ram, and its an old technology, so no-one ever will).

Billy, you forgot to include a smiley

On Sept 2 earlier in this thread, John Beetem wrote:

 

The RasPi forum has just twigged to the 512MB version: see this thread.  On 31 August jamesh said that 512MB is the limit for the current board.  He didn't give away any RasPi Foundation plans.

Now, here's my prediction: there won't be a 1GB version with the BCM2835.  But there will most likely be future RasPis with different SoCs, perhaps even ones with a more powerful general-purpose CPU or multiple CPUs so you can dedicate one to USB and other housekeeping.

I didn't delete anything and BTW my reply to you was also deleted. I never said that that particular part would work with the RPi, just a proof that somebody out there is actually working on 1GB DDR2 PoP memory.

jamodio wrote:

 

I didn't delete anything and BTW my reply to you was also deleted. I never said that that particular part would work with the RPi, just a proof that somebody out there is actually working on 1GB DDR2 PoP memory.

You certainly implied it. Although I have realised that in my posts I omitted to say there I was refereing to the Raspberry Pi SoC, not 1Gb Pop in general. I just assuemd that's what we were talking about. Sorry for not being clear - there are quite a few 1GB PoP already out there in devices being sold - but none that fit on the 2835, and none, as far as I know, in the pipeline. It's old tech, and modern SoC have more channels and more chip selects, so that pipline ain't gonna be filled up.

John Beetem wrote:

 

Billy Thornton wrote:

 

My prediction now; there will never be a 1GB version. You heard it here first! (Citation : no one makes 1GB ddr2 PoP ram, and its an old technology, so no-one ever will).

Billy, you forgot to include a smiley

 

On Sept 2 earlier in this thread, John Beetem wrote:

 

The RasPi forum has just twigged to the 512MB version: see this thread.  On 31 August jamesh said that 512MB is the limit for the current board.  He didn't give away any RasPi Foundation plans.

 

Now, here's my prediction: there won't be a 1GB version with the BCM2835.  But there will most likely be future RasPis with different SoCs, perhaps even ones with a more powerful general-purpose CPU or multiple CPUs so you can dedicate one to USB and other housekeeping.

But that's cheating! I'd put money on their being a new Raspberry Pi with better SoC and 1GB but only when the p[rice point meets what they sell for now. And that will be a year at least.

The process of design, manufacture and release takes months end to end.  During that period, the 512MB version was never mythical, because mythical denotes products of the imagination which do not exist and will never exist.  In this case the 512MB version was completely tangible to RPF over that period, and to the rest of us it was a product with steadily increasing probability of existence as facts about it emerged piecemeal here and there.

This is how the community has to obtain its information by combining hints from various sources, because the Foundation's planning is not open about this.  Calling fellow members' estimates "myths" is not helpful here.

John Beetem wrote:

 

But there will most likely be future RasPis with different SoCs, perhaps even ones with a more powerful general-purpose CPU or multiple CPUs so you can dedicate one to USB and other housekeeping.

It's a reasonable guess that no engineer (hardware or software) who has been stung by the Pi's USB faults will want to repeat that experience.  Whatever SoC is chosen for the next Pi design, I think it is highly likely that it will contain a fully functional USB controller in hardware.

There's a limit to how much punishment people are willing to take.

Morgaine Dinova wrote:

 

John Beetem wrote:

 

But there will most likely be future RasPis with different SoCs, perhaps even ones with a more powerful general-purpose CPU or multiple CPUs so you can dedicate one to USB and other housekeeping.

 

It's a reasonable guess that no engineer (hardware or software) who has been stung by the Pi's USB faults will want to repeat that experience.  Whatever SoC is chosen for the next Pi design, I think it is highly likely that it will contain a fully functional USB controller in hardware.

 

There's a limit to how much punishment people are willing to take.

That's not a reasonable guess. Engineers work round problems, they don't just whine on about them and go elsewhere, especially if there is nowhere else to go. As far as my experience goes, the latest driver changes mean the USB works pretty well, so the vast majority of people will presumably not see any issues with USB, and I'm thinking that further changes will make it even better. Of course the vast majority of people buying the Pi are not engineers (yet) either.

Morgaine Dinova wrote:

 

John Beetem wrote:

 

But there will most likely be future RasPis with different SoCs, perhaps even ones with a more powerful general-purpose CPU or multiple CPUs so you can dedicate one to USB and other housekeeping.

 

It's a reasonable guess that no engineer (hardware or software) who has been stung by the Pi's USB faults will want to repeat that experience.  Whatever SoC is chosen for the next Pi design, I think it is highly likely that it will contain a fully functional USB controller in hardware.

 

There's a limit to how much punishment people are willing to take.

That's not a reasonable guess. Engineers work round problems, they don't just whine on about them and go elsewhere, especially if there is nowhere else to go. As far as my experience goes, the latest driver changes mean the USB works pretty well, so the vast majority of people will presumably not see any issues with USB, and I'm thinking that further changes will make it even better. Of course the vast majority of people buying the Pi are not engineers (yet) either.

Billy Thornton wrote:

 

Morgaine Dinova wrote:

 

It's a reasonable guess that no engineer (hardware or software) who has been stung by the Pi's USB faults will want to repeat that experience.  Whatever SoC is chosen for the next Pi design, I think it is highly likely that it will contain a fully functional USB controller in hardware.

 

There's a limit to how much punishment people are willing to take.

 

That's not a reasonable guess. Engineers work round problems, they don't just whine on about them and go elsewhere, especially if there is nowhere else to go.

Speaking for myself as a computer engineer, I do work around problems all the time -- if it's possible, and it's practical, and it's in the best interests of the product.  Sometimes it's time to bid adieu to a chip or technology -- no matter how nostalgic you feel towards it -- and move on to something newer and better.  I don't know the specifics of the Synopsys USB core used in the BCM2835, but given its published list of limitations and what other people have been saying here at element14 and at the RasPi forum I would guess that software alone will only go so far towards fixing the problems.  If the problems are because of USB core limitations, some due to capacity and some due to real-time response, working around them is bound to be incomplete.  If the problems are fixable by software, then it's just a matter of how good the documentation is and whether Linux can be made to respond fast enough.  However, we've heard the low-level device driver software is pretty hard to grok, so it may be that a better RasPi will arrive before the BCM2835 USB problems are fully solved