Has the Pi2 gone away?

The global chip/component shortage. And possibly Raspberry Pi holding back on the uninteresting maker market while preparing for an IPO.

You can read about the first idea here:

Well you can back-order them for expected delivery at the end of

Nothing much different to every other RPi model based on that website where most of the other models are on back-order for 2023 or later as well (Farnell have some more options in the UK, including Pi 1 Model Bs for delivery before the end of the year).

Looks like my problem is the power supply after all, so I kinda lucked out.

Still, I wonder what's going on with the Foundation. It's clear they had a vast success, but hanging fire in the middle of it seems a bad thing.

Thanks for reading & replying,

bob prohaska

The Pi2 originally had its own chip (BCM2836) - with quad core Cortex A7. When the Pi3 was launched the Pi2 was relaunched as v1.2 with a slower version of the same chip as the Pi3 (BCM2837, quad core 64-bit A53). That prevented them having to keep manufacturing the 2836 silicon. It then became just a niche version of the Pi3.

While it's technically still in production, the only people who want it are industrial folks who have some dependency on the particular Pi2 shape or the A7. They have their own channels to buy it in volume - for the rest of us the Pi3 is effectively the same hardware but faster and more widely available.

You may find that FreeBSD needs updating, though, if you're still running an old kernel that doesn't know about the Pi3.

Theo

Ahh, now I'm starting to understand....

I've two Pi3's, and aarch64 is a _very_ tight fit unless it's a binary-only install.

If the Pi2 is extinct for practical purposes I guess the Pi4 is the logical next step. It works much better than either Pi2 or Pi3 but is overkill for my application (name, mail and webservice for private domains). It's also several times the cost. Power consumption is higher too.

Thanks for writing!

bob prohaska

I don't get it, do you mean space? Just get a bigger sd card, obviously.

No, RAM. With 4 GB it would be ok. Self-hosting takes a lot of RAM when building LLVM. Swap helps, but then USB becomes a narrow bottleneck. For a binary only installation it isn't an issue, but I've been in the habit of self-hosting on my servers.

Thanks for reading,

bob prohaska

LLVM isn't small, I agree. Although can't you run a 32-bit FreeBSD on the Pi3? You could try the RPI-B image:

Theo

Just the other day, I scored a Compute Module 4 when pishop.us got a few hundred of them in. Price is about the same as a comparable Raspberry Pi 4, they're available with onboard eMMC storage (no SD card needed), and there's a wide variety of carrier boards that bring out whatever I/O is needed. Mine will be set up with a minimal carrier with power and UART pins populated on the GPIO header to run OctoPrint. I've had another one running OctoPrint on another printer for a few months, and it's worked like a champ. The new one will replace a RPi Zero 2 W, which is noticeably slower...thinking of turning that into a dedicated serial terminal.

Just how much extra hardware is required to make a CM4 a stand-alone host? I'll need some sort of enclosure, too.

Another option is to get a Pi400 and use it to free up a Pi4B for other uses. Overkill, again, but readily available.

Thanks for writing!

bob prohaska

It depends on what you want to do. The official I/O board brings out lots of extra I/O, including things like PCI Express that aren't available from the RPi 4 without hacking it, but is a fair bit larger. At the other extreme are boards barely large enough for a GPIO header and one of those

For my 3D printer OctoPrint hosts, I'm using the Waveshare Nano Base Board A:

I also have a router built around a CM4, running OpenWRT. That one uses the DFRobot IoT Router Carrier Board Mini:

Neither of these include HDMI because I don't need it for the intended applications.

I'd probably want all but HDMI. From the pricing it appears that a CM4 + I/O combo will cost somewhat more than a standard Pi4, other things being equal. Some sort of enclosure would also be helpful, but I didn't see any in a cursory search.

For the moment I'll wait and hope the supply situation improves.

Thanks for the heads-up!

bob prohaska

True. OTOH, the CM4s have been somewhat more available lately, so it comes down to how long you want to wait.

There's a laser-cut acrylic enclosure for the router I'm using. Beyond that, I have a couple of 3D printers and can roll my own cases in any configuration needed. :)