[GTALUG] Raspberry Pi

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

| From: mwilson--- via talk <talk at gtalug.org>

| "Aruna Hewapathirane via talk" <talk at gtalug.org> wrote:
| > Some of the fruit named Pi boards have hardware specs way better as well
| > but price is very affordable.
| > I am wondering why the price is so low compared to the Raspberry Pi ? Or
| > are we simply paying for the Raspberry brand name ?
| 
| I think it's the usual Chinese manufacturing cost advantage.

Sure.

And subsidized shipping.  It is often cheaper to mail from China or Hong 
Kong than from within Toronto.

And engineering short-cuts:

- once one of those inexpensive boards are built and sort of work, no 
  fixes are released

- Often one version of Ubuntu is made to run and that's it.  It is custom 
  (because booting every board is different; DTree has helped but not 
  fixed the problem).  It's rarely updated.

- drivers are never upstreamed by the board-maker or the SoC maker.  
  Sometimes by volunteer reverse engineers (eg. linux-sunxi.org)

- there is no support except by enthusiasts

- no approvals by UL, CSA, DoC, FCC, ...

It is also handy that most work on the Raspberry Pi is in a language I 
understand.