Hello, Does anyone have a Raspberry Pi lying around you no longer need ? Thanks - Aruna
I might have one, what generation do you need and what's the application? On Wed., Mar. 3, 2021, 9:06 p.m. Aruna Hewapathirane via talk, < talk@gtalug.org> wrote:
Hello,
Does anyone have a Raspberry Pi lying around you no longer need ?
Thanks - Aruna --- Post to this mailing list talk@gtalug.org Unsubscribe from this mailing list https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk
Hi Mat, many thanks and the more ram it has on board the better. This is strictly for my own experimenting and learn by doing stuff. So any Pi will do to start off with I guess. I am hoping to go down the embedded linux rabbit hole. I have been messing around with arduino for a while now and I guess it is now time to move on to something a little easier to compile and test a linux kernel on :-) I am also very interested in seeing if a Pi can replace my ancient desktop. I simply can't afford the Pi-4 desktop version with the dual monitor setup so thought I will ask and see if anyone has a spare. On Wed, Mar 3, 2021 at 9:38 PM Matt Price <moptop99@gmail.com> wrote:
I might have one, what generation do you need and what's the application?
On Wed., Mar. 3, 2021, 9:06 p.m. Aruna Hewapathirane via talk, < talk@gtalug.org> wrote:
Hello,
Does anyone have a Raspberry Pi lying around you no longer need ?
Thanks - Aruna --- Post to this mailing list talk@gtalug.org Unsubscribe from this mailing list https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk
Hi Aruna. On Wed, 3 Mar 2021 at 21:56, Aruna Hewapathirane via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:
Hi Mat, many thanks and the more ram it has on board the better. This is strictly for my own experimenting and learn by doing stuff. So any Pi will do to start off with I guess.
I am hoping to go down the embedded linux rabbit hole. I have been messing around with arduino for a while now and I guess it is now time to move on to something a little easier to compile and test a linux kernel on :-)
I am also very interested in seeing if a Pi can replace my ancient desktop. I simply can't afford the Pi-4 desktop version with the dual monitor setup so thought I will ask and see if anyone has a spare.
On Wed, Mar 3, 2021 at 9:38 PM Matt Price <moptop99@gmail.com> wrote:
I might have one, what generation do you need and what's the application?
On Wed., Mar. 3, 2021, 9:06 p.m. Aruna Hewapathirane via talk, <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:
Hello,
Does anyone have a Raspberry Pi lying around you no longer need ?
Thanks - Aruna
The Pi 2 and Pi 3 come with 1G of memory, end of story. Don't use a Pi 1 - there are too many issues and they (some or all, can't remember) don't have 1G of memory. The only ones with more than 1G are the recent Pi 4 series - and the ones with more than 1G all cost more money. The Pi 4 is also the only series with USB3. They're the newest and the best and as such, people aren't likely to be giving them away yet(?). I'm using a Pi 4 with 8G as a secondary desktop, and have been finding it quite useful. Mind you, I'm not using it for Gimp photo editing - but I do use it for web browsing (not a lightweight activity) and it handles that well. I think you would find any of the 1G models unsatisfactory as a desktop replacement: I wouldn't think about it until it had 4G RAM, and I'd prefer the 8G. If you want to learn about using a Pi - go to it. But if you want a desktop replacement ... I'm afraid you need the one you've said you can't afford. Sorry. Something worth noting is that you need a good USB power supply. Most USB chargers _don't_ cut it: the Pi will be constantly telling you it's undervoltage. That's a long conversation of itself, but the main point is you may have another cost on your hands. And of course you'll need a microSD card for the OS. -- Giles https://www.gilesorr.com/ gilesorr@gmail.com
"Giles Orr" <gilesorr@gmail.com> said:
Hi Aruna.
On Wed, 3 Mar 2021 at 21:56, Aruna Hewapathirane via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote: [ ... ]
I am also very interested in seeing if a Pi can replace my ancient desktop. I simply can't afford the Pi-4 desktop version with the dual monitor setup so thought I will ask and see if anyone has a spare. [ ... ] I'm using a Pi 4 with 8G as a secondary desktop, and have been finding it quite useful. Mind you, I'm not using it for Gimp photo editing - but I do use it for web browsing (not a lightweight activity) and it handles that well. I think you would find any of the 1G models unsatisfactory as a desktop replacement: I wouldn't think about it until it had 4G RAM, and I'd prefer the 8G.
Memory might not be horribly tight. I'm running a session now with half a dozen Image Viewer instances (~ 1Mpixel each), a Gimp instance with a half-dozen 2..3MByte .xcf's, and Firefox with a commercial page and this SquirrelMail page, and memory usage just cracked 1040MB, according to Task Manager. Most data is on a USB hard drive, but that shouldn't matter. A 4GB Pi might be roomy, for a modest workload.
On Thu, Mar 4, 2021 at 10:58 AM mwilson--- via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:
"Giles Orr" <gilesorr@gmail.com> said:
Hi Aruna.
On Wed, 3 Mar 2021 at 21:56, Aruna Hewapathirane via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote: [ ... ]
I am also very interested in seeing if a Pi can replace my ancient desktop. I simply can't afford the Pi-4 desktop version with the dual monitor setup so thought I will ask and see if anyone has a spare. [ ... ] I'm using a Pi 4 with 8G as a secondary desktop, and have been finding it quite useful. Mind you, I'm not using it for Gimp photo editing - but I do use it for web browsing (not a lightweight activity) and it handles that well. I think you would find any of the 1G models unsatisfactory as a desktop replacement: I wouldn't think about it until it had 4G RAM, and I'd prefer the 8G.
Memory might not be horribly tight. I'm running a session now with half a dozen Image Viewer instances (~ 1Mpixel each), a Gimp instance with a half-dozen 2..3MByte .xcf's, and Firefox with a commercial page and this SquirrelMail page, and memory usage just cracked 1040MB, according to Task Manager. Most data is on a USB hard drive, but that shouldn't matter. A 4GB Pi might be roomy, for a modest workload.
I just found that out on a virtualbox and Raspberry Pi using just 512Mb as System Memory :-)
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Hi Giles, On Thu, Mar 4, 2021 at 9:59 AM Giles Orr <gilesorr@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Aruna.
On Wed, 3 Mar 2021 at 21:56, Aruna Hewapathirane via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:
Hi Mat, many thanks and the more ram it has on board the better. This is
strictly
for my own experimenting and learn by doing stuff. So any Pi will do to start off with I guess.
I am hoping to go down the embedded linux rabbit hole. I have been messing around with arduino for a while now and I guess it is now time to move on to something a little easier to compile and test a linux kernel on :-)
I am also very interested in seeing if a Pi can replace my ancient desktop. I simply can't afford the Pi-4 desktop version with the dual monitor setup so thought I will ask and see if anyone has a spare.
On Wed, Mar 3, 2021 at 9:38 PM Matt Price <moptop99@gmail.com> wrote:
I might have one, what generation do you need and what's the
application?
On Wed., Mar. 3, 2021, 9:06 p.m. Aruna Hewapathirane via talk, <
talk@gtalug.org> wrote:
Hello,
Does anyone have a Raspberry Pi lying around you no longer need ?
Thanks - Aruna
The Pi 2 and Pi 3 come with 1G of memory, end of story. Don't use a Pi 1 - there are too many issues and they (some or all, can't remember) don't have 1G of memory.
I gave what you said some serious thought and decided to run a simulation and see what we maycome up with. So I have Virtualbox running Raspberry Pi. I purposely set the system memory low to 512Mb and guess what ? It booted fine and so far has handled everything I threw it's way. Web Browsing and anything to do with the internet is extremely slow but does work. Everything else is very responsive just click and go. So I am going to try and get started on a first generation Pi if Mat finds one lying around and I have a gut feeling once we are running on bare metal and not Virtual box even the internet may speed up :-) I am attaching a screenshot showing task manager and memory usage which is also fine. So with just 1Gb I think we should be able to do very useful things.
The only ones with more than 1G are the recent Pi 4 series - and the ones with more than 1G all cost more money.
More money ? Your looking at CDN $200.00 :-( tha tis daylight robbery. https://www.canakit.com/raspberry-pi-4-extreme-aluminum-case-kit.html
The Pi 4 is also the only series with USB3. They're the newest and the best and as such, people aren't likely to be giving them away yet(?).
I was not asking for a latest brand new shiny Pi4 I was asking for a used 'any' generation but if anyone has a pi 4 will gladly take it :-)
I'm using a Pi 4 with 8G as a secondary desktop, and have been finding it quite useful. Mind you, I'm not using it for Gimp photo editing - but I do use it for web browsing (not a lightweight activity) and it handles that well. I think you would find any of the 1G models unsatisfactory as a desktop replacement: I wouldn't think about it until it had 4G RAM, and I'd prefer the 8G.
Giles please try running Virtual box and Raspberry Pi and twiddle with the settings you may change your mind like I did.
If you want to learn about using a Pi - go to it. But if you want a desktop replacement ... I'm afraid you need the one you've said you can't afford. Sorry.
Let me get my hands on one first then we shall see what I am able to make
it do eh ?
Something worth noting is that you need a good USB power supply. Most USB chargers _don't_ cut it: the Pi will be constantly telling you it's undervoltage. That's a long conversation of itself, but the main point is you may have another cost on your hands. And of course you'll need a microSD card for the OS.
Ah yes I had similar issues with Arduino. The power supply is crucial to proper operation. Thank you good to know.
-- Giles https://www.gilesorr.com/ gilesorr@gmail.com
| From: Aruna Hewapathirane via talk <talk@gtalug.org> | Hi Mat, many thanks and the more ram it has on board the better. This is | strictly | for my own experimenting and learn by doing stuff. So any Pi will do to | start off with I guess. | | I am hoping to go down the embedded linux rabbit hole. I have been messing | around | with arduino for a while now and I guess it is now time to move on to | something a little | easier to compile and test a linux kernel on :-) Any Raspberry Pi would do for what you just said until you get to the last line. If you don't care about kernel build time, I *guess* that any Pi would do, but I don't know. | I am also very interested in seeing if a Pi can replace my ancient desktop. | I simply can't | afford the Pi-4 desktop version with the dual monitor setup You don't need two monitors so you can remove that cost. You can probably use your old monitor, keyboard, and mouse (you might need dongles to convert between old and new standards). What are the specs of your ancient desktop? Most ancient desktops are actually more powerful than a Pi. For some meanings of "ancient". If yours is really ancient, I would guess that there is a cast-off PC that is less ancient. If you put a premium on "cute" and don't mind the various inconveniences, a Pi can surely be used as your main general-purpose desktop. --- Post to this mailing list talk@gtalug.org Unsubscribe from this mailing list https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk
On Thu, Mar 4, 2021 at 11:47 AM D. Hugh Redelmeier <hugh@mimosa.com> wrote:
| From: Aruna Hewapathirane via talk <talk@gtalug.org>
| Hi Mat, many thanks and the more ram it has on board the better. This is | strictly | for my own experimenting and learn by doing stuff. So any Pi will do to | start off with I guess. | | I am hoping to go down the embedded linux rabbit hole. I have been messing | around | with arduino for a while now and I guess it is now time to move on to | something a little | easier to compile and test a linux kernel on :-)
Any Raspberry Pi would do for what you just said until you get to the last line.
If you don't care about kernel build time, I *guess* that any Pi would do, but I don't know.
I do very much care about the build time. I was thinking of cross compiling on my ancient desktop then moving it to the Pi ?
| I am also very interested in seeing if a Pi can replace my ancient desktop. | I simply can't | afford the Pi-4 desktop version with the dual monitor setup
You don't need two monitors so you can remove that cost. You can probably use your old monitor, keyboard, and mouse (you might need dongles to convert between old and new standards).
Agreed all I need is a single monitor.
What are the specs of your ancient desktop?
Well.. like I said pretty old my bios is: cat /sys/class/dmi/id/bios_date 07/05/2013 and lscpu shows: Architecture: x86_64 CPU(s): 4 Thread(s) per core: 2 Core(s) per socket: 2 Vendor ID: GenuineIntel Model: 60 Model name: Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-4130 CPU @ 3.40GHz CPU MHz: 3389.375 CPU max MHz: 3400.0000 CPU min MHz: 800.0000 BogoMIPS: 6784.89 and free -h shows: total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 7.5G 5.2G 2.3G 341M 163M 2.1G -/+ buffers/cache: 2.9G 4.6G Swap: 902M 0B 902M it's not a bad system I just want to start messing with a Pi :-)
Most ancient desktops are actually more powerful than a Pi. For some meanings of "ancient". If yours is really ancient, I would guess that there is a cast-off PC that is less ancient.
If you put a premium on "cute" and don't mind the various inconveniences, a Pi can surely be used as your main general-purpose desktop. ---
Thank you for all the pointers and advice.
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| From: William Park via talk <talk@gtalug.org> | No Raspberry Pi is going to match that. | --William | | On 3/4/21 10:25 PM, Aruna Hewapathirane via talk wrote: | > Model name: Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-4130 CPU @ 3.40GHz As William top posted, that is still a perfectly repectable processor. Much faster than any Raspberry Pi, as far as I know. Why did you think your system was badly obsolete? It isn't. It's limited in a few little ways. - No support for NVMe SSDs (but SATA SSDs are fast enough) - Without a graphics board, it has trouble supporting UltraHD monitors - fewer video CODECs are supported in hardware. This might make video conferencing a little laggy. - slower than current CPUs, but not enough to be a veto for use Why the heck did you think a Raspberry Pi would be a performance upgrade? Your system will have much faster conventional I/O. How much RAM do you have? If your system has too little RAM, you can add more. You cannot do that with a Raspberry Pi. If your system only has a hard disk drive, you can surely boost the performance by adding an SSD (but only SATA, not NVMe). There are plenty of modest SSDs for a low price. Here are a few examples. I have not carefully shopped for these. I've only looked on Amazon.ca. This is only intended to show you the landscape of the 2.5" SSD market. If you are really really short of money, this would probably work: <https://www.amazon.ca/TC-SUNBOW-Internal-Desktop-Advertising/dp/B073TVJPDT/> - $29.99 - bottom tier brand: unknown reliablilty, but probably OK - only 120GB, but that is quite workable, especially if you keep your HDD. I run full Fedora, without much local data, in 32GB. - free shipping (good) but from China (slow) - you can click on different sizes and get different prices. Here's a better brand and larger drive: <https://www.amazon.ca/Kingston-Digital-240GB-SA400S37-240G/dp/B01N5IB20Q/> - $44.95 - 240GB - good brand but, if I remember correctly, surprisingly slow for an SSD - free shipping available because cost is more than $35. Fairly quick delivery Here's a still better drive (faster, longer life, larger): - $84.99 - 500 GB - has DRAM which cuts down a lot of wear on the SSD and makes it faster. I would *guess* that the other drives are DRAMless.
On Fri, Mar 5, 2021 at 11:21 AM D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:
| From: William Park via talk <talk@gtalug.org>
| No Raspberry Pi is going to match that. | --William | | On 3/4/21 10:25 PM, Aruna Hewapathirane via talk wrote: | > Model name: Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-4130 CPU @ 3.40GHz
As William top posted, that is still a perfectly repectable processor. Much faster than any Raspberry Pi, as far as I know.
Yes it is but the Raspberry Pi OS I botted up in the Virtualbox is a lot more responsive than my actual system it is running on. I am still trying to figure out the reason why ? If you ever had a Windows machine and you installed Linux on it then you know what I am talking about. Same hardware just running Linux now instead of Windows and the increase in speed and performance has to be experienced to be believed.
Why did you think your system was badly obsolete? It isn't. It's limited in a few little ways.
Never said obsolete said ancient . I am happy with what I have and it was William Witteman who reached out and sent me the $:$$ when I was pulling my hair out many year sago because six hours had elapsed and my kernel was still not done compiling. I had a Pentium II back then. So nothing wrong with my system I just need a Pi for different reasons.
- No support for NVMe SSDs (but SATA SSDs are fast enough)
I am scared of SSD's for a good reason. They have no early warning system. And when they decide to fail omg they fail so beautifully. Beautifully equates to catastrophic unrecoverable as in dead in the water so uh-uh I will stick with my old hard disks. I can hear them rattle and diskmonitor gives me so far very reliable indicators of disk health.
- Without a graphics board, it has trouble supporting UltraHD monitors
Quite happy with my ancinet Samsung monitor :-) don't need UltraHD just
yet.
- fewer video CODECs are supported in hardware. This might make video conferencing a little laggy.
True !
- slower than current CPUs, but not enough to be a veto for use
Still compiles the linux kernel in just over 30 minutes sometimes 20 minutes.
Why the heck did you think a Raspberry Pi would be a performance upgrade?
Well like i said before the responsiveness of a given system is a very tricky thing. The Raspberry Pi OS running in Virtualbox is way faster when I click the app opens real fast boom! This may not happen on the real hardware I have t wait and see once I get my hands on one.
Your system will have much faster conventional I/O.
How much RAM do you have? If your system has too little RAM, you can add more. You cannot do that with a Raspberry Pi.
I have 8gigs RAM.
If your system only has a hard disk drive, you can surely boost the performance by adding an SSD (but only SATA, not NVMe). There are plenty of modest SSDs for a low price.
SSD for me is a no-no. Risk of failure with absolutely no prior indication is a risk I am unwilling to take.
Here are a few examples. I have not carefully shopped for these. I've only looked on Amazon.ca. This is only intended to show you the landscape of the 2.5" SSD market.
If you are really really short of money, this would probably work: < https://www.amazon.ca/TC-SUNBOW-Internal-Desktop-Advertising/dp/B073TVJPDT/
- $29.99
Thank you Hugh very much appreciate all the digging and time you have spent on my account but what I need right now is a paying project or some sort of stable work I can do remotely. I am not complaining or bitching but 15 odd year snow in Toronto I am yet unable to securer any computer work. All I have is a minimum wage call center position. Which I am happy with as I have friend's who have no jobs right now. If anyone has any work that is within my limited skill sets please do send ?
- bottom tier brand: unknown reliablilty, but probably OK
It is a haswell processor so not a bad machine :-)
- only 120GB, but that is quite workable, especially if you keep your HDD. I run full Fedora, without much local data, in 32GB.
Yes I am very much keeping my HDD.
- free shipping (good) but from China (slow)
- you can click on different sizes and get different prices.
Here's a better brand and larger drive:
<https://www.amazon.ca/Kingston-Digital-240GB-SA400S37-240G/dp/B01N5IB20Q/
- $44.95
- 240GB
- good brand but, if I remember correctly, surprisingly slow for an SSD
- free shipping available because cost is more than $35. Fairly quick delivery
Here's a still better drive (faster, longer life, larger):
- $84.99
- 500 GB
- has DRAM which cuts down a lot of wear on the SSD and makes it faster. I would *guess* that the other drives are DRAMless.---
Thank you very much for all the info Hugh.
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| From: Aruna Hewapathirane via talk <talk@gtalug.org> | On Fri, Mar 5, 2021 at 11:21 AM D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk <talk@gtalug.org> | wrote: | > As William top posted, that is still a perfectly repectable processor. | > Much faster than any Raspberry Pi, as far as I know. | | Yes it is but the Raspberry Pi OS I botted up in the Virtualbox is a lot | more responsive than my actual system it is running on. On the face of it, it sounds as odd as: Watch a TV ad on TV. Conclude the advertised TV's picture looks better than your TV. Clearly, your Raspberry Pi OS in Virtual Box cannot be faster than the host OS since it is using the host OS. Perhaps this is what's going on: - modern Linux desktops use 3D accelerated compositing - Hasell iGPUs are weak at 3D - Raspberry Pi OS avoids this. So: Switch your PC to another Desktop Environment that doesn't do this heavy compositing. Which ones? I don't know, but there are a million. debian supports a whole bunch, I think. XFCE? | SSD for me is a no-no. Risk of failure with absolutely no prior indication | is a risk | I am unwilling to take. I had a few SSDs fail in early the days. None recently. When they fail, they tend to fail suddenly and hard. But then again HDDs can fail that way too.
From my early experiences, I organize my desktop this way: / on SSD /home ond HDD.
That way, a broken SSD is no problem: just replace and install a new OS.
On Fri, Mar 05, 2021 at 07:24:56PM -0500, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk wrote:
On the face of it, it sounds as odd as:
Watch a TV ad on TV. Conclude the advertised TV's picture looks better than your TV.
I do love it when people ask for pictures of a TV on forums as if they could judge anything based on that given camera variances and what kind of computer screen they are viewing the picture on. They are mostly meaningless (unless you are using it to compare two TVs in the same image, in which case you can probably tell something about their differences).
Clearly, your Raspberry Pi OS in Virtual Box cannot be faster than the host OS since it is using the host OS.
Perhaps this is what's going on:
- modern Linux desktops use 3D accelerated compositing
- Hasell iGPUs are weak at 3D
- Raspberry Pi OS avoids this.
So:
Switch your PC to another Desktop Environment that doesn't do this heavy compositing. Which ones? I don't know, but there are a million. debian supports a whole bunch, I think. XFCE?
I use XFCE a lot. Nice and simple and lightweight. Gets the job done.
I had a few SSDs fail in early the days. None recently.
When they fail, they tend to fail suddenly and hard. But then again HDDs can fail that way too.
From my early experiences, I organize my desktop this way: / on SSD /home ond HDD.
That way, a broken SSD is no problem: just replace and install a new OS.
If it is important, I run RAID1 of SSDs. Then if it fails, you replace it, and life goes on. But other than the OCZ vertex 3 drives I got initially years ago, I haven't had SSDs fail on me so far. I am sure they will at some point. For large storage I still use harddisks (currently 9x4TB WD Red Plus drives in RAID6) and my mythtv front end still runs a pair of 500GB WD blue's in RAID1, and my laptop has 1 1TB HD and 1TB SSD, so I have a few harddisks around, but most machines are mainly SSD now. -- Len Sorensen
On Fri, Mar 5, 2021 at 8:56 AM William Park via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:
No Raspberry Pi is going to match that. --William
I am not looking for performance or match hardware specs William. What I am trying is to build the lightest most responsive desktop environment using a small form factor.
On 3/4/21 10:25 PM, Aruna Hewapathirane via talk wrote:
Model name: Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-4130 CPU @ 3.40GHz
Post to this mailing list talk@gtalug.org Unsubscribe from this mailing list https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk
Am I on the wrong list for posing basic questions about Linux? I posted a question a few weeks ago about about not being able to copy files because of permissions and because filename had a '?' in it. I received no response. I understand everyone is a volunteer. I'm not complaining - just want to know if this is an appropriate forum for basic questions. I know it's wrong to piggyback on this thread, but it is getting a lot of traffic, so I had no choice. Do I keep posting, and just see which posts are of interest to people, and which questions are not? Sorry, I'm not one to take a hint or "know" when to leave a party. I need someone to say, "Chris, leave the party." :) Chris On 2021-03-04 10:25 p.m., Aruna Hewapathirane via talk wrote:
On Thu, Mar 4, 2021 at 11:47 AM D. Hugh Redelmeier <hugh@mimosa.com <mailto:hugh@mimosa.com>> wrote:
| From: Aruna Hewapathirane via talk <talk@gtalug.org <mailto:talk@gtalug.org>>
| Hi Mat, many thanks and the more ram it has on board the better. This is | strictly | for my own experimenting and learn by doing stuff. So any Pi will do to | start off with I guess. | | I am hoping to go down the embedded linux rabbit hole. I have been messing | around | with arduino for a while now and I guess it is now time to move on to | something a little | easier to compile and test a linux kernel on :-)
Any Raspberry Pi would do for what you just said until you get to the last line.
If you don't care about kernel build time, I *guess* that any Pi would do, but I don't know.
I do very much care about the build time. I was thinking of cross compiling on my ancient desktop then moving it to the Pi ?
| I am also very interested in seeing if a Pi can replace my ancient desktop. | I simply can't | afford the Pi-4 desktop version with the dual monitor setup
You don't need two monitors so you can remove that cost. You can probably use your old monitor, keyboard, and mouse (you might need dongles to convert between old and new standards).
Agreed all I need is a single monitor.
What are the specs of your ancient desktop?
Well.. like I said pretty old my bios is: cat /sys/class/dmi/id/bios_date 07/05/2013
and lscpu shows: Architecture: x86_64 CPU(s): 4 Thread(s) per core: 2 Core(s) per socket: 2 Vendor ID: GenuineIntel Model: 60 Model name: Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-4130 CPU @ 3.40GHz CPU MHz: 3389.375 CPU max MHz: 3400.0000 CPU min MHz: 800.0000 BogoMIPS: 6784.89
and free -h shows: total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 7.5G 5.2G 2.3G 341M 163M 2.1G -/+ buffers/cache: 2.9G 4.6G Swap: 902M 0B 902M
it's not a bad system I just want to start messing with a Pi :-)
Most ancient desktops are actually more powerful than a Pi. For some meanings of "ancient". If yours is really ancient, I would guess that there is a cast-off PC that is less ancient.
If you put a premium on "cute" and don't mind the various inconveniences, a Pi can surely be used as your main general-purpose desktop. ---
Thank you for all the pointers and advice.
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On Sat, 6 Mar 2021 at 07:57, Chris Aitken via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:
Am I on the wrong list for posing basic questions about Linux? I posted a question a few weeks ago about about not being able to copy files because of permissions and because filename had a '?' in it. I received no response. I understand everyone is a volunteer. I'm not complaining - just want to know if this is an appropriate forum for basic questions. I know it's wrong to piggyback on this thread, but it is getting a lot of traffic, so I had no choice. Do I keep posting, and just see which posts are of interest to people, and which questions are not? Sorry, I'm not one to take a hint or "know" when to leave a party. I need someone to say, "Chris, leave the party." :) Chris
Do try to avoid hijacking threads. However, I think your question went unanswered because no one ever saw it. I keep all the TLUG messages, and I see no such question from you (unless you posted under a different name: I searched for "Chris Aitken"). This may have been a technical problem on your end, or it may have been a technical problem with the TLUG server: as you may have noticed from some of the messages, the server has had a rough few months. We're not even "volunteers:" we're a group of people interested in Linux who have joined a mailing list. We answer questions if we know the answer, we have time, and we're interested. That means it can be hit-or-miss. And like a lot of mailing lists, people may get mildly annoyed if you ask a question that can be easily answered by Google so I recommend doing your own research first before turning here. With all that said, clearly this latest message from you has got through so you should be good to try reposting the question. -- Giles https://www.gilesorr.com/ gilesorr@gmail.com
On 2021-03-06 7:57 a.m., Chris Aitken via talk wrote:
Am I on the wrong list for posing basic questions about Linux? I posted a question a few weeks ago about about not being able to copy files because of permissions and because filename had a '?' in it. I received no response. I understand everyone is a volunteer. I'm not complaining - just want to know if this is an appropriate forum for basic questions. I know it's wrong to piggyback on this thread, but it is getting a lot of traffic, so I had no choice. Do I keep posting, and just see which posts are of interest to people, and which questions are not? Sorry, I'm not one to take a hint or "know" when to leave a party. I need someone to say, "Chris, leave the party." :)
I don't even recall seeing that question.
On 2021-03-06 7:57 a.m., Chris Aitken via talk wrote:
Am I on the wrong list for posing basic questions about Linux? I posted a question a few weeks ago about about not being able to copy files because of permissions and because filename had a '?' in it. I received no response.
You are not on the wrong list for questions about Linux. I don't recall seeing your message. If you did then what you did today and added a question to an existing message thread instead of starting your question as a new message (thread) it may have been in a thread I was no longer interested in and I was just deleting those messages unread. Regarding the question, if you are using the command line you can use \ to escape the ? when entering the copy command. You could also use "cp -i start_of_filename* some_destination" then say yes or no as to which file(s) you want to copy. If you want to copy the file from a graphical desktop you can open the file browser program (e.g. caja in Linux Mint) and use it to select and copy the file. You may want to rename the file to remove the ? from the filename to make it easier to work with the file. -- Cheers! Kevin. http://www.ve3syb.ca/ | "Nerds make the shiny things that https://www.patreon.com/KevinCozens | distract the mouth-breathers, and | that's why we're powerful" Owner of Elecraft K2 #2172 | #include <disclaimer/favourite> | --Chris Hardwick
On Sat, 6 Mar 2021 07:57:05 -0500 Chris Aitken via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:
Am I on the wrong list for posing basic questions about Linux? I posted a question a few weeks ago about about not being able to copy files because of permissions and because filename had a '?' in it. I received no response. I understand everyone is a volunteer. I'm not complaining - just want to know if this is an appropriate forum for basic questions. I know it's wrong to piggyback on this thread, but it is getting a lot of traffic, so I had no choice. Do I keep posting, and just see which posts are of interest to people, and which questions are not? Sorry, I'm not one to take a hint or "know" when to leave a party. I need someone to say, "Chris, leave the party." :) Chris
Chris, I have posted a UNIX Command Line HOWTO on my website. I explain wildcards on it. http://home.eol.ca/~hgibson/UnixHowto.html -- Howard Gibson hgibson@eol.ca jhowardgibson@gmail.com http://home.eol.ca/~hgibson
If you need to move on, why not move on to other microcontroller devices, like Texas Instruments Launchpad, etc. ? I think there are more job opportunities for those experiences than Raspberry Pi. I don't know anyone who got job or contract based on Raspberry Pi experience. --William On 3/3/21 9:56 PM, Aruna Hewapathirane via talk wrote:
I am hoping to go down the embedded linux rabbit hole. I have been messing around with arduino for a while now and I guess it is now time to move on to something a little easier to compile and test a linux kernel on :-)
On Sat, Mar 6, 2021 at 11:06 PM William Park via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:
If you need to move on, why not move on to other microcontroller devices, like Texas Instruments Launchpad, etc. ? I think there are more job opportunities for those experiences than Raspberry Pi. I don't know anyone who got job or contract based on Raspberry Pi experience.
--William
TI Launchpad MSP430 boards are very cost effective and capable. A genuine Arduino Uno is around $30 whereas a Launchpad is around $10 bucks. I am not thinking of moving into industrial electronics William. I am a programmer I love coding and most of life is what I did to earn a living. Over time as we all do I have managed to gain a broad spectrum of skill-sets. I like to build things too so that is where Arduino and Raspberry Pi come in :-) In case anyone may have a need my resume is here: http://sahanaya.net/fsf/ Please scroll down and click the red 'download resume' button. Thanks.
On 2021-03-07 9:26 a.m., Aruna Hewapathirane via talk wrote:
In case anyone may have a need my resume is here: http://sahanaya.net/fsf/ Please scroll down and click the red 'download resume' button. Thanks.
I saw your postings to the GTALUB mailing list. I had a quick look at your web page. Nice page showing an interesting set of past work. Just a couple of comments for you. You have a typo in the MY STRENGTHS diagram. You have "Preety Good" instead of "Pretty Good". The Work Process section still has some Latin placeholder text. Not sure if that is deliberate or a section you haven't yet completed. -- Cheers! Kevin. http://www.ve3syb.ca/ | "Nerds make the shiny things that https://www.patreon.com/KevinCozens | distract the mouth-breathers, and | that's why we're powerful" Owner of Elecraft K2 #2172 | #include <disclaimer/favourite> | --Chris Hardwick
On Sun, Mar 7, 2021 at 8:39 PM Kevin Cozens via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:
On 2021-03-07 9:26 a.m., Aruna Hewapathirane via talk wrote:
In case anyone may have a need my resume is here: http://sahanaya.net/fsf/ Please scroll down and click the red 'download resume' button. Thanks.
I saw your postings to the GTALUB mailing list. I had a quick look at your web page. Nice page showing an interesting set of past work. Just a couple of comments for you.
You have a typo in the MY STRENGTHS diagram. You have "Preety Good" instead of "Pretty Good".
You have a very sharp eye for detail. Thank you. I have corrected the typo.
The Work Process section still has some Latin placeholder text. Not sure if that is deliberate or a section you haven't yet completed.
I never got around to fixing that till just now. Fixed now and thanks again :-)
On 2021-03-03 9:05 p.m., Aruna Hewapathirane via talk wrote:
Does anyone have a Raspberry Pi lying around you no longer need ?
Yup. I've got a 3B+ + power supply + smallish SD card you can have. Just add keyboard and HDMI monitor. Where are you based? Building new kernels might be a disappointment: it's quite easy to screw that up on a Raspberry Pi, for $reasons cheers, Stewart
On Thu, Mar 4, 2021 at 10:35 PM Stewart C. Russell via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:
On 2021-03-03 9:05 p.m., Aruna Hewapathirane via talk wrote:
Does anyone have a Raspberry Pi lying around you no longer need ?
Yup. I've got a 3B+ + power supply + smallish SD card you can have. Just add keyboard and HDMI monitor. Where are you based?
Oh my .. Thank you so much Stewart. Nearest major intersection is Lawrence Ave West and Caledonia Road.
Building new kernels might be a disappointment: it's quite easy to screw that up on a Raspberry Pi, for $reasons
I was thinking of cross compiling then moving it to the Pi ? What do you
think ? A lot faster and very much less error prone ?
cheers, Stewart
Once again many thanks :-)
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On Thu., Mar. 4, 2021, 22:48 Aruna Hewapathirane, < aruna.hewapathirane@gmail.com> wrote:
Oh my .. Thank you so much Stewart. Nearest major intersection is Lawrence Ave West and Caledonia Road.
Ah; other end of town. We can work something out. I've also got a FireFly SBC you can have. Twice the memory, built-in (small) bootable storage, about as fast as the Raspberry Pi 3. Seems to be 32-bit ARM only (unlike Raspberry Pi, which can go 64-bit, but that's slightly futile in 1 GB), and kernel upgrades and boot process is fiddly. Nice machine, but minimal community support. I was thinking of cross compiling then moving it to the Pi ? What do you
think ? A lot faster and very much
less error prone ?
The Raspberry Pi's kernel is still (IIRC) not 100% mainstream, so some magic may be required. The supplied and supported Debian-derived Raspberry Pi OS is 32-bit, but has a userland that has all the built-in hardware supported. Go to any other OS and you lose that. I've never felt the need to go outside that. I was a little surprised to see you running Raspberry Pi OS on VirtualBox. Looks like you're running the x86 Raspberry Pi Desktop for Intel - supplied and maintained by the Foundation so old PCs can be reused as workalike devices in the classroom. The Raspberry Pi boards are all ARM, so you'd be running something different and your cross-compilation would need to add an armhf step. Unless VirtualBox has gone all ARM too, you're not running the same OS at all. Cheers Stewart
On Fri, Mar 5, 2021 at 8:42 AM Stewart Russell via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:
On Thu., Mar. 4, 2021, 22:48 Aruna Hewapathirane, < aruna.hewapathirane@gmail.com> wrote:
Oh my .. Thank you so much Stewart. Nearest major intersection is Lawrence Ave West and Caledonia Road.
Ah; other end of town. We can work something out.
I can come to any subway station on the Kennedy line or anywhere on the LRT line. I don't drive Stewart am a confirmed TTC-cerian and pedestrian.
I've also got a FireFly SBC you can have. Twice the memory, built-in (small) bootable storage, about as fast as the Raspberry Pi 3. Seems to be 32-bit ARM only (unlike Raspberry Pi, which can go 64-bit, but that's slightly futile in 1 GB), and kernel upgrades and boot process is fiddly. Nice machine, but minimal community support.
Wow thanks :-)
I was thinking of cross compiling then moving it to the Pi ? What do you
think ? A lot faster and very much
less error prone ?
The Raspberry Pi's kernel is still (IIRC) not 100% mainstream, so some magic may be required. The supplied and supported Debian-derived Raspberry Pi OS is 32-bit, but has a userland that has all the built-in hardware supported. Go to any other OS and you lose that. I've never felt the need to go outside that.
Understood. I just want to try and build the smallest lightest kernel. Like puppy linux or knoppix. I use Debian at home so this is good news.
I was a little surprised to see you running Raspberry Pi OS on VirtualBox.
Well I was surprised myself. After what Giles said I wanted to test this but had no hardware or a Pi to test on. So I gave Virtualbox a shot and it did work :-)
Looks like you're running the x86 Raspberry Pi Desktop for Intel - supplied and maintained by the Foundation so old PCs can be reused as workalike devices in the classroom.
This is one major reason why I am starting to explore SBC's. Someday I want to get a computer ( Pi or Firefly or other SBC ) into every single home in resource poor settings like say Zambia where I grew up most of my teen years or Sri Lanka where I was born or even the Phillipines where the poverty level bought tears to my eyes after watching youtube documentaries. I know big dreams.. who knows... nothing ventured.. nothing gained eh :-)
The Raspberry Pi boards are all ARM, so you'd be running something different and your cross-compilation would need to add an armhf step. Unless VirtualBox has gone all ARM too, you're not running the same OS at all.
I did not have time yesterday to try QEMU. I will setup QEMU later today and put Raspberry Pi OS through all the hoops and loops. I am going to try anyway.
Cheers Stewart
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On 2021-03-05 5:57 p.m., Aruna Hewapathirane via talk wrote:
Understood. I just want to try and build the smallest lightest kernel. Like puppy linux or knoppix. I use Debian at home so this is good news.
Other options for a small distro are DSL (Damn Small Linux) or Morphix. -- Cheers! Kevin. http://www.ve3syb.ca/ | "Nerds make the shiny things that https://www.patreon.com/KevinCozens | distract the mouth-breathers, and | that's why we're powerful" Owner of Elecraft K2 #2172 | #include <disclaimer/favourite> | --Chris Hardwick
On Fri, 5 Mar 2021 at 19:11, Kevin Cozens via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:
On 2021-03-05 5:57 p.m., Aruna Hewapathirane via talk wrote:
Understood. I just want to try and build the smallest lightest kernel. Like puppy linux or knoppix. I use Debian at home so this is good news.
Other options for a small distro are DSL (Damn Small Linux) or Morphix.
While I agree that Damn Small was pretty good ... it was discontinued nine years ago. I know this because I was a fan back in the day, and was very sorry to see it go. DistroWatch tells me that Morphix was discontinued in 2003. I'm not sure either of these are good choices ... Maybe try DistroWatch set to "Old Computers?": https://distrowatch.com/search.php?category=Old+Computers#simple Their first recommendation is Puppy, which is hardly surprising. I wasn't much of a fan. Eighth on the list is Tiny Core. Tiny Core is .... interesting, without doubt. And light, again without doubt. But a real PITA because of the way it stores stuff. If Raspberry Pi OS is in the running, I'd go with that. I find it a decent lightweight OS that acts a lot like other OSes that people are used to. This cannot be said of Tiny Core, and Puppy is a bit out there too. -- Giles https://www.gilesorr.com/ gilesorr@gmail.com
Hi Giles On Fri, Mar 5, 2021 at 10:44 PM Giles Orr via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:
On Fri, 5 Mar 2021 at 19:11, Kevin Cozens via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:
On 2021-03-05 5:57 p.m., Aruna Hewapathirane via talk wrote:
Understood. I just want to try and build the smallest lightest kernel.
Like
puppy linux or knoppix. I use Debian at home so this is good news.
Other options for a small distro are DSL (Damn Small Linux) or Morphix.
While I agree that Damn Small was pretty good ... it was discontinued nine years ago. I know this because I was a fan back in the day, and was very sorry to see it go. DistroWatch tells me that Morphix was discontinued in 2003. I'm not sure either of these are good choices ...
Maybe try DistroWatch set to "Old Computers?":
https://distrowatch.com/search.php?category=Old+Computers#simple
Their first recommendation is Puppy, which is hardly surprising. I wasn't much of a fan. Eighth on the list is Tiny Core. Tiny Core is .... interesting, without doubt. And light, again without doubt. But a real PITA because of the way it stores stuff.
If Raspberry Pi OS is in the running, I'd go with that. I find it a decent lightweight OS that acts a lot like other OSes that people are used to. This cannot be said of Tiny Core, and Puppy is a bit out there too.
I decided to take Puppy and Tinycore for a drive. Remember those good old Dos6.22 and Clipper+Dbase3 days ? The attached screenshot is self explanatory :-) I found a few other interesting SBC's and one that caught my eye is the Orange-Pi has anyone used one of these ? http://www.orangepi.org/ I will be contacting Mat and Stewart off-list to follow up with the used Pi's. Thanks everybody for all the support and advice and info - Aruna
-- Giles https://www.gilesorr.com/ gilesorr@gmail.com --- Post to this mailing list talk@gtalug.org Unsubscribe from this mailing list https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk
On 2021-03-06 8:44 p.m., Aruna Hewapathirane via talk wrote:
I found a few other interesting SBC's and one that caught my eye is the Orange-Pi has anyone used one of these ?
There are several fruit named Pi boards. You have discovered OrangePi. There is also BananaPi. Another non-fruit named set of boards are the NanoPi boards. There are more boards similar to the above but those are the ones that came readily to mind. -- Cheers! Kevin. http://www.ve3syb.ca/ | "Nerds make the shiny things that https://www.patreon.com/KevinCozens | distract the mouth-breathers, and | that's why we're powerful" Owner of Elecraft K2 #2172 | #include <disclaimer/favourite> | --Chris Hardwick
On Sat, Mar 6, 2021 at 9:55 PM Kevin Cozens via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:
On 2021-03-06 8:44 p.m., Aruna Hewapathirane via talk wrote:
I found a few other interesting SBC's and one that caught my eye is the Orange-Pi has anyone used one of these ?
There are several fruit named Pi boards. You have discovered OrangePi. There is also BananaPi. Another non-fruit named set of boards are the NanoPi boards.
There are more boards similar to the above but those are the ones that came readily to mind.
Some of the fruit named Pi boards have hardware specs way better as well but price is very affordable. I am wondering why the price is so low compared to the Raspberry Pi ? Or are we simply paying for the Raspberry brand name ? Banana Pi and NanoPI eh ? :-)
"Aruna Hewapathirane via talk" <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:
Some of the fruit named Pi boards have hardware specs way better as well but price is very affordable. I am wondering why the price is so low compared to the Raspberry Pi ? Or are we simply paying for the Raspberry brand name ?
I think it's the usual Chinese manufacturing cost advantage. Those fruit and nano pi's are from Shenzhen or Guangzhou. Professor Michael Hudson wrote a book, _Killing the Host_. He lays out the fact that with the Finance/Insurance/Real-Estate processing ~40% of GDP in US or UK, that functions as overhead cost on US/UK manufacturing. You just can't match Chinese prices with that level of management cost.
On 3/7/21 8:27 AM, mwilson--- via talk wrote:
Some of the fruit named Pi boards have hardware specs way better as well but price is very affordable. I am wondering why the price is so low compared to the Raspberry Pi ? Or are we simply paying for the Raspberry brand name ? I think it's the usual Chinese manufacturing cost advantage. Those fruit and nano pi's are from Shenzhen or Guangzhou. Professor Michael Hudson wrote a book, _Killing the Host_. He lays out
"Aruna Hewapathirane via talk" <talk@gtalug.org> wrote: the fact that with the Finance/Insurance/Real-Estate processing ~40% of GDP in US or UK, that functions as overhead cost on US/UK manufacturing. You just can't match Chinese prices with that level of management cost. Add to that, ISO certifications, internal audits, and other political correctness policies.
| From: mwilson--- via talk <talk@gtalug.org> | "Aruna Hewapathirane via talk" <talk@gtalug.org> wrote: | > Some of the fruit named Pi boards have hardware specs way better as well | > but price is very affordable. | > I am wondering why the price is so low compared to the Raspberry Pi ? Or | > are we simply paying for the Raspberry brand name ? | | I think it's the usual Chinese manufacturing cost advantage. Sure. And subsidized shipping. It is often cheaper to mail from China or Hong Kong than from within Toronto. And engineering short-cuts: - once one of those inexpensive boards are built and sort of work, no fixes are released - Often one version of Ubuntu is made to run and that's it. It is custom (because booting every board is different; DTree has helped but not fixed the problem). It's rarely updated. - drivers are never upstreamed by the board-maker or the SoC maker. Sometimes by volunteer reverse engineers (eg. linux-sunxi.org) - there is no support except by enthusiasts - no approvals by UL, CSA, DoC, FCC, ... It is also handy that most work on the Raspberry Pi is in a language I understand.
| From: William Park via talk <talk@gtalug.org> | On 3/7/21 11:14 AM, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk wrote: | > - no approvals by UL, CSA, DoC, FCC, ... | This is what I don't understand. How do they get around CSA and FCC | certifications? Guess: it all comes in by mail so nobody catches it. As far as CSA and UL, I think that the fact that it uses low voltage makes it OK. But the power supply certainly should be approved. This does not cover DoC or FCC (radio interference).
On 2021-03-07 11:42 a.m., William Park via talk wrote:
This is what I don't understand. How do they get around CSA and FCC certifications?
First off, either CSA or UL is acceptable in Canada. However, since these devices are not AC line powered, neither approval is necessary as they're are safety related organizations and there's no risk as their might be with AC powered equipment. What would require their certification is the wall wart that plugs into the AC outlet. The FCC is a U.S. government body that regulates radio spectrum usage and more, but being an American body, it's irrelevant in Canada.
On 2021-03-07 11:14 a.m., D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk wrote:
And subsidized shipping. It is often cheaper to mail from China or Hong Kong than from within Toronto.
Canada's mail pricing is iniquitous. I sent a Raspberry Pi Pico (okay, and a tiny piezo speaker so it would play the rickroll tune when plugged in …) to Halifax, NS the other week. Small padded bag, 35 grams: $18. I've also had DHL be faster from China than Canada Post's fastest service can make it across Toronto.
- Often one version of Ubuntu is made to run and that's it. It is custom (because booting every board is different; DTree has helped but not fixed the problem). It's rarely updated.
- drivers are never upstreamed by the board-maker or the SoC maker. Sometimes by volunteer reverse engineers (eg. linux-sunxi.org)
- there is no support except by enthusiasts
Those are the biggies. A supportive manufacturer and community is worth the extra. The Banana Pi folks managed to cause one of the Raspberry Pi hardware developers to nope out of the community for a couple of years because they'd modified his Raspberry Pi GPIO library just enough to work with one model of Banana Pi ... but left his name as the support contact. He got so fed up with angry, entitled support requests that he quit coding and became an artisanal baker. cheers, Stewart
On Sun, Mar 7, 2021 at 11:33 PM Stewart C. Russell via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:
On 2021-03-07 11:14 a.m., D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk wrote:
And subsidized shipping. It is often cheaper to mail from China or Hong Kong than from within Toronto.
Canada's mail pricing is iniquitous. I sent a Raspberry Pi Pico (okay, and a tiny piezo speaker so it would play the rickroll tune when plugged in …) to Halifax, NS the other week. Small padded bag, 35 grams: $18.
I've also had DHL be faster from China than Canada Post's fastest service can make it across Toronto.
(Re: DHL) Hmmmmmm - - - - did you enjoy the insecure (only a http NOT https) web form you got to use for giving them your information? Did you 'like' the fact that you were set up so that you couldn't clear the shipment yourself? Did you like the 'nice' fee you were charged for their rather lackadaisical halding of the same? I didn't! Then Canada Post - - - - - dunno how they manage to do it but they are largely technologically incompetent and mostly unable to get the job (their mandate) done. In fact - - - they're so incompetent that they think they're competent (dunno how they manage this but they do!). Regards
On 2021-03-08 7:44 a.m., o1bigtenor via talk wrote:
(Re: DHL) Hmmmmmm - - - - did you enjoy the insecure (only a http NOT https) web form you got to use for giving them your information? Did you 'like' the fact that you were set up so that you couldn't clear the shipment yourself? Did you like the 'nice' fee you were charged for their rather lackadaisical halding of the same?
I never entered info on the DHL site. I provided info to the shipper in Hong Kong. IIRC, the fee from DHL was $20 or so. This is a lot less than what UPS charged years ago. It was so obscene that I and others refused to use them. I don't have a problem paying a reasonable amount for border brokerage service. My item was over $300, so it couldn't slip through without attracting HST etc..
On 3/8/21 9:21 AM, James Knott via talk wrote:
On 2021-03-08 7:44 a.m., o1bigtenor via talk wrote:
(Re: DHL) Hmmmmmm - - - - did you enjoy the insecure (only a http NOT https) web form you got to use for giving them your information? Did you 'like' the fact that you were set up so that you couldn't clear the shipment yourself? Did you like the 'nice' fee you were charged for their rather lackadaisical halding of the same?
I never entered info on the DHL site. I provided info to the shipper in Hong Kong.
IIRC, the fee from DHL was $20 or so. This is a lot less than what UPS charged years ago. It was so obscene that I and others refused to use them. I don't have a problem paying a reasonable amount for border brokerage service. My item was over $300, so it couldn't slip through without attracting HST etc..
Having been raped by UPS/Fedex a few times for customs brokerage I try to only use USPS when getting things from the US. I have never had to pay clearing changes and only once had to pay HST out of possibly 100 shipments over the years. -- Alvin Starr || land: (647)478-6285 Netvel Inc. || Cell: (416)806-0133 alvin@netvel.net ||
On 2021-03-08 12:33 a.m., Stewart C. Russell via talk wrote:
And subsidized shipping. It is often cheaper to mail from China or Hong Kong than from within Toronto.
When someone pays for international mail, the country that has to deliver it receives nothing. This means China can set a low fee for that mail and Canada gets to pay for the delivery.
I've also had DHL be faster from China than Canada Post's fastest service can make it across Toronto.
I recently received a parcel from Hong Kong via DHL. It took just over a week.
participants (15)
-
Alvin Starr -
Aruna Hewapathirane -
Chris Aitken -
D. Hugh Redelmeier -
Giles Orr -
Howard Gibson -
James Knott -
Kevin Cozens -
lsorense＠csclub.uwaterloo.ca -
Matt Price -
mwilson＠Vex.Net -
o1bigtenor -
Stewart C. Russell -
Stewart Russell
-
William Park