[TriEmbed] In need of a tiny, cheap, powerful(ish) computer

Carl Nobile carl.nobile at gmail.com
Mon Sep 21 21:17:21 CDT 2015


Adam,

I feel your pain. I realize what you are trying to do. So you can try to
see if it works with numpy on an RPi. If it does then maybe you can write
your own C routines that can do the work you want and pre-compile it for
different platforms and have corresponding downloads.


On Mon, Sep 21, 2015 at 10:13 PM, Adam Haile <adammhaile at gmail.com> wrote:

> I would love to be able to only support the one platform... sadly not :(
>
> On Mon, Sep 21, 2015 at 10:12 PM, Carl Nobile <carl.nobile at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> This is why I use Windows for nothing except updating my Tom-Tom. You are
>> right if you are using Windoze expect any Python packages that need C/C++
>> to compile to just not work correctly. For me this is just way too limiting
>> so I'm a Linux only type of guy. I do this stuff professionally, so I
>> decline all Windows Python work--I can't have things failing to build
>> correctly.
>>
>> So if you get it to work on the RPi then you can recommend it and the
>> numpy install will always just work.
>>
>> ~Carl
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Sep 21, 2015 at 10:02 PM, Adam Haile <adammhaile at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Yeah... I think I'll look into seeing if I can integrate numpy in any
>>> way. The problem I've run into with numpy is on Windows. When trying to
>>> install via pip, it always gives the dreaded vcvarsall.bat error and then
>>> you have to go an install the microsoft python compiler package to get it
>>> to work. Another option is to manually download a precompiled WHL file
>>> <http://www.lfd.uci.edu/~gohlke/pythonlibs/#numpy>, but most users
>>> don't find that. And I hate dependencies :P But I'm cool with making it an
>>> option thing for the sake of speed... fortunately, python is flexible
>>> enough where I could probably make it auto-detect and then just use the
>>> correct version if numpy is installed.
>>>
>>> On Mon, Sep 21, 2015 at 9:58 PM, Carl Nobile <carl.nobile at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I install everything in a virtual environment then use pip to install
>>>> everything. This keeps one apps install separate from another's. For
>>>> instance one app can use python 3.4 and another use 2.7.4.
>>>>
>>>> Pip should pull down all of numpy's dependencies. Don't use the
>>>> machine's install with most Python packages. Now scipy is a pain to install
>>>> even with pip. There are circular dependencies between numpy and scipy.
>>>>
>>>> You may want to see if the RPi can handle the work when using numpy,
>>>> just to see. This may give you other options.
>>>>
>>>> ~Carl
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, Sep 21, 2015 at 9:49 PM, Adam Haile <adammhaile at gmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I do where I can right now... but numpy is a non-trivial install on
>>>>> some systems (in my experience). Something not worth it for the majority of
>>>>> users since most probably don't use more than a couple hundred LEDs, if
>>>>> that.
>>>>>
>>>>> I may need to find a way to come up with an optional numpy version...
>>>>>
>>>>> On Mon, Sep 21, 2015 at 9:45 PM, Carl Nobile <carl.nobile at gmail.com>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Adam,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Doing it in pure python may be the issue. Use the numpy package it
>>>>>> does matrix math extremly fast. If you're flipping pixels around then you
>>>>>> will get an unbelievable speed increase with numpy.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> ~Carl
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Mon, Sep 21, 2015 at 9:39 PM, Adam Haile via TriEmbed <
>>>>>> triembed at triembed.org> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> It's all CPU. There's usually less than 100MB RAM usage. And yup,
>>>>>>> 24/7 operation.
>>>>>>> I'm already using nothing but single byte math (with a tiny few
>>>>>>> float exceptions) and have optimized the heck out of it with a couple of
>>>>>>> performance profilers. Pretty much it comes down to doing hundreds of
>>>>>>> thousands of pixel operations per second all in pure python, with no GPU
>>>>>>> acceleration... this is because my "display" is large LED matrices. So,
>>>>>>> admittedly, not the best for performance... but I'm also doing way more
>>>>>>> than users of my library would generally ever try.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Mon, Sep 21, 2015 at 5:01 PM, John Vaughters <
>>>>>>> jvaughters04 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> >Forget I mentioned the video thing... Pi is not fast enough
>>>>>>>> regardless.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Right, so the pi lacks memory and processing power.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I guess the question is what is your application wanting? Are you
>>>>>>>> swaping memory? or is the Processor pegged? Or both?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Do you need 24/7 on time?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Is it your software that you can change to optimize your system?
>>>>>>>> You mentioned speed over cores; software changes can possibly fix these
>>>>>>>> problems.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Finding sub $150 computers in the x86 family is going to be tough
>>>>>>>> unless you want a used laptop. But even then, laptops running 24/7 are not
>>>>>>>> the most reliable.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I guess my suggestion would be to try to figure out what the hold
>>>>>>>> up is in your application and system if you want to get the cost to it's
>>>>>>>> lowest. Or just try the used laptop route.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> John Vaughters
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>> Triangle, NC Embedded Computing mailing list
>>>>>>> TriEmbed at triembed.org
>>>>>>> http://mail.triembed.org/mailman/listinfo/triembed_triembed.org
>>>>>>> TriEmbed web site: http://TriEmbed.org
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>>
>>>>>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>> Carl J. Nobile (Software Engineer)
>>>>>> carl.nobile at gmail.com
>>>>>>
>>>>>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>>
>>>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> Carl J. Nobile (Software Engineer)
>>>> carl.nobile at gmail.com
>>>>
>>>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Carl J. Nobile (Software Engineer)
>> carl.nobile at gmail.com
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>
>


-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Carl J. Nobile (Software Engineer)
carl.nobile at gmail.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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