Les Pounder loves a surprise and a Raspberry Pi – so when the Pi 4 was released, he was over the moon!
Surprise! June is not a traditional release date for a Raspberry Pi. In fact, this new version of the Pi breaks a few traditions. Firstly, it was released far earlier than predicted due to the BCM2711 System on Chip (SoC) being ready for production some nine to 12 months early. Secondly, there’s the price: there is now not just one price for a Raspberry Pi Model B, but three. At £34, the basic model comes with 1GB of RAM; for £44 there is a 2GB model; and for £54 there is a 4GB model. For this review we have chosen to look at the 1GB model as we can directly compare it to previous models of Pi.
No matter the version of Pi 4, all come with a 1.5GHz 64-bit quad-core Arm Cortex-A72 CPU (Arm v8, BCM2711B0) and all of the RAM is now LPDDR4, giving us a much-needed boost in performance. GPU duties are handled by the new VideoCore VI which supports OpenGL ES3.0 and provides another handy boost in performance.
If you are a keen maker/hacker then fear not, as the 40-pin GPIO is present and fully compatible with HAT and pHAT boards. But in a change to previous GPIO configurations, the GPIO of the Pi4 offers four each of I2C, UART and SPI interfaces, enabling more compatible devices to be connected – all by changing the device tree overlay on boot.
For network connectivity, we are truly spoilt. While the Pi 4 retains the excellent 2.4GHz and 5GHz Wi-Fi from the 3B+, we finally have true gigabit Ethernet on a Raspberry Pi thanks to the BCM54213 Ethernet chip, which provided a stonking 931Mbits/sec in our test – around three times faster than the 3B+. No more Ethernet through USB!
Denne historien er fra September 2019-utgaven av Linux Format.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent ? Logg på
Denne historien er fra September 2019-utgaven av Linux Format.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
Create your first WebSocket service
Mihalis Tsoukalos explains how to use the Go programming language to work with the WebSocket protocol.
Fantastic Mr Firefox
Nick Peers takes a trip down memory lane to reveal the story behind the rise - and slight fall - of Mozilla's popular web browser.
Set up your terminal and email like it's 1983
Jump in the hot terminal time machine with Mats Tage Axelsson who emails from the command line using the latest technology.
Universal layer text effects with GIMP
Posters use them, films and presentations are hard to imagine without them: text effects. Attract attention with Karsten Günther and GIMP.
Jump to a federated social network
Nick Peers reveals how you can get up and running with this free, decentralised and non-profit alternative to Twitter.
Free our SOFTWARE!
Taking anything for granted is dangerous, so Jonni Bidwell and Mike Saunders revisit how the free software movement got started to help free us from proprietary tyranny!
Master RPI.GPIO
Les Pounder goes back to the early days of the Raspberry Pi - and his career with this classic library! -
Waveshare Zero to Pi3
Transform your Pi Zero into a Pi 3, they promised Les Pounder, but it's more like adding on go-faster stripes.
The Best OPEN SOURCE Software Ever!
In an attempt to trigger controversy, Michael Reed and Neil Mohr unequivocally state these are the greatest free software apps ever. Probably. We’re just trying to be helpful.
Linux-Mandrake 7
Simplicity and a wide range of applications make this a great distribution for all Linux users.
