Ubuntu Core Gets Support For Raspberry Pi 2 GPIO and I2C 59
An anonymous reader writes: Ubuntu Core is a tiny Ubuntu distribution aimed at the Internet of Things, using a new transactional packaging format called Snappy rather than the venerable Debian packaging format. It recently gained support for I2C and GPIO on the Raspberry Pi 2, and a quick demo is given here. Ubuntu's Core support site says that the support for Raspberry Pi 2 isn't yet official, but provides some handy tips for anyone who wants to try it out.
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It's webscale.
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It's integrated into systemd.
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Snappy core is a root filesystem image built from Ubuntu deb packages and with binary diff updates. Snappy packages are built the same way, and the core runs them in apparmor to provide sandboxing.
Re: A page full of marketing buzz (Score:3, Insightful)
Beware of the broken i2c (Score:4, Informative)
The raspberry hardware i2c implementation is broken. Don't try to communicate with microcontrollers, it will fail due to the broken clock stretching....
I had to do SW bitbang i2c, what a mess !!
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SPI works great in raspbian, no problems.
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SPI does not have a handshake from slave (uC) to master (RasPi) to tell the master to hang on when sending data.
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SPI does not have a handshake from slave (uC) to master (RasPi) to tell the master to hang on when sending data.
who said that it does? nobody but you!
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Facts !
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We ran into this on another vendor's hardware as well, and also ended up with a bitbanged solution (the wikipedia I2C page pseudocode, actually). I wonder if our vendor is also using Broadcom internally.
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I really think that Broadcom is designing hardware with cheaper than possible personnel. They have so much stupidity and brokeness in their chips, it is staggering.
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You should see Atmel's bootloader process, and what a mess it is to make it work for a custom board with eg. a different type of RAM or flash. The only hardware vendor (in the embedded space) that I actually trust to make stuff that 'just works' these days is TI.
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Good to know.
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And more indication that the RPi Team has no clue what they do hardware-wise....
I bet the BananaPi does not have this problem either (in addition to a host of other problems of the RPi it does not have).
Does it have systemd? (Score:1, Troll)
It's slow on my new 24-core Xeon servers. I can't imagine how bad it is on a Pi.
At least with a Pi, you're not going to be running as many services, which systemd makes very difficult to troubleshoot since it swallows stederr, ignores exit statuses, and discards a lot of syslog messages.
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Hurd doesn't use systemd. Just saying.....
"Internet of Thugs" (Score:3)
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That is what will follow immediately. Just look at all the stupidity currently going on security-wise on mobile phones. Add all the state-sponsored and -employed thugs to that, and a big mess is sure to ensure.
USB on Rpi (Score:2)
Unless they improved on the historically dodgy USB sw/hw, there's little to be done.
I'll stick to my cubieboard2... which also has sata.
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That was fixed long ago on the rev 1 boards.
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Raspberry Pi TWO.
USB and Ethernet no longer associated.
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Raspberry Pi TWO.
USB and Ethernet no longer associated.
wrong, the ethernet IO is exactly the same as the first one, just two more USB ports
general purpose io, for motors and stuff (Score:3)
If "normal people" means people who buy a computer at Best Buy and aren't sure what OS it runs, they don't care about the Raspberry Pi.
GPIO means general purpose input/output - pins that you can turn on and off, or read, in order to connect motors, servos, lights, sensors, etc.
I2C is how chips such as microcontrollers communicate. It's kind of like a lower-level USB. You'd use it to connect your Raspberry Pi to an Arduino, Picaxe, LCD display, or some advanced sensors like GPS modules, or perhaps a cell p
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not about pin count. See pci, pci-e, isa (Score:2)
> connecting two micro controllers together is going to be trouble whenever one is significantly faster than the other.
The Pi is a Linux computer. Sometimes, it makes sense to connect peripherals or add-in cards to a computer. For example, a RS-485 card, or more specialized, a DMX controller.
An Arduino makes a good DMX controller. If you want to run DMX under Linux, it makes sense to connect a DMX controller (Arduino) to your Linux system (Pi). It's not about pin count, it's about building and c
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No thanks, don't need to keep rebuilding each tim (Score:2)
I'm not sure why you think there would be something to gain from throwing away a perfectly good DMX controller, just to redesign a new one to run inside a Pi, which is already busy doing other things. Then keep doing that every time you want a different UI or function. I've got a real nice DMX controller, why exactly should I build a new one inside of every different computer I want to use DMX with, rather than simply connecting a controller that already works well? Or maybe you didn't get the point that t
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> If the total cost of development of the chip version is $X, and the unit cost difference $Y times the total estimated unit sales Z is less than $X, then there is no point in using the chip version, the USB wifi has the greater ROI, and should be selected.
And "I already have the Arduino DMX controller in the drawer" means the unit cost is zero. The development cost of doing real time on a Pi is quite a bit higher than zero. Therefore, it makes sense to use the zero cost option (attach the Arduino you
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oh, you know thought RPi was designed as OEM part (Score:2)
> That is the worst possible reason for selecting components unless you are a hobbyist with no real prospects for commercial application of your project. The proper way to select parts is to do a complete cost benefit analysis of a couple of different options to determine which one will have the overall best ROI.
Are you under the impression that the Raspberry Pi and Arduino are designed as OEM parts to go into mass-market products? If so, you might want to glance at the project web pages and see what
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I got one use case.
3d printers controlled by arduino derivatives.
though, then you would probably just connect it with usb..
(and why wouldn't you just drive the 4+ synced steppers from the raspi? RT is hard. nobody has gotten it to work well on it. you can do a concept printer but they're just that, concepts barely functioning(when compared to a friggin atmel ran bot). there's a kickstarter thats supposedly shipping now..)
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If you do not know what they are, then you do not need to care.
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Whats GPIO, whats I2C and why should normal people care?
Slashdot is not for you, as it is for people who know things and care about things.
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Or at least for people who know that other peoples' time is valuable and will try a google search before asking a question that's easily answered thereby...
Ubuntu Core has no place on the Raspberry (Score:3, Insightful)
Snappy is Cannical's attempt to get rid of apt because it doesn't work for paid apps. They've abandoned the Ubuntu Software Center (and the developers there) and are now pushing this crap. Whatever claim they make about 'sandboxing' and 'security', the end goal is to monetize apps to phone and tablet users. This might not even be so bad if it worked. But Snappy is not ready for primetime. It is cumbersome and buggy.
I also question the usefulness of an 'app-store' style package management system to a platform that is geared to education. The Raspberry Pi Platform's strength is in its openness and community support. It's gonna suck to see step 4 in EVERY pi project article be 'Go install Core on your pi, then buy my app'.
So really who cares if Core/Snappy has GPIO. So does Windows 10 IOT. Having tried both images out, WIndows IOT might actually be more useful than Ubuntu Core on the Pi right now. (At least is runs Node.js)
I'll take apt or pip (or mercurial or Github for that matter) over Snappy any day.
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Snappy is Cannical's attempt to get rid of apt because it doesn't work for paid apps.
It seemed to work fine on Maemo 5 Fremantle on my N900 almost six years ago. The Ovi Store used apt.
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I guess it depends on how you define "work" in this context. Seeing the words "Maemo" and "Fremantle" and "N900" and "Ovi" still makes my blood boil. We wasted a lot of time and money betting on a horse with no legs. It was a damn fine app that was a pleasure to develop too, which is the hell of it. That stuff was great, but commercially successful? Not on your life!
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Was it apt that burned you, or Nokia? Was packaging really your biggest problem?
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We never got far enough to deal with apt. Just as we were getting into the home stretch with our app, the Maemo universe exploded into chaos. Harmattan? MeeGo? Where is this going? We decided to wait and see, and it's just as well we did. That code wasn't going anywhere unless we rewrote both the frontend and the backend from scratch.
That's what I meant by the whole ecosystem not working for paid apps. Maybe if we had made a desperate sprint to try to cash in on a sinking ship at the last minute.