Raspberry Pi

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Anyone have a Raspberry Pi? You guys use it for anything? They seem really cool and versatile - but I wouldn't know what I'd even do with one! So I'm hoping so nice ideas might inspire me to buy one and start coding with it.

Thanks!
I bought one a couple years ago to try out code in a low resource environment. Compiling modern C++ so it will run on an old desktop PC (circa 2000) is actually surprisingly difficult. At the very least you have to install Windows XP on it. You can forget about compiling any C++11 to run on a 9x kernel.
Why can't you compile C++11 on an older machine? I saw a cpp con video where someone had modern C++ on a commodore 64
closed account (E8A4Nwbp)
Anyone have a Raspberry Pi? You guys use it for anything? They seem really cool and versatile - but I wouldn't know what I'd even do with one! So I'm hoping so...
May I ask if there's a particular area of computer science you hope it will enable you to traverse further into? I am asking to understand the benefits of owning a PI. I'm also slightly hesitant.
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Why can't you compile C++11 on an older machine?
I said why. No* C++11 compiler targets Windows 9x, and for very old machines that's all you can run on them. Try running anything else on 32 MiB of RAM.


* Almost none. MinGW can sort of do it, but you're seriously restricted on the standard libraries you can use. Figuring out what works and what doesn't involves a lot of trial and error and copying things over the network over and over again. It's just not worth it.
closed account (z05DSL3A)
zapshe, Pop over to the The MagPi magazine, grab yourself some back issues (free download) and take a look at what people are doing with them.

Edit: the Raspberry Pi org forums are also a good place to mooch...
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https://magpi.raspberrypi.org/

https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/
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You can forget about compiling any C++11 to run on a 9x kernel.
I am pretty sure you can force g++ do it. But making a gui program with that has its own issues. Probably easier to just use older visual and live without the extras.
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I am pretty sure you can force g++ do it. But making a gui program with that has its own issues. Probably easier to just use older visual and live without the extras.
Yeah, as I said, MinGW will compile, but it's a coin toss whether any given library will work on 9x. <iostream> doesn't work, for example.
None of the Visual Studios that support C++11 support Windows 9x.
I use one of mine as a network-wide DNS adblocking server
https://pi-hole.net/
Thanks for the insights guys. I followed your link Grey Wolf and founds PDF containing Raspberry Pi projects to do - so I'll be checking that out!

It's sad that C++ isn't going to be very viable. Hopefully other languages I already know will be compatible. I'd prefer using Windows with the Pi, but it seems Linux is what most tutorials use. We'll see how it goes if I decide to buy one. I want to buy the maxed out one because I don't like feeling like I got something that could have been better - but I don't know if I'll need the extra specs.
C++ is totally viable if you're not going to be using Windows.



embedded world has grown (some are full modern machines) but back when, we were still having to use DOS-on-a-chip OS in the win98 era. The smallest machines lag way behind; its part of it. And you use the tools that work on that box, even if dated.

The trouble you face is the bit depth one. You can't fix the 32 vs 64 bit problem. There is an embedded version of windows, but I do not know what the current flavor of that can do. It used to be expensive, but that was before people had 'devices'.

the web seems to indicate there is a winx embedded that does 32 bit and a mobile version as well, maybe one of THOSE can run modern visual studio and give you what you seek. This is probably going to carry a price tag above normal play-time budgets, though. I would at least check it out, see what is possible...
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It's sad that C++ isn't going to be very viable.
Who said that? Raspbian is pretty much the same as an x86 build. The common languages like C and C++ are perfectly supported.

I'd prefer using Windows with the Pi
From what I've heard, installing Windows 10 ARM on a Pi is possible, but it's a pretty terrible experience. The Pi just doesn't have the horsepower to run it well. I haven't been keeping up, so maybe that changed with the Pi 4, but I doubt it.
Oh well, no Windows on the Pi then. Raspbian looks simple enough to use so I'll be using that I suppose. Glad that I can use C++ on it!

I really wanna hack something with Pi! I also really want to put together a rover that I can control with the Pi, but who knows if I'll ever get to it.
An older article from 2014 about using Visual Studio to create apps for the Raspberry Pi:

https://visualgdb.com/tutorials/raspberry/

Something about installing Visual Studio Code on the Pi (which means C++11 and later IS possible):

https://pimylifeup.com/raspberry-pi-visual-studio-code/

Deploying a Visual Studio app onto a Raspberry 2 or 3. using ARM:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/iot-core/develop-your-app/appdeployment
It's a pretty neat little machine. A full blown computer in a tiny package. I bought one a couple of years ago and didn't do much with it until I decided to use it as a music server. Now it stores all my music and connects via a high quality hat to my stereo system.
closed account (E8A4Nwbp)
REPT: May I ask if there's a particular area of computer science you hope it will enable you to traverse further into? I am asking to understand the benefits of owning a PI. I'm also slightly hesitant.
A PI gives you two things that a laptop or desktop doesn't. First, it's very small and cheap, making it suitable for a dedicated application. Second, most models have a GPIO (general purpose I/O) header, making it suitable for connecting to a variety of real-world sensors and controllers.

For example, my house has an old hard-wired security system that I no longer use. But the sensors are still present and all come together at the unused controller box. I considered hooking them up to a raspberry pi to monitor, just as a fun project.

But if you're looking to study computer science, a laptop or desktop is probably a better bet.

[Edit: dang! Somebody has really gone "report" happy on this thread.]
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you can also stack them deep. The power of a bunch of these in parallel somewhere between a cuda solution and an expensive system. I see the pi 4 at 35 bucks online, sporting 4 slow but capable cores. 10 of them stacked is 350. How much crunching can you do with 10 of them stacked (40 cpus!) vs a $350 tablet/bottom of the barrel laptop?
REPT: May I ask if there's a particular area of computer science you hope it will enable you to traverse further into? I am asking to understand the benefits of owning a PI. I'm also slightly hesitant.

I don't have a preference yet. I've been using many languages for different purposes, and they've all been fun so far.

But if you're looking to study computer science, a laptop or desktop is probably a better bet.

Already have a good laptop. It's a gaming laptop with all the bells and whistles. It's really more about fun projects rather than anything critical.

you can also stack them deep

I've seen people do that, but nothing in particular I need crunching. I've also got some good laptops lying around that I don't use that I could probably turn into crunching machines if it was ever needed.
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