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News Microsoft pushes into IoT with Galileo giveaway

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by Gareth Halfacree, 9 Jul 2014.

  1. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    Gareth Halfacree, 9 Jul 2014
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  2. schmidtbag

    schmidtbag What's a Dremel?

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    lol yeah keep dreaming MS. Without a working display, a dedicated command line, or a remote desktop service that users can easily connect to, Windows isn't going to get very far or do very much for a platform like this. That's assuming MS can reduce the bloat enough that it even functions.

    What I don't understand is how they see this as a profitable market. Then again, I don't understand how Intel thought that either. The galileo has a seriously overpowered CPU on a very limited board. If they used that processor on one of the arduino mega board layouts, then I think they'd have had a much more compelling product and it wouldn't be so awkwardly shaped.
     
    schmidtbag, 9 Jul 2014
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  3. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    Speaking as someone with a Galileo board sat behind him as he types, it really, really hasn't. The Quark is terrible. The emulated Arduino compatibility is slow as all get-out (when you're being outperformed by several orders of magnitude by an eight-bit chip running at 16MHz, you know you've got problems) and the general-purpose side of things is no better. There are plenty of words I'd use - and have used, in my various reviews - to describe the Galileo's processor, but 'overpowered' ain't one of 'em. 'Overengineered,' maybe.
     
    Gareth Halfacree, 9 Jul 2014
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  4. Xlog

    Xlog Minimodder

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    At least you can buy them, which I can't say about rpi or beaglebone (no stock in farnell and rs).

    How is the performance with all "compatibility" crap removed - i.e. running debian or other native distro?
     
    Xlog, 9 Jul 2014
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  5. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    Really? Blimey, I thought all stock problems were over and done with. There's enough Raspberry Pi stock in the UK that retailers are discounting it - I've seen the Model B going for less than £24 on reliable eBay outlets. Guess it's a different story overseas.
    There's only one native distribution, and that's a cut-down Linaro Linux port. No other operating system will work. Remember, the Galileo has no keyboard or mouse input, no video output, nothing. Hell, the stock software doesn't even support SSH; you need to install a less cut-down variant on SD to use anything other than USB, RS232 or telnet connectivity.

    EDIT:
    I just dug out my reviews. For general-purpose performance, I had the Galileo compress a 10MB file with gzip. It took 25.9s to complete - compared to 8.3s for the same file on a Raspberry Pi at the stock frequencies. Now, the Pi's processor runs at 700MHz to the Galileo's 400MHz - but if you correct the Pi's score down to 400MHz you get 14.53s - meaning the Quark is almost twice as slow in terms of instructions per cycle (IPC) than the Pi's ageing BCM2835 processor. Add to that the fact that the Quark draws considerably more power and generates considerably more heat than the BCM2835 at their respective stock frequencies, and you can see why I wasn't terrifically impressed.
     
    Last edited: 9 Jul 2014
    Gareth Halfacree, 9 Jul 2014
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  6. schmidtbag

    schmidtbag What's a Dremel?

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    Ah. I guess it's only overpowered on paper then. I never heard any reviews of it. Good thing I never invested in it.
     
    schmidtbag, 9 Jul 2014
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  7. RedFlames

    RedFlames ...is not a Belgian football team

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    Well i put my name down for one... not a bloody clue what i'd do with it if i got sent one and after reading Gareth's write-up i may wish i hadn't bothered but i've always wanted to have a fiddle something like this...
     
    RedFlames, 9 Jul 2014
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  8. schmidtbag

    schmidtbag What's a Dremel?

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    Beaglebone or Arduino Due might be of more interest to you, depending on what you intend to do with them. If you care more about sensors and GPIO, get the Due. If you care more about advanced peripherals like a camera, get beaglebone. Many features beaglebone offers you can do on an arduino, such as USB ports (that only support specific types of devices), networking, sound, and high-capacity data storage. The processing power and storage on the Due is more than enough for some pretty advanced programs. As of right now, my main gripe about the Due is the lack of EEPROM support, and the 32-bit integers gets to be a pain sometimes.
     
    schmidtbag, 9 Jul 2014
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  9. ArcAngeL

    ArcAngeL What's a Dremel?

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    i'm curious, but I can't find where to sign up to get one. I'd love to tinker at these to develop some devices for the anything connected generation... Like a mod to remote control your washing machine for example.

    I know the likely hood of this taking off the ground is limited, but hey I'm bored.
     
    ArcAngeL, 14 Jul 2014
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  10. RedFlames

    RedFlames ...is not a Belgian football team

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    Odd... The sign-up page seems to have gone AWOL...

    Also worth pointing out if you already have a gallileo, it apparently needs a firmware to whatever cut-down version of windows they plan on slapping on them

     
    RedFlames, 14 Jul 2014
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  11. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    Ah, so it *will* run a Windows variant. Eeenteresting, given that at present there's only one Linux-based OS for the Galileo.
     
    Gareth Halfacree, 14 Jul 2014
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