Probably someone already spoke about this here, but I really find it interesting and I'm trying to imagine how MorphOS (that is surely lighter than Linux) could run on it..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BbufUp_HNs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGcILQ4WxEk&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_mDuJuvZjI

http://www.raspberrypi.org/

Thi kind of hardware would be perfect for set top boxes, mediacenter, carputers, etc..

I registered my interest in the Raspberry Pi, but I am waiting for information on when more of them will be available. It would be interesting to see what a port of MorphOS could be like on the R-Pi, but not only would MorphOS have to be ported to the ARM architecture, but someone on the MorphOS Dev. Team would need to write a great driver for the Raspberry Pi's GPU as well.

There is a good chance that the AROS developers will be successful in porting AROS to it first, since they already have a port running on ARM.

I am not sure what can be done with, or on the Raspberry Pi, as far as a general computing device, but it is cheap enough for many people to try it out and use it in many different ways.

Once the two companies responsible for manufacturing are able to ramp up production to match demand and a few hundred thousands of these Raspberry Pi's get into the hands of developers, we will see what it is capable of, or if it is just a toy, or a gimmick that has little practical application use. It might revive the OLPC movement and make it a real possibility, if packaged properly.

> Probably someone already spoke about this here

True :-)

https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=3&topic_id=7675&start=99
https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=3&topic_id=7675&start=170

Personally, I can't get too excited about hardware that costs less then the price of a MorphOS key.
The Raspberry looks intersting for Linux, but its kind of low powered and I couldn't see coughing up the cash for a MorphOS license for it (if it was available).

Jim,
Quote:

I don't understand that philosophy? Why should it matter how much the hardware costs, if it runs MorphOS well?

The Efika 5200b was a low powered and low cost computer system, with the motherboard still available for only $99 last time i checked. That is less than the cost of the MorphOS registration fee. There are many other reasons why the Efika 5200b may not be the best choice for a MorphOS computer system, but I would not count the fact that you can buy the motherboard cheaper than the cost of the registration fee as one of the reasons not to buy one (I would not buy one because I already have one, as it was my first MorphOS system).

I was lucky enough to buy my dual 1.25GHz G4 MDD PowerMac w/Radeon 9000Pro and full hardware and software Avid Meridian audio & video editing and special effects system for only $35, but that has no effect on my desire to register MorphOS2.7 on it. Why would the price of the Raspberry Pi have any effect on you regarding registering MorphOS on it or not (if MorphOS were ported to it of course)?

If I have understood the specifications of the Raspberry Pi correctly, it could be as fast, or faster than the Efika 5200b, and so should run MorphOS very well. My only concern is that like the Efika 5200b, the Raspberry Pi may have insufficient RAM, because it comes with only 256mb of RAM (and possibly only 128mb or RAM in some circumsances) and that this small amount of RAM is shared between the CPU and GPU. When running 1080p video playback, I would imagine that the GPU might take a large chunk of this shared memory and make it difficult to multitask with other programs without running into a low RAM situation. Of course, watching 1080p video content while trying to do something else on the Raspberry Pi is probably not a common occurrence for people using it, so maybe the 256mb of shared RAM will not be a problem.

We will have to wait and see if users start complaining about low memory problems occurring in the near future.

Not worth the porting effort really

hooligan,
Quote:

I wasn't really suggesting that MorphOS should be ported to the Raspberry Pi, just that it is an interesting piece of hardware because of what it can do for the price that they can make it for.

@Miky060

If you're going ARM with MorphOS, why not aim for the Efika MX instead? (Edit 3: Then you would also get access to the Netbook practically for free (it's virtually the same HW), Efika SmartBook going *MorphBook*! ) Or focusing on the upcoming Efika based on i.MX6 (it's not like a port would happen overnight anyway)?

A little comparison (any claims about the Raspberry PI, in numbers or words, is a cut/paste from the wikipedia page and other online sources):

Memory:
OK, much memory is pleasant to have, but in these kinds of applications it's a trade-off with cost, and 512MB memory actually gets you quite far in most cases where this HW will be used (often more than enough, especially in a MorphOS context).

And the Raspberry has *half* of this (and half of this is reserved for the GPU), so you are down to Efika 5200 levels, meaning special version of Odyssey, etc to handle this limitations...

Processor:
The Raspberry's BCM2835:
- is ARM11, in other words ARMv6, which due to its age is no longer supported by several popular Linux distros, including Ubuntu.
- Level 2 Cache is 128 KB, used primarily by the GPU, not the CPU
- It's only 1.25 DMIPS/MHz
- It's only clocked at 700MHz.

The i.MX51 in the Efika MX:
- is ARMv7, IMHO MorphOS would be better off with this ISA instead, since all Cortex-A8, A9 and A15 uses this ISA, and future 64-bit ARMv8 CPU's will be backwards (ARMv7) compatible.
- Has 256KB L2 cache
- Has NEON SIMD (think Altivec, but not quite as powerful)
- 2.0 DMIPS/MHz
- is clocked at 800MHz.

General differencies:
The Efika MX:
- Has WiFI (and also Ethernet of course)
- Has a 8GB Internal SSD, with a pretty decent performance actually
- Audio jacks for headset (yes, including audio *IN*)
- Has a built-in speaker
- Comes in a real case
- Comes with power supply and cables (contents of the package)

The Raspberry:
- Nope!

What would a realistic assumption be about the differences in the overall desktop use performance, between the Raspberry and the Efika, adding together the combined effect of the lower clock frequency, the much lower DMIPS/MHz, the lower RAM, the lower L2 cache and no NEON? The Raspberry having half of Efikas performance? You tell me...
(EDIT: 1.25 * 700 = 875 DMIPS, vs. 2 * 800 = 1600 DMIPS, about half there already, before even adding the impact of any of the other variables)

While I actually understands that a price tag at a quarter of the Efika MX would seem cool at a first glance, it's also worth noting that the Raspberry falls very short of the Efika's level of performance, specification, functionality and usability. In fact, I think this could be too limited to actually be useful for real. It's more of a toy. The final version of this could possibly be sold as a naked PCB at a similar price, or at least not very far off, and it would offer a lot more than the Raspberry. But the question is - Why?

I mean, if you add the very *basics* to the Raspberry PI in order to get it up and running, like...

Case: ~$15 to $45
8 GB storage: ~$20
Power cables and transformer: ~$20 (I don't know what they charged, but these kind of things usually costs about this, or a bit more)

...and you aren't at $35 anymore, but have been crawling quite far up in Efika MX price range (almost all the way, but not in performance, features and usability). There are hidden costs! Many a little makes a mickle. And the Efika MX is still *very low cost*, not particularly expensive at all!

(EDIT 2: The Raspberry Pi has a lot of focus though, a lot of attention, which could mean something to an OS who's main strengths are low footprint and resource efficiency, but if "$35" is the key reason to your Raspberry purchase, chances are that €111 won't be that appealing)

[ Edited by takemehomegrandma 17.03.2012 - 09:17 ]

> If I have understood the specifications of the Raspberry Pi correctly,
> it could be as fast, or faster than the Efika 5200b

True. If the Dhrystone benchmark is anything to go by, the Raspberry Pi's 700 MHz ARM1176 core is 15% faster than the Efika 5200B's 400 MHz e300c0 core.

https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=3&topic_id=7675&start=104

> it comes with only 256mb of RAM (and possibly only 128mb or RAM in
> some circumsances) and that this small amount of RAM is shared
> between the CPU and GPU.

AFAIK, all Raspberry Pi models come with 256 MiB of shared RAM, of which the user can dedicate either 32, 64 or 128 MiB to the GPU. That leaves either 224, 192 or 128 MiB as the main RAM.

> When running 1080p video playback, I would imagine that the GPU
> might take a large chunk of this shared memory

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raspberry_Pi#Specifications ("Note 2"), 1080p video playback should be possible with 64 MiB dedicated to the GPU, leaving 192 MiB as the main RAM.

@TMHG

> If you're going ARM, why not aim for the Efika MX instead? Or focusing on the upcoming Efika based on i.MX6 (it's not like a port would happen overnight anyway)?

I'm with you on this.
I'm just looking at Sabre Lite Dev Board specs...

> any claims about the Raspberry PI, in numbers or words, is a cut/paste
> from the wikipedia page and other online sources
> [...]
> 512MB memory actually gets you quite far in most cases where this HW
> will be used [...]. And the Raspberry has *half* of this (and half of
> this is reserved for the GPU)

Actually, the English Wikipedia page says that the VRAM can be set to half, quarter or eighth of the shared RAM.

Quote:

Yeah, my post here was largely a cut/paste from a post I did in a thread at amiga.org the 3rd of March, and the wiki-page has been updated since then, sorry. Still too little RAM though...

> the wiki-page has been updated since then

From your link:

"The minimum amount of memory that can be allocated to the GPU is 32 MB"
"The available memory, 128–224 MiB, after subtracting 32–128 MiB for graphics memory"
"The 128–224 MiB of available memory"

OK, maybe I didn't read it carefully enough (or there were other changes as well or I linked wrong, or whatever, can't be bothered to check)... My point remains though, 256MB is too little RAM, and while an Efika MX systems does cost a little bit more, it offers much, much more, not only in RAM, but also in Features and Performance, and it also comes as a Netbook!

> maybe I didn't read it carefully enough

Yes, that's it I guess.

> or there were other changes as well

???

> or I linked wrong

No, you correctly linked to the version that was the current one when you made your posting on amiga.org.

Don't get me wrong,
I find the device interesting as a Linux platform.
I just don't see that it would bring much to our OS.

Jim,
Quote:

How about thousands of people who like trying things like small boards or ...alternative operating systems?

minator,
Quote:

If these little ARM based Linux doohickeys get any small I'm going to need magnification to find them.

minator,
Quote:

Yes, if hundreds of thousands of people are going to buy one of these things and then find that they don't like the only operating system currently ported to it, they might be very interested in looking at MorphOS, which could bring us more MorphOS users and developers.

I don't know if the potential prospect of gaining a few new MorphOS users and possibly 3 to 10 new MorphOS developers by doing a port of MorphOS to the Raspberry Pi is worth the effort it would take to complete the port, unless the MorphOS Dev. Team has already decided that they want to port to the ARM architecture regardless of the Raspberry Pi port or not. I don't know how long such a port would take, because timing of getting MorphOS released on the Raspberry Pi would be a key factor to the success of getting many owners to try MorphOS. If the port of MorphOS could not be completed quick enough, the initial "Buzz" around the Raspberry Pi could die down by then and it would be much harder to get enough Raspberry Pi owners to notice and want to try MorphOS on their new "Toy".

Personally, I don't think the "Buzz" around the Raspberry Pi will be as strong as it is today, a year from now, or two years from now.

The Raspberry PI will evolve and is tight to education in the UK, it might become the new BBC micro.
More than 200 000 registered to the RS site to have one and it's not yet the education market which will be for September. I'll buy one the Aros guys are already targeting it.

Kamel

@takemehomegrandma
Yes, you're right, the Efika MX seems more interesting, but all this is just to speak and discuss, no concrete hopes in my post. MOS Team is too little and with real job/life for every member and every porting would take too much time (taken from other more important goals..) to make a port possible. Moreover the eventual port would come out as something already old when finished.
If I can just dreaam I would see MOS ported to one of these little all-in-one computers and run much smoother than any linux distro. The MOS licence for that kind of hardware should cost much less than the actual price for desktops/NoteBooks. Still better if some Society (maybe Genesi) would pay the team to port MOS on the new hardware. Obviously in this dream MorphOS should bring to that hardware something more (not just speed) that a Linux distro can already do. In this dream all this would bring some more money to morphos developers and more visibility and popularity to our OS that in my opinion has big potential in mobile devices.
But, hey, this is just a dream, reality is another one.

@ Miky060

You are right in that the Raspberry Pi has a huge spotlight shining on them right now, they have had media coverage, and everyone is looking. Can result in a considerable momentum. If MorphOS would strip away all Amiga Legacy stuff (the 68k emulator/JIT-emulator, all the Amiga Legacy stuff, and any "glue code" in the system that may be there to helps certain individual legacy 68k programs to run better. When the need for Amiga backwards compatibility is gone, a recompile of the OS could possibly be done quite fast. Compile the code to ARM, make drivers, support the HW. Would be a very limited verion of MorphOS, something reminding more of AROS, but more usable. Call it MorphOS Light, and sell it to the Raspberry Pi community for $35, bundled with pre-installed set of software that will make it fun and usefull, and showing off what MorphOS is about. A Cheap way to "spread the word", build a trade mark and some brand recognition for future endeavors on other platforms.

Raspeberry Pi only has 256MB. That's not enough for intensive OWB use IMHO. EfikaMX has 512MB and could be more useful.

it's a reason to reduce memory requirements of OWB... :)

bye, MarK.

more fun with Ras PI
http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/tag/mame