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Pi vs BeagleBone-Black

Former Member

So, just over a year on from the initial availability of the R-Pi and the new BeagleBone Black is upon us.  They've obviously taken a leaf out of the RPF's playbook and produced a cost reduced version at a price only marginally above the Pi.

 

I find it interesting that the compromises are very different, for example there's a proper PMIC and the ethernet is not troubled by being connected to USB, however the on-board HDMI seems less capable.

 

Other differences are in the documentation, I'm currently viewing the pcb gerbers for the beaglebone..  Have yet to see any sign of those for the R-Pi a year later. There's even an up to date devicetree capable kernel too.

 

Technology has also moved on somewhat, we get a 1GHz Cortex A8 which is better than the Pi, along with various other stuff and lots more GPIO's too.

 

Ok, so it's clear that I like the look of the new beaglebone, and given the price I'm likely to put any further R-Pi plans on hold until I have a chance to play with this. It's also making things like the Olinuxino-maxi I bought recently look very slow/expensive while still being cheaper than the similarly specced Olinuxino-A13

 

Some details of the beaglebone-black here http://circuitco.com/support/index.php?title=BeagleBoneBlack

 

What do the rest of you think ?   I don't expect this to displace the Pi anytime soon, but I expect it to be very attractive to those people who don't simply want to put XBMC on it and duct tape it to the back of the TV..

Parents

  • Morgaine Dinova wrote:

     

    I wonder if my use of the word "confuse" is making my point get misinterpreted.  I'll try a different form of words.

     

    A desire for openness is one thing.  A desire for functionality is another thing.  Those two things are not one and the same thing.  What's more, it's perfectly possible and common that a person can want both things.  But even when a person wants both, they are still not the same thing.  They are completely different things.

     

    And that is why neither of the following two actions make sense:

     

    1. Taking a weighted average of two different things, "functionality" and "openness".
    2. Using that weighted average of two things to then modify that single thing "openness".

     

    I mean really, that would be a manifestly dreadful fudge, as well as being simply invalid.  Greater functionality can never alter the degree of openness of a product, so no, the weighted average idea makes no sense at all.

    Ah, I see the disconnect!  Yes I agree with both those points and by no means meant to imply that's what I wanted.  The weighted average I was speaking to was let's say you have two boards.  Board "A" has 3 closed sourced items: It's bootloader, it's USB drivers, and its GPU, but there are seveal ways of interfacing with it that are popular and well known.  Board "B" only has a single closed sourced items it's CPU (I'm oversimplyfying I know), but its bootcode is open and free, and it has an old basic GPU that they released the documentation for.  Now currently we'd go "Board A has 3 closed sourced items and one of them is a fatal flaw because it requires a non-free software to boot.  Board B has a major flaw but only one so we would say Board "B" is closer to being truly open.

     

    This, in my opinion, is a mistake.  It's not that we excuse away the closed sourced items in board A, it's that we recognize that the one items of board B is a much more signfican issue than not being able to see the bootcode or having to access the GPU through other established means.

     

    More to what I mean by weighted, imagine if Board A and B have the exact same limitation: only the GPU is closed.  Now the manufacture of Board A decides to release some methods of tweaking stuff in the GPU at boot, whereas Board B locks it up completely in hardware such that you can't even keep it field programmable (which is a huge exageration just to convey the concept of what I mean, lol).  The way we are now we would actually appluade Board B because they've effectively become open source, but it's Board A that is *actually* making strides in the correct direction.

     

    So when I say we need to make it a weighted average, I'm saying we need to look at the direction they're going, look at the items that are closed, consider any amount of usability they've made open, and then grading them on a percentage on how open they are, the ultimate goal of which is 100%.  Now on the usability thing, yes ultimately that's going to mean functionality, but it's not about "Oh, they made x number of things usable", it's about "They made x strides towards truly opening it up" such that when they're being graded (so to speak) it's not about how many features they have, but how open those features make it.  (in which case a single feature could open up something much more significantly than 100 other features).

Reply

  • Morgaine Dinova wrote:

     

    I wonder if my use of the word "confuse" is making my point get misinterpreted.  I'll try a different form of words.

     

    A desire for openness is one thing.  A desire for functionality is another thing.  Those two things are not one and the same thing.  What's more, it's perfectly possible and common that a person can want both things.  But even when a person wants both, they are still not the same thing.  They are completely different things.

     

    And that is why neither of the following two actions make sense:

     

    1. Taking a weighted average of two different things, "functionality" and "openness".
    2. Using that weighted average of two things to then modify that single thing "openness".

     

    I mean really, that would be a manifestly dreadful fudge, as well as being simply invalid.  Greater functionality can never alter the degree of openness of a product, so no, the weighted average idea makes no sense at all.

    Ah, I see the disconnect!  Yes I agree with both those points and by no means meant to imply that's what I wanted.  The weighted average I was speaking to was let's say you have two boards.  Board "A" has 3 closed sourced items: It's bootloader, it's USB drivers, and its GPU, but there are seveal ways of interfacing with it that are popular and well known.  Board "B" only has a single closed sourced items it's CPU (I'm oversimplyfying I know), but its bootcode is open and free, and it has an old basic GPU that they released the documentation for.  Now currently we'd go "Board A has 3 closed sourced items and one of them is a fatal flaw because it requires a non-free software to boot.  Board B has a major flaw but only one so we would say Board "B" is closer to being truly open.

     

    This, in my opinion, is a mistake.  It's not that we excuse away the closed sourced items in board A, it's that we recognize that the one items of board B is a much more signfican issue than not being able to see the bootcode or having to access the GPU through other established means.

     

    More to what I mean by weighted, imagine if Board A and B have the exact same limitation: only the GPU is closed.  Now the manufacture of Board A decides to release some methods of tweaking stuff in the GPU at boot, whereas Board B locks it up completely in hardware such that you can't even keep it field programmable (which is a huge exageration just to convey the concept of what I mean, lol).  The way we are now we would actually appluade Board B because they've effectively become open source, but it's Board A that is *actually* making strides in the correct direction.

     

    So when I say we need to make it a weighted average, I'm saying we need to look at the direction they're going, look at the items that are closed, consider any amount of usability they've made open, and then grading them on a percentage on how open they are, the ultimate goal of which is 100%.  Now on the usability thing, yes ultimately that's going to mean functionality, but it's not about "Oh, they made x number of things usable", it's about "They made x strides towards truly opening it up" such that when they're being graded (so to speak) it's not about how many features they have, but how open those features make it.  (in which case a single feature could open up something much more significantly than 100 other features).

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