Time of change

[ivconic]

I have the privilege of being very close friends with a top electronics engineer as well as a top programmer.
Lately, it has become obvious that sooner or later one has to switch to a more advanced platform.
After a few days of my own research... I decided to ask someone smarter than me for advice.
Here are some excerpts from our conversation:

"...With all those controllers, you can make really great decorations for the Christmas tree, but for something more serious, you have to switch to serious machines!..."

"...Even ARM itself has seen that proprietary software makes no sense, so it offers the option to compile your program in GCC or the ARM compiler, and that in that crappy KEIL environment from the '90s. Which otherwise costs close to 5000 euros!!!..."

"...With STM32Cube, you get an Eclipse modified IDE which, together with STM32MX, directly conditions you to think with HAL libraries for the next 10 years, and not a single bit outside of that!
If you plan to spend years in captivity with ST then it is a good choice!..."

And finally I got some advice:

"...Look at the RV1106 SOC, it doesn't even have a cooler and it runs at 1 GHz. It's not Broadcom's crap called Raspberry Pi.
Try it, I personally work with WSL on Win 11. Everything I need is there without any major complications.
And of course use Docker to isolate various toolchains!..."

I checked on Aliexpress and:

[Carl-NC]

As always, the devil is in the details. Here are the peripherals:


For my purposes, it is excessively light on ADC channels. And I would need to dig into the PWM capabilities to see if they match well with typical detector needs. One of the reasons I've settled on STM processors is because of the timers. There are a lot of them, they are super-easy to chain, and they make it easy to gen multi-period pulse signals.

[ivconic]

I'm new to this, just heard a proposal for that development system a few hours ago. I didn't get to examine all the specs.
What attracted me was the raw processing power, plenty of pins available, and the very low price.
I think "broad". For me, metal detectors are just one small and not so profitable segment of my "business".
I'm still here just for the love of the hobby.
I was talking with a friend about the "width" of use and the possibilities of a new development system, without specifically looking at the use of metal detectors.
By the way, for the last 7-8 years I have mainly been dealing with embedded systems. And my aspirations are in that direction.
But it's very convenient if I can use it for a hobby that we all love, of course.
I'll see what the specs say. At worst, one can always add some powerful ADC to this system, right?
Carl I have been following your work. It's impressive.
But I think you've gone too deep into "baseband sampling" and it's high time you completely turn to raw "direct sampling".
(You see how happy I am to use the terminology from your book!)
All we need here is raw processing power and a very powerful ADC. Nothing more.
But... you're right, it's too early to draw conclusions based on a light story a few hours old.
The main counterargument that my friend and I "argued" about is Linux! I hate Linux!
But it seems to me, as things stand, that I will "begin to love" it sooner that I expected...
So far I've only used Linux as a necessary evil, with a terrible urge to vomit!
Oooahahahaha!
But it seems to me that things will change.
(George is laughing now reading this)

[Qiaozhi]

The main counterargument that my friend and I "argued" about is Linux! I hate Linux!
But it seems to me, as things stand, that I will "begin to love" it sooner that I expected...
So far I've only used Linux as a necessary evil, with a terrible urge to vomit!
Oooahahahaha!
But it seems to me that things will change.
(George is laughing now reading this)

True!

[dbanner]

Presently, I am using JammyPup (jammyjellyfish+debian)
and also Linux mint.
Most Windows software that I use runs in Wine without any problems. Like Diptrace, which works well without glitches.
I installed Kicad using the package manager, super easy.

[Qiaozhi]

Sometimes Windows software can be tricky to get running in Wine.
In that case you can try running Bottles, which is installable from the Linux Mint Software Manager.
Bottles is an application that allows you to easily manage Windows prefixes on your favorite Linux distribution.
It runs the Windows programs in a sand box, and each bottle is isolated from other applications.
The only thing to bear in mind is that, because the program is sand boxed, you cannot access any I/O such as USB ports.

https://usebottles.com/

[dbanner]

Sometimes Windows software can be tricky to get running in Wine.
In that case you can try running Bottles, which is installable from the Linux Mint Software Manager.
Bottles is an application that allows you to easily manage Windows prefixes on your favorite Linux distribution.
It runs the Windows programs in a sand box, and each bottle is isolated from other applications.
The only thing to bear in mind is that, because the program is sand boxed, you cannot access any I/O such as USB ports.

https://usebottles.com/

Thanks, I'll have a look.

[ivconic]