ARC and Windows on Raspberry Pi 4

Mickey666Maus

Germany
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I guess with the rise of ARM, Microsoft will have to commit itself now to the new era!!:D
This is just meant to be informative, I doubt that this setup makes sense yet!!

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Synthiam
#22  
Have you put retro pie on your pi yet?
#23  
No, not yet...might give it a try!!
Sounds cool!!:)

The Gentoo advice was of course also meant to be funny, its the most painfull install ever...more like a torture test to myself!!

I just hooked that thing to my 4k screen to let it bleed a little!!:D
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Synthiam
#24   — Edited
You'll dig retro pie. I use archive.org to find rom images of different game consoles and throw them onto the pi. I have a huge collection of consoles each with their own pi:D

i don't know much about gentoo. When I was big into linux, it was the days of slackware. Since then i use linux. I'm just not fond of the amount of maintenance effort lol. I'd rather be making robots:D
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Canada
#25  
Wintel monopoly days are over. ARM uses less power and is lower cost.  Perfect for Robotics.  

This is why mobile phones and other edge devices all run ARM and why ARC needs to move to Linux on ARM.
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Synthiam
#26   — Edited
@Nink - That's a rabbit hole i don't want to go down lol. Can you imagine any of our users managing a Linux desktop? We'd be a linux support community. Oh boy, i have so much to type on that it's not even worth my brain activity right now :D. If anyone wants to use Linux as a daily driver, then ROS probably suits your needs because you have a lot more time on your hands than me lol

"Wintel" or Windows & intel cpus are absolutely not over - that's been dead headlines for years. Almost as believable as "the robots are coming!". You're referring to "phones and edge devices". Neither of which Intel or Windows is involved in. Sure, microsoft tried the phone for some reason - but with a trillion dollars in the bank, why wouldn't you try something for fun? Everyone harps on MS and Windows but we all use it. As i typed earlier in this thread - unless someone extends the ARM architecture through expensive licensing to add cpu instructions that make operating systems and applications run quickly (like APPLE has been doing for years with Ax and now M1), we won't see ARM on desktop. That's exactly why you're not reading this on a chromebook:D or a raspberry pi. Maybe a phone, but that's not a computer and again out of scope on this comparison.

The day you and your employer give up all intel based cpu for all ARM Devices running Linux is the day Linux is ready for a real consumer application to be written for it.:)
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Synthiam
#27  
PS, i've tried to load a web browser on a Pi 4 before. I want my 3 minutes back lol
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Canada
#28  
My daughter (and every one of her friends), who know nothing about computers and can only point and click, want a Unix BSD based OS running on a RISC computer for Christmas. 

Unfortunately she can’t run ARC on it. She doesn’t know how to use windows, and it would be impossible to teach her ROS.  

So how does she learn about Robotics?
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Synthiam
#29   — Edited
She'll learn in school where they have real computers:) hopefully her school hasn't given up and gave them social media menu tablets to "learn with" because it quiets them up. Do your daughter a favor and get her a laptop with a keyboard and mouse. Pointing and clicking is why the next generation is in trouble with technology and why STEM is so important. She doesn't need to program... but she should know how to use a real computer. The work place is not ever going to change to a "point and click". She'll need to learn robotics on devices that are used to program robots. If you buy her a butter knife, she's not going to cut down a tree either:)

Ever see the movie Idiocracy? I worry about our future sometimes :). 

But i think we're having a few different conversations in this thread.
1) We started about running Windows on a Pi.
2) Then the Pi being to low powered for Windows. 
3) Then why would someone buy a slow Pi when they can be a fast SBC for the same price
4) Then why intel is still faster than native arm (i.e. Pi version, not the apple M1 extended licensed version with a ton of specific hardware acceleration)
5) Then ARC should run on a complicated Linux OS rather than an easy-to-use professional/business windows OS 
6) Then kids are using "point and click" interfaces that teach them how to use social media apps rather than computing that prepares them for jobs

If you all want a linux version, we can hire a second developer to support the effort. I'll have to raise the price of the subscription for the hire, and i'll need to substitute the lack of revenue from the linux version because not enough people would use it to cover the salary.

This was a good read actually: https://www.alphr.com/features/390064/arm-vs-intel-processors-what-s-the-difference

Quote:


At this point, both ARM and Intel processors have their own benefits and drawbacks. Choosing which is better for you heavily depends on what you’d like to do with your tech devices and if they’re compatible with other hardware and software.

Intel is faster and more powerful than ARM processors. But, ARM processors are more mobile-friendly than Intel processors (in most cases).

The past two years have caused an upset for people who were diehard one or the other. Intel-based Macs will so be released with Apple’s own ARM processors, while we’ve seen some great things coming from Microsoft. Only time will tell, but there are constant improvements to both processors meaning what’s great now may not be so great in a year.
#30   — Edited
@Nink that is so cute!! It seems like recently there is a change of mind in the younger generation. Away from consumerism and big tech!! Makes me happy to hear that...
My mom is also using Linux Ubuntu and never had a problem during the whole systems uptime, it comes with Thunderbird and Firefox pre installed and all the browser extentions are working!

I am using Linux mainly to play Video games, I just dual boot into my game drive to get a good framerate, which is not disturbed by all the windows stuff running in the back...

But I would not want to miss my good old daily used, tried and trusted Windows 10 for all those daily tasks, for my ARC and my Fusion 360!!:)
#31   — Edited
@DJSures I love Idiocracy, such a great movie!!
And thanks for the link, very informative...also I think the discussion here is a good one, nice thing you summed up the conversational flow of topics!

My intend when starting the post was the following info, that your article is also pointing out!

Quote:

In 2019, things changed with the release of the Surface Pro X. Although the chassis of the tablet didn’t change much from previous versions, Microsoft didn’t give up on the ARM processor. The Surface Pro X is the tablet with an ARM processor that runs full Windows rather than a watered-down version.
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Canada
#33  
@mickey666maus What my daughter wants is the latest MacBook but I worded it in such a way that even though it’s really Unix on ARM the Gen Z don’t care as long as it is fast and easy to use.  

linux mint and zoron (based on Ubuntu) are very user friendly and today you can get ubuntu pre installed on Dell, Lenovo and other popular computers. 

If the Nvidia/  ARM acquisition is successful (and at $40B I suspect it will be) the future of high end desktops and laptops will all be based on ARM and I am willing to bet the next Gen XBOX/PS6, Cloud and even Apple game console will be ARM as well.
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USA
#34  
I believe all the scenarios are open and the eventually what yesterday was good tomorrow is not.

Microsoft:
Steve Balmer bashed the first iPhone and today is a top choice. I remember going to Microsoft dev events where the main joke was the Linux world, and today Windows has the Linux subsystem.

A few Microsoft evangelists asked the question: who needs SSH and command prompt ? when we have windows and mouse ? Today I have projects deployed on the cloud on a windows server without GUI and SSH and Powershell scripts are the best in town. 

Azure has more Linux servers than windows servers. Microsoft SQL server is available on Linux, Microsoft Office is available on Apple. 

Intel:
I don't see their roadmap for the "small" world, they shutdown all the embedded platforms. LattePanda, UpBoard, AtomicPI, RockPI all of them use the same old architecture Cherry Trail (Atom) Released in 2015 Q2 for the tablets (deprecated), almost 6 years later there is nothing new.

I have two Atomic PIs (bargain prices) I don't plan to invest more money on a Cherry Trail, instead I've invested in few Intel NUCs and use them in my big designs.

Apple:
I've 3 kids: elementary, middle and high school, all of them have MacBook laptops assigned by the school district. That choice will shape their future decisions.
I've introduced them to Windows, and all of them have Raspberry PIs mini desk computers, but, as expected their top choice is the Apple ecosystem.

I believe everyone is biased and "brainwashed" during their live.

I got familiar with Minix, *nix and Linux in college, my first job introduced me to DOS, Windows 3.1 and Novell networks.  Novell lead me to Oracle, Sun systems (unix) and Java language the multi platform promise.
From all the development paths the one I recall as something special was the NeXTSTEP: it was very far ahead of time. I did some objective-C code, at the time nobody expected objective-c and Cocoa to rule the Apple development, likewise Java guys trashed Microsoft .NET because was not a multi-platform and today .NET runs on Intel, Arm platforms.
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Canada
#35  
@DJ ...Idiocracy was such a great movie seen it about 5 times now!
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Synthiam
#36  
ptp hammered the last nail. Things were, things are, things will be... because things change, change takes time, and change is unpredictable.
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USA
#38  

Quote:

I have an NUC but it is 19v
I run mine from 12v SLA batteries. I have a DC/DC converter. Drop me an email we can discuss the power options.
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Synthiam
#40   — Edited
@Nink, you want the fan no matter what OS because thermal monitoring will limit the cpu frequency. Also, the fan takes very very little juice. Oh my ohmnilab telepresence robot, it has a fan and runs all day with an Up Board in Windows at 50% cpu utilization processing navigation and telepresence features. The best investment you can get for a battery powered robot is a watt monitor. 

I use these: https://www.ebay.ca/itm/Professional-DC-60V-100A-Balance-Voltage-Battery-Power-Analyzer-RC-Watt-Mete/284093591041?_trkparms=aid%3D1110006%26algo%3DHOMESPLICE.SIM%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20200520130048%26meid%3D34bbc6ec2eb84b8894a2ee2c454abd41%26pid%3D100005%26rk%3D7%26rkt%3D12%26mehot%3Dco%26sd%3D164368654750%26itm%3D284093591041%26pmt%3D1%26noa%3D0%26pg%3D2047675%26algv%3DSimplAMLv5PairwiseWebWithDarwoV3BBEV2b%26brand%3DUnbranded&_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851

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Synthiam
#41  
Oh, and i should add that it doesn't need to be connected at all times. Just use it when calculating your power consumption.

It'll show how many amps the whole robot is drawing. And then you can do quick math on your battery to identify estimated time remaining.

Also, good idea to throw a voltage divider on the battery positive wire. And connect that to your ADC of the robot controller to monitor the battery voltage in ARC. You can use the "shutdown" command in ARC to shut'r down.