I like this post, very true, and also saddening, I wonder if the whole point of the pi has been lost?.
I would love to see more people starting projects to optimise and utilise the pi hardware, unfortunately only a very small number of people are ever going have the talent and interest to put in the hard work required to achieve this.
Seems what some people want is a gigabit network media server or better web based media viewing, but do not think how could they achieve it using the pi in creative ways.
Instead of saying I want to run a server stack with wordpress, they should be saying what does wordpress do and how can I write some code that achieves the same thing and runs fast on the rpi.
Instead of saying they want to stream media to a backup disk they should ask what data rates are involved/required and where the bottlenecks are, then trying creative ways to work around the problems.
For example I have heard even 4k ultra HD streams only use 15Mb/s, why need gigabit?, if you do really need the higher data rates why not try writing a distributed SAN RAID driver so storage/network load can be shared between many rpi?
I suppose the problem maybe that the rpi is targeted at beginners who cannot implement such things until they have a few years learning and experience, but then again a beginner would not probably know that they wanted gigabit?
I would love to see replies to some of these types of 'I want a professional grade system like a PC for $25' requests being given outlines about how the requestor could go about achieving the same result using a rpi if they put the work in, maybe 1 in 1000 might actually add something to the project.
gkreidl wrote:The question is all wrong. It should be:
How can people do with the RPi what they currently currently cannot do?
And the answers are quite simple:
1) Use better software
2) Write better software
3) Use the GPU (all parts) wherever possible (there's still a lot of unused potential), see 2)
4) Tell the web designers which use tons of Javascript where nobody needs it is to go to hell (meaning, don't visit their pages any more).
The Pi was developed for kids. They should learn to create great things with limited resources. That's what we all have to learn before the planet becomes inhabitable.
Don't cry for more power (CPU, GHz, RAM etc). Educate yourself to get along with what we have (not only the kids need education).