We have an alternative to the RPi that has an eMMC. It's called a Beaglebone.

And everybody bitches that the board is too expensive.

A PI4 compute unit with 8GB of RAM instead of 1GB (faster, DDR4 instead of DDR3 too) and 32GB eMMC and a quad-core 64-bit CPU with much higher IPC while only costing $90 which is around $50 cheaper than a BeagleBoard AI (the same comparison exists for the Black too). You also get direct PCIe access to do what you want.

Beagle just doesn't offer anywhere near the same value.

The Black compared with the older RPi3. And everybody was always "The RPi3 is cheaper".

The conversations always went like this:

"Cheaper? So, did you count the SD card you need for the RPi?"

"But it's cheaper."

"And the special power supply because the RPi power systems suck?"

"But it's cheaper."

"And the keyboard and monitor because it doesn't run headless over USB?"

"But it's cheaper."

"... Okay, boss, it's cheaper. Go have fun."

And that's before we even start talking about the lousy documentation of the RPi CPU chips. And the fact that the Ethernet was installed over the USB. etc.

But the RPi was cheaper. Shrug. The guys at TI learned their lesson. Throw everything off the board and make it cheap--the hackers don't give a shit about anything else.

Two different targets, I have used both. I have so many 5V power supplies sitting around, they git in the way. Including 12v/5v buck converters for auto stuff. You can configure for headless when you set up the SD card before you ever boot. I have never booted a Pi with attached display/keyboard.

The Pi is cheap, for a reason, but it is still more powerful than anything I use it for. But the same goes for the Beagle Board.

Choose the board you want, for the project you are doing.

Note: For every RPi project I have done, I have done two or three ESP8266/ESP32 projects along with five or six AVR/M0/M2 Arduino projects.

I'm always irritated by people calling it a $35 computer when you can get complete systems for just a little more.

It doesn't have the same ecosystem. Which is half the point of the rpi to start with.

But if you vouch for it I'll take a closer look.

> It doesn't have the same ecosystem. Which is half the point of the rpi to start with.

Now that's a valid argument. And I would argue it's way more than half.

If you want a one-off mumblesomething and can stay at the Linux OS level (ie. Web application, USB peripherals or maybe the most basic of GPIOs), the RPi ecosystem is going to let you get there much faster even though it will crash and burn occasionally. If that's "good enough" ... Douzou! ... Ganbatte! ... get moving and get going.

I have the same comment about Arduino. It ain't real reliable (but, to be fair, it's quite a bit more reliable than the RPis), but the ecosystem is awesome.

However, when you start asking something like "Gee, how do I send a single address byte over the I2C subsystem?" or "That signal needs a response in 50 nanoseconds, can I make that work?" you will thank the TI folks for producing that 5000 page (not joking or exaggerating) Technical Reference Manual.

One other thing that people who live in the RPi system always overlook in the Beagle ecosystem are the PRU cores. You can do HARD real-time work on those and still live in the Linux world. That's something that the RPi series just simply cannot do no matter how much you hack at them. And it often means the difference between a design which needs an FPGA and one that doesn't.

However, yes, you are going to live in that Technical Reference Manual for the Beagle series. If you're not comfortable doing that, then the Beagle stuff probably isn't for you.

There are really good reasons to use and love RPi's--ease of use is huge. But the whole "It's cheaper" thing just chaps my hide.

I'll take your word for it, but it sounds like a very different use-case than most use the pis for though.

When you spend that much time with your device cost isn't a factor (imho). But the pi is cheap enough that I can gift one if I know the end result will work well. And it is quite nice to just have one lying around for when you get an itch.

Using netboot I have never had an issue with the pi. All reliability problems I've experienced can be tracked down bad power and SD-cards (note: I have not used any IO other than USB). Both are annoying enough to look for alternatives but both are also fixable (netbooting likely disqualifies it for many usecases though).

Minimizing reads on the sd card usually means that they work at least several years untouched (in my experience, obviously limited sample size), which is likely good enough for many (a true read-only system might work even better). But when the audio streamer in the vacation cabin dies when you aren't around to fix it is still frustrating. So I'm in the moment of figuring out how to move the last of them to be netbooted. Which has some very nice side-effects as well, such as trivial remote system backup+restores.

It also comes down to time. I know the pi and the pitfalls. Researching an alternative would take many hours and I'd still have to experience some of them. If the goal of the project isn't to learn a new sbc then that alone is a dealbreaker.

That said, PocketBeagle seems to support wifi netboot (which neither the pi and pi zero w do). Might be able to find a project for that!