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Though I have several?RasPi models in my possession, I find the current generation of RasPi to be overprescribed and definitely overpriced regarding their capabilities.
If any of you have not noticed, there is a glut of ChromeBook laptops on the?market since about August 2022. Most of these machines are very power efficient, compared with business?laptops, yet can give any Raspberry Pi a run for the money, particularly when considering the integrated keyboard, display and internal battery. Most CBs are deliberately run at lower?clock?rates, in order to save power; however, with their dual-core and 4GB RAM they are fast enough to replace any of the current generation RPi's.
I was able to purchase two new chromebooks, both for around?$100.
My ASUS CB cost $129 and has full 1920x1080 screen resolution and four USB3 ports (two types "C"). My ACER CB cost $89 and it has a 1366x768 screen resolution and four USB3 ports (two type "C"). Both CBs came installed with native ChromOS; however, it was easy to install the Linux subsystem?(not an emulator) and run Linux native apps on both of these CBs.
All things considered, why are we still stuck with the expensive RPi to be the core of any new design?
=================
New subject -- operating Dell laptops from a 12VDC PS
I am using an automotive "cigarette lighter" adapter like the one shown in the picture below to power my old Dell 63xx laptop.The adapter converts 12V (nominal) automotive power to the Dell old charging standard voltage of 19V at up to 4.62 A.
For those of you who (like me) hate to discard your older laptops, this adapter may save you from building your own boost converter. If I remember right, I paid about $12 for this Dell automotive charger.
73's --Ron? ?N7FTZ
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When I don¡¯t want to deal with chrome or or winders and amd/ intel chromebook does not cut it.?
Do does chrome book run linux cleanly that is with good video and sound?
Besides a few usb is there hdmi or access to other io.?
There is huge difference between a closed box and an accessible one.?
Allison
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Please use the forum, offline and private will go to bit bucket.
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I run full MATE Fedora 37 on a $55.00 used chromebook.
Ron
On Wednesday, November 2, 2022 at 08:32:24 PM EDT, ajparent1/kb1gmx <kb1gmx@...> wrote:
When I don¡¯t want to deal with chrome or or winders and amd/ intel chromebook does not cut it.?
Do does chrome book run linux cleanly that is with good video and sound?
Besides a few usb is there hdmi or access to other io.?
There is huge difference between a closed box and an accessible one.?
Allison
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Please use the forum, offline and private will go to bit bucket.
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Now put a 5 band 10w?multi mode transceiver in it. without it looking like it has a bag on the side.
Allison
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Please use the forum, offline and private will go to bit bucket.
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Got me there!? Glad I got several RPI's before the shortage.
Ron
On Wednesday, November 2, 2022 at 08:45:32 PM EDT, ajparent1/kb1gmx <kb1gmx@...> wrote:
Now put a 5 band 10w?multi mode transceiver in it. without it looking like it has a bag on the side.
Allison
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Please use the forum, offline and private will go to bit bucket.
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Allison,
I use an Acer Chrombook 15 from a couple of years ago running the latest Linux Mint Cinnamon. It's common for sound not working unless you use a USB dongle. Storage is a problem unless you use a USB device. Mine boots off of a Samsung 512GB FIT USB flash drive. It's got a? nice 1920x1080 touch screen and backlight keyboard but I think it's to much work for most people to open up and set it up for developer mode. If it doesn't boot up from USB then what?
I run full MATE Fedora 37 on a $55.00 used chromebook.
Ron
On Wednesday, November 2, 2022 at 08:32:24 PM EDT, ajparent1/kb1gmx < kb1gmx@...> wrote:
When I don¡¯t want to deal with chrome or or winders and amd/ intel chromebook does not cut it.?
Do does chrome book run linux cleanly that is with good video and sound?
Besides a few usb is there hdmi or access to other io.?
There is huge difference between a closed box and an accessible one.?
Allison
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Please use the forum, offline and private will go to bit bucket.
--
Jerry, AC9NM ÊÖÖеÄÄñÔÚ¹àľ´ÔÖÐÖµÁ½¸ö
--
Jerry Ponko, AC9NM
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For those of you who may be ignorant about?CromeOS and Chrome Books, in general: - ChromeOS is a functional Layer built on top of a Linux kernel to begin with
- ChromeOS is NOT at all related to Microsoft Windows. Those of you who own Android phones, are in fact using?a UI layer and subsystem that is wrapped around?a Linux kernel, in a somewhat?similar manner to how ChromeOS is functioning as a wrapper on top of the very same Linux kernel. Both Android and ChromeOS are constantly maintained by Google developers. However, unlike your Android phones, ChromeOS receives?automatic updates very frequently (particularly security updates and performance updates), as long as the machine is powered?on.
- Ever since about mid-2022, You can install a Debian-based subsystem?through a ChromeOS configuration?menu?option.
- Linux application updates for the Linux (Debian) subsystem are handled through the standard Debian repositories, namely using "apt" (install, update, upgrade, remove, etc.)
- There are NO performance issues that I have noticed, using any of the Linux applications?that I installed using "apt install"
- Since USB3 has a 5 GB/s bandwidth and multimedia capabilities, there is no need for an HDMI port. Physical USB3 to HDMI cables are widely?available
- Since screencasting is a native capability of all ChromeBooks, I occasionally view content from any of my ChromeBooks on my 65 inch TV. So no cables are necessary in that case.
73's --Ron? ?N7FTZ
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I have 4intel/ amd laptops:
asus eeepc 700
adus eerpc. 901?
ibm R40
?they are all. 32 bit and slow.?
dell is faster abd 64bit
i have Rpi. From the 2 through 4.
I built a laptop based on Rpi3b+ running raspbian
and used it at work, it ran everything linux fast enough
and also windows emulation to use an antenna modeling tool. ?Audio and video works well along with by and wifi.?
to me it was faster than a dual core chrome.
the key thing its a laptop not an embedable core
with i2c and other io the laptop may have but is inaccessible. ?
or as some say apples and oranges. ?Good deal and yet useless for the task.
Allison
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Please use the forum, offline and private will go to bit bucket.
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I mean sure, but interfacing to i2c via a UART is not a huge amount of code on a tiny AVR chip. :-)
(Yes I've done that lots of times :-)
-adrian (kk6vqk)
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To get to a point. ?
if you need a laptop that may be a lo coat path.?
if you need an embedable controller with compute power you don¡¯t want a laptop.?
that is why itx, Rpi, beagle board, tinkerboard, and an amazingly long list of others.?
--
Allison
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Please use the forum, offline and private will go to bit bucket.
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I'm writing this on a Chromebook, love it.
Zero interest in Windows 11, thus far the Google big brother has been more benign than the Microsoft big brother.
Have turned on their linux-in-a-sandbox, which is also awesome if you want something other than ChromeOS apps, it can talk to USB UART Dongles (such as loading firmware to a Nano)..
Erasing ChromeOS and installing some other linux distribution would open it up to more USB devices, though I seldom have need for that and ChromeOS is convenient for what I do on it.
However, as Allison pointed out, the RPi has all those GPIO pins, and using them is well documented.
That's the primary reason to go with an RPi.
Well that, and the RPi-Zero is a whole lot smaller and lower power than my Chromebook.
Though I don't plan to be buying any RPi's till they get back down around $50.
Jerry, KE7ER
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On Wed, Nov 2, 2022 at 05:32 PM, ajparent1/kb1gmx wrote:
Besides a few usb is there hdmi or access to other io.?
There is huge difference between a closed box and an accessible one.?
?
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Ron,
its all really old news to me. ?
What is important can you put a chromebook inside a radio?
have you run fldigi and or wsjt-x on one of those?
Like i wrote sans typos. ?If you want a cheap laptop its a candidate.?
if your looking for a controller that is embeddable its not a good form factor.
Allison
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Please use the forum, offline and private will go to bit bucket.
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If you have a Dell laptop, be sure any power supply for it is designed to work with a Dell and is of appropriate wattage.
The supply has an extra wire, the laptop and supply talk it over before they decide to let the batteries charge.
Most other brands of laptop are just power and ground.
This is described as a "Dell automotive charger", so would probably work fine with a Dell laptop
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On Wed, Nov 2, 2022 at 05:08 PM, Dr. Flywheel wrote:
New subject -- operating Dell laptops from a 12VDC PS
?
I am using an automotive "cigarette lighter" adapter like the one shown in the picture below to power my old Dell 63xx laptop.The adapter converts 12V (nominal) automotive power to the Dell old charging standard voltage of 19V at up to 4.62 A.
?
For those of you who (like me) hate to discard your older laptops, this adapter may save you from building your own boost converter. If I remember right, I paid about $12 for this Dell automotive charger.
?
73's
--Ron? ?N7FTZ
?
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I actually have the dell automotive adapter.?
its a nice laptop running ubuntu.?
Allison
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Please use the forum, offline and private will go to bit bucket.
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A few chromebooks have an honest to gosh HDMI port.
Modern chromebooks have USB-C ports which are fast enough to support a USB-to-HDMI dongle
??
Those work fine under ChromeOS on my $200 Asus 15" Chromebook at 1080p (1920x1080 60hz non-interlaced)
Don't know how well they work on a Chromebook that has had ChromeOS replaced with some standard Linux distro.
Jerry
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On Wed, Nov 2, 2022 at 05:32 PM, ajparent1/kb1gmx wrote:
Besides a few usb is there hdmi or access to other io.?
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Jerry,
As is any laptop may require proprietary drivers not supported yet by linux. ? So its not only chrome books.
?
Allison
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Please use the forum, offline and private will go to bit bucket.
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Chromebooks can be really cheap, down under $100.
An excellent choice to have stolen at the local coffee shop,
or for dropping to the floor while falling asleep.
Most of what I create comes down to text editing (preferably in vi),
which needs about 0.1% of the power available in a chromebook.
At my workdesk, I have an RPi4b.
And several elderly x86 machines which I mostly run under Ubuntu linux.
A couple of them can also boot to WinXP or Win7.
When I do that?they aren't allowed out on the net.
Have a full backup of the drives.
Occasionally there's some windows only app I want to try.?
If it doesn't immediately work I give up.
Have zero interest in debugging things windows.
Jerry, KE7ER
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On Thu, Nov 3, 2022 at 09:40 AM, ajparent1/kb1gmx wrote:
As is any laptop may require proprietary drivers not supported yet by linux. ? So its not only chrome books.
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I flipped winders when they dumped NT4, went Ubuntu never looked back.
I generally hate winders.
Generally very little here runs winders.? The exceptions had a purpose?
Like the P1 with ISA16? so I could run a GPIB card.
Or the 486SX/66 that I used for NT4 testing around time of Y2K.
There's a second drive in that with Slackware 1.4 still running
its big feature is like the P1 box ISA16 and some exotic cards including
a dual 6502 apple-II machine.
A IBM R40 (PII 1.6ghz) is 32bit so its stuck in the past with Ubuntu
but it also carries my build envronment for AD Blackfin and it did
large compiles faster than a cup of coffee.
Machines I use are generally small physically, low power, typical is
1.6ghz dual or quad core 64bit so I can run up to date browsers and?
Mint or Ubuntu.?
So far the Rpi-3B+ was more than enough power to run 4NEC2 in a
windows emulator.? The Pi4 is much faster for the optimiser task?
about 4x faster.
Over all if it runs a current browser its fast enough, favorits is Chromium.
The Dell 5440 is a exception case (still Ubuntu) as its an I5-2.4ghz
machine with lots of ram.? WHy do I have it retirement, aka it was free.
I run still like Elsie, LTspice, 4NEC2, Hobbies, as some of the emulations
needs some ram and cpu.? ?Its actually remarkable how little CPU is
often needed but ram usually pays for itself.
As to Vi, for that I have to boot the pdp/11-73 off the Unix V6 pack.
Or the MicroVAX2000 running Ultrix V4.2, (Ultrix is DEC BSD UNIX variant).
Then again I also have Z80 running VTEDIT a sorta teco/Vteco editor that's
very fast.? That's up and running before the rest start thinking about it.
It takes very little to do decent text work, though? a large (space)
hard disk on the system doesn't hurt.? That and its been up to the task
for the last 40 years.
Allison
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Please use the forum, offline and private will go to bit bucket.
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From people's responses to my last post, I can see that there is confusion about running the Linux subsystem on a ChromeBook. Perhaps item #3 on my list covering?the subject matter should be elaborated on: - To run the Linux Subsystem on a recent ChromeBook, you do not need to "Uninstall" or disable ChromeOS or mess around with the bootloader at all. All that is necessary to do is select the?Linux option from the ChromeOS "Settings" menu.
- The Linux subsystem is working simultaneously with ChromeOS and is encapsulated in what is known as a "container". All ChromeOS Apps are operating within "containers" as does the Linux subsystem. This scheme protects any single application from "crashing" your computer, upon executing "buggy" or malicious code.
- Based on user options selection, files?and communication between Apps can be enabled (usually based on security considerations), as well as transparent file access?to your GoogleDrive resources (if you have a Google account).
- ?There are no issues with performance or access to any of the ChromeBook resources, including WiFi, Bluetooth, USB ports, HD video and audio I/O.
As usual, to each his/her own. For those of you who need I/O pins access, any arduino "nano" low cost USB to I/O can be a solution for interfacing to external?hardware. This is assuming that your I/O requirements are limited in clock speed. I prefer an RP2040 module for external I/O, mostly due to its built-in eight "bit-banger" programmable state machines. Regardless, for such applications, particularly for low-latency real-time applications, the standard Linux kernel and particularly the RPi standard Linux kernel is completely inappropriate, due to multiprocessor interrupt arbitration issues. These limitations can be resolved by replacing Linux with a real-time OS such as FreeRTOS; however, this would not be what most of you are using...
At the moment, the best candidate for best bang-for-the buck for bit-banging FP calculations and wireless connectivity, seems to be the ESP32, which has tremendous I/O capabilities, at a very low cost, in addition to running FreeRTOS natively.
RPI is no longer the value proposition that it was when it was sold for $35/piece
73's --Ron? ?N7FTZ
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Who cares, if you can not embed it, it is useless.? if you are building
self contained radio, a laptop on the side is not an advance.
The RP2040 is not a solution if it doesn't have what you need.
One is code security. STM32F4xx is way ahead for that.
Allison
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Please use the forum, offline and private will go to bit bucket.
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JerryP