FriendlyARM: Great Hardware, Poor Software

[thomaspfeiffer]

I just wonder why FriendlyARM seems to be unable to support their own hardware sufficiently. Just four examples taken from this forum:

- No support of FriendlyARM's CAM500B: viewtopic.php?f=47&t=1034
- Missing /dev/ttyUSBx: viewtopic.php?f=47&t=684
- No support of 1-wire: viewtopic.php?f=47&t=1012
- No support of RPi.GPIO in Python3.x: http://wiki.friendlyarm.com/wiki/index. ... ith_Python

Maybe the legacy kernel 3.somethings works for some of these usecases. But my expectations are to have a state of the art kernel. Maybe some of the topics above could be solved by using Armbian. But not out of the box, some handicraft work still necessary.

FriendlyARM, what do you think why do we buy your hardware? The reason's not to have just another piece of hardware in my tech museum. It's for building great projects with sensors, cameras, and other cool nerdy things.

I'd really ask you to support the users and buyers of your hardware!

Regards, Thomas

[auto3000]

Agree. I think I wrote a similar post but maybe I don't.

From previous experience on Raspberry PI, as you and many others, I was expecting a better support from FriendlyArm on the provided ubuntu installation. I found it quite unusable in this state, this is pure toy.

I finally switched to a custom Yocto-based BSP and does some fixes on the Linux kernel from FriendlyArm. My project requires to do some fixes to get proper audio and I spent few days to get a real implementation of RPI.GPIO_NP (about that last, one friendly user rebuilt it for python3 with success on ubuntu, check the forum).

What I can conclude from this experience. Raspberry PI is an astonishing platform with about no "visible" defect on support code. I met some problems, but these issues were always related to hardware limitations. This is similar to a laptop you bought at Walmart where all features are working out of the box (you paid for this), sometimes the WiFi is not as fast or reliable as expected, but it really works at 100% of the hardware you paid. And Raspberry PI, with the high volume sells, offer similar qualitative support.

About Nano PI... this hardware would be used for DIY project with very specific needs. Consequently, you have to pay with time to meet your specific requirements. I did my first prototype with Raspberry with about no effort but I want more for integration concerns. My second prototype with a Nano PI was a clear progress... at the level of effort required.

[thomaspfeiffer]

Thanks very much for your post, auto3000!

I fully agree with you: We cannot expect the full qualitative support like we get from Raspbian. But on the other hand, having a working camera or a working 1-wire bus is not a very specific need. Currently, FriendlyARM acts like a car dealer who sells cars without wheels.

Regards, Thomas