Pi Hater?

[63854]

Recently I stumbled upon this https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi on Debian's Wiki...

[pygmy_giant]

weird

[jamesh]

Yes, the guy who maintains that page has a very large bee in his bonnet. Unfortunately, anyone who tries to alter the page get their changes reverted, even if they are simply correct one of the numerous mistake on the page. Not great, but it's not the Foundation Wiki, so he can write what he likes, true or not.

Which is one reason why the Foundation has taken a lot of documentation in house, and made it a change request system rather than a Wiki.

[DougieLawson]

It may be a good thing. It's dissuading folks from trying DebIan on their RPis so they'll come here, find Raspbian and get something that will work and will use the hard-float on the ARM6.

I can't see how anyone is likely to stumble on that DebIan rant by accident without stumbling on to here first.

Google does the right thing: https://www.google.com/search?q=raspberry+pi+debian

[MattHawkinsUK]

The guy clearly has issues. What has the Pi's educational credentials got to do with Debian? Looks like that Wiki page is the only bit of control he has on the World and he is using it to grind his little axe.

Sad. I hope he gets help.

[plugwash]

I've edited it to try and make it more balanced, lets see if it sticks, if it doesn't then I'm going to bring this up on the mailling lists.

[Jednorozec]

I think that the pros that he mentioned make the Pi far superior to any of the other boards that he lists. I have a Beagle Bone Black and it's in the doghouse because I can't stand the distro that it comes with. I run Debian on my main box so I really like Raspbian.

[Richard-TX]

I think that the pros that he mentioned make the Pi far superior to any of the other boards that he lists. I have a Beagle Bone Black and it's in the doghouse because I can't stand the distro that it comes with. I run Debian on my main box so I really like Raspbian.

There is no perfect machine and the Rpi is no exception. The fun factor of the Rpi is what makes it superior.

THe BBB delivered distro (Angstrom) does indeed suck rocks. However Wheezy or Ubuntu seems fine.

[chrisryall]

I have always felt that the default boot into desktop was a design error, trying to be what it's not? So fair criticism there, and something that caused me some pain to workaround as a noob. Not quite sure what is his, what is edit at present, but it looks balanced just now. Nothing is perfect, eg I find the potentially "smokey" 3v3/5v mix still awkward.

[edit] eg just today, another post asking for help on how to sense 5v input (albeit these bridges have to be crossed)

[DougieLawson]

Eh? None of my SDCards has ever booted to a desktop.

[jamesh]

I have always felt that the default boot into desktop was a design error, trying to be what it's not? So fair criticism there, and something that caused me some pain to workaround as a noob. Not quite sure what is his, what is edit at present, but it looks balanced just now. Nothing is perfect, eg I find the potentially "smokey" 3v3/5v mix still awkward.

[edit] eg just today, another post asking for help on how to sense 5v input (albeit these bridges have to be crossed)

But, it doesn't default to booting to a desktop....does it? Mind you, I just use Raspbian, not NOOBS.

[pluggy]

From a Debian point of view (it is their wiki) , rather than from a Raspberry Pi point of view, its probably not an unfair appraisal. Debian has been around for decades, not the 2 years of the Pi, for most members on here Debian begins and ends with the Pi. Debian is old school, hard core linux territory and in such a community binary blobs and closed source software are really no-no.
I have my signature for a reason, because the way I saw it many people on here see the Pi's shortcomings as Linux shortcomings, because for most people here Linux is an OS that only the Raspberry Pi uses, and running Linux on more capable hardware doesn't cross their minds. The Pi has real benefits over PC hardware in some arenas (usually revolving around its cost and low power consumption), but mainstream desktop computer certainly isn't one of them, way too many caveats and gotchas over Linux on better hardware.

None of my Raspdian Pis have a desktop at all, I have a script that removes X and everthing X related so it takes up less space on the SD card. The desktop isn't a happy experience and its just a waste of space for my way of using a Pi.

[jamesh]

It only unfair in those areas where the facts are wrong. The openness of the 3D stuff for example. I'm all for factual criticism, and as we all know the Pi isn't a panacea, but people should be able to decide on correct facts, not someone's biased opinion.

Note: We are all biased here to one extent or another, it comes with the territory.

[GTR2Fan]

+1.

[pluggy]

Its still Debians Wiki and I doubt the Pi will ever meet the criteria for openness that a Debian hard-liner demands whilst its got a Broadcom Chip in it. You may as well try and solve the Arab-Israeli conflict.

[johndough]

Its still Debians Wiki and I doubt the Pi will ever meet the criteria for openness that a Debian hard-liner demands whilst its got a Broadcom Chip in it. You may as well try and solve the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Hi

Of course some people are quite keen on "open-ness".

I guess the Intel processor is closed (and AMD etc) like the Broadcom. Doesn't Debian run on Intel, AMD etc.

Is this an alternative???
http://www.geeky-gadgets.com/novena-ope ... 3-04-2014/

[Richard-TX]

There are/were some issues withing the ARM community itself. Even Linux Torvalds is complaining....bitterly.

http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.ker ... us=1114703
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/1121300
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/1120844

Linus sums it all up with this gem.

"I know ARM people who think that x86 is an "ugly"
architecture. But the fact is, of all the architectures out there, ARM
right now is the ugliest BY FAR.

[jamesh]

I think it more to do with the plethora of different 'architectures'. Because the ARM core is licensed, there are so many chips, all slightly different, although the basic instructions sets are (mostly) the same (for any particular revision of ARM). This makes it a nightmare to include them all in the linux kernel builds. Device tree is supposed to help here...fingers crossed.

[plugwash]

Its still Debians Wiki

Debian is a pretty diverse bunch, the hard line free software guys make a lot of noise but i'm not convinced they are the majority within Debian.

So-far my edits seem to have stuck, lets see if it stays that way.

[plugwash]

From a Debian point of view (it is their wiki) , rather than from a Raspberry Pi point of view, its probably not an unfair appraisal.

Note: from the timing of your post you are probablly looking at the page AFTER I edited it. If you want to see the version that provoked this thread you can see it at https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi?act ... all&rev=18

[plugwash]

"I know ARM people who think that x86 is an "ugly"
architecture. But the fact is, of all the architectures out there, ARM
right now is the ugliest BY FAR.

While PC architecture (including not limited to the x86 processor) is ugly it is at least a common platform. One PC will be much like any other PC. There is a baseline of hardware that can be expected to exist at well-known locations and hardware beyond that is on an enumeratable bus structure with the registers needed to enumerate the root bus in a well-known location.

The arm world isn't like that. The processor architecture itself is somewhat cleaner than x86 though it does have it's own share of ugly hacks but the platforms surrounding it are a total mess. There is no baseline selection of hardware, everyone puts the key hardware in totally different places, hardware vendors (sometimes) document how to use the hardware but don't document whose IP block they used making it harder to work out where drivers can be shared between different vendors hardware and enumeratable buses are the exception not the rule.

The result of this is that to install debian on a PC I grab a debian CD and install it. After installing it I am running a debian supplied kernel which I can be reasonablly assured will be kept up to date with security fixes.

To install debian on an arm box I google for instructions specific to that box (without internet I would be screwed). Often these instructions lead to having a system with customisations I don't want and have to undo or live with. Often I will end up running a vendor kernel which will often be somewhat out of date and is unlikely to get security updates in a timely manner.

Things ARE improving, multiplatform and device tree are allowing debian kernels to run on more arm hardware but even on the hardware it does run on lack of support for some features (graphics is often a source of trouble) is a common problem.