New Raspberry Pi Model B+ 202
mikejuk writes The Raspberry Pi foundation has just announced the Raspberry Pi B+. The basic specs haven't changed much — same BC2835 and 512MB of RAM and the $35 price tag. There are now four USB ports, which means you don't need a hub to work with a mouse, keyboard and WiFi dongle. The GPIO has been expanded to 40 pins, but don't worry: you can plug your old boards and cables into the lefthand part of the connector, and it's backward compatible. As well as some additional general purpose lines, there are two designated for use with I2C EEPROM. When the Pi boots it will look for custom EEPROMs on these lines and optionally use them to load Linux drivers or setup expansion boards. Expansion boards can now include identity chips that when the board is connected configures the Pi to make use of them — no more manual customization. The change to a micro SD socket is nice, unless you happen to have lots of spare full size SD cards around. It is also claimed that the power requirements have dropped by half, to one watt, which brings the model B into the same power consumption area as the model A. Comp video is now available on the audio jack, and the audio quality has been improved. One big step for Raspberry Pi is that it now has four holes for mounting in standard enclosures.
Much better board layout (Score:5, Informative)
The model B has a lot more thought into the board layout. Having the power, and HDMI all on the same side of the board and the optional I/O also all on one other side, makes so much more sense and will allow much cleaner looking enclosures. Although.. I still wish they had done even MORE thought and out the I/O on the OPPOSITE side of the board where they have all the GPIO pins.
Re:Does it have audio in yet? (Score:3, Informative)
you could add the Wolfson Audio Card to the Pi and get all the audio support you could need from a pi
http://www.adafruit.com/produc... [adafruit.com]
Re:So they update it, but... (Score:4, Informative)
In case you case, the two major shortcomings are power related (try to hotplug a wifi dongle, say) and the non-dedicated ethernet.
Re:Slow CPU, crippled network, too little RAM (Score:4, Informative)
Re:So they update it, but... (Score:5, Informative)
I've been running Raspbmc [raspbmc.com] (the most popular XBMC distro for Raspberry Pi) for a long time, and it has been excellent. It's small enough to be hidden behind my TV, and with an added remote control, offers one of the best user interfaces you'll find in a 'set top box'. Streams all my 1080p movies and TV shows flawlessly (*), and handles pretty much every codec under the sun. All for ~$40 (including HDMI cable, USB PSU, SD card and MPEG-2 license for hardware acceleration).
If you search for "Raspbmc" on YouTube, you'll see my experience is the norm. If you have any specific issues, post in the Raspbmc forums and someone will most likely sort you out. :)
As for Raspbian, I'm also running this on another Pi. It's certainly not going to replace x86 servers any time soon, but it certainly has its uses. Maybe your expectations are too high for a $35, 700MHz, 512MB machine?
* Apparently, it may struggle with some very high bit rate encodes, but I've yet to see this in practice and is unlikely to be an issue for most people.
Re:So they update it, but... (Score:2, Informative)
You call those shortcomings?!
The CPU is a few thousand times faster than any other microcontroller.
The RAM is 512 MEGABYTES - Most micros used in this same class have 32 to 128 KILOBYTES of RAM.
The PI is a moster powerhouse compared to any other microcontroller in its price class.
In fact the only boards that even compare are full blown embedded PC boards, which arguably is a class or two above what the Pi is targeted at (and cost way more than 2-3x still)
It's hardly the Pis fault you are trying to run a full blown Win8 OS on an embedded microcontroller. :P
Try that on an adruino and go bitch about how 8kb of ram just isn't enough to blink a led using Win8
Re:USB Bandwidth & Power Problem (Score:4, Informative)
yes as long as your input power adapter is decent
the B+ can provide upto 1200 mA
see
http://www.raspberrypi.org/for... [raspberrypi.org]
Re:Slow CPU, crippled network, too little RAM (Score:4, Informative)
Only if you think that adding a voltage regulator chip to your power supply is difficult. A 5v regulator, the 7805, costs about 50 cents a piece even when you buy them in very small quantities.
Re:PWM? (Score:5, Informative)
Yes - we bring out both PWM outputs to the GPIO connector now.
Broadcom BCM2835 USB problems not fixable (Score:5, Informative)
The B+ redesign fixed the power problems, but not the core data loss.
The core problems of USB can't be fixed in B+, because the new board still uses the same old Broadcom BCM2835 SoC with its minimalist (only partial) USB controller. That's the reason for USB events being dropped when the ARM is busy and can't service the USB interrupts fast enough.
That SoC was never intended to support full USB operation on a general purpose computer, only light applications like plugging a flash drive into a set top box. Its use in Roku 2 is typical.
As a consequence of the SoC, the core USB problems won't disappear until a new SoC is chosen for a next generation Raspberry Pi.
Re:Much better board layout (Score:4, Informative)
Agreed, stereo if possible, 48Khz sample rate even better...
Correction... 192 Khz sample rate would be *excellent*....