
Windows 10 IoT Core for Raspberry Pi 2 - vyrotek
https://blogs.windows.com/buildingapps/2015/08/10/hello-windows-10-iot-core/
======
tigeba
When they released this a couple of months ago I was pretty excited to try it
out. I think the barrier to installation is a bit high. First install Windows
10, then custom install of VS, install IoT Templates, then about 30 more steps
before you get the image to flash on your SD. How about a link to the image I
can blast on the SD and kick the tires without a couple hours of downloading
and installing prerequisites?

~~~
teekert
Very funny considering the uneasiness people have towards "putting Linux on a
computer". For the Raspberry Pi, the reality is completely reversed as NOOBS
is the absolute easiest, most convenient way to put any OS on any computer
ever.

I really don't understand people who want this, with closed source software
the learning stops at some point, you can't learn everything about your
Windows-Pi even though it was created for learning! Even the example code
(read I2C temp sensor, display using webserver) they give on the home page
starts with: "// Copyright (c) Microsoft. All rights reserved.". Why would you
want this? Can there really be people that are willing and able to build their
own IOT but do not want to learn about Linux?

~~~
nbadg
> Can there really be people that are willing and able to build their own IOT
> but do not want to learn about Linux?

Absolutely, and especially in corporate environments. I'm not saying Windows
10 IoT is any better (I think it's very unlikely to be, but I also haven't
evaluated it), but I can say for certain that I wish I had a single, identical
python library for any IoT platform that handled interfaces as simply as:

    
    
        with pin_1 as p1:
            p1.output(1)
            time.sleep(2)
            p1.output(0)
    

Now, there are some libraries that approach that level of simplicity once you
have your system configuration set up, but that doesn't lend itself to agile
development. I want something that works like that out-of-box -- flash it,
load code, press go button -- which simply doesn't exist. And, after spending
a lot of time writing my own hardware IO library using direct memory access in
Python, I don't think there's an OS out there that's capable of doing it
(yet). I've spent just way too much time accommodating unfortunate
abstractions taken at the linux kernel level (that I understand for historical
reasons, but disagree with for future ones). An operating system for IoT done
right is, in my opinion, a very lightweight exokernel with some really smart
abstractions that just _gets out of your way_. Then you need a clever (and
native) secure networking system, and you're in very good shape.

~~~
netik
I'm not sure if you've dealt with Arduino in Processing, but it is exactly as
you describe.

    
    
      void loop()  
      {
        digitalWrite(ledPin, HIGH);   // sets the LED on
        delay(1000);                  // waits for a second
        digitalWrite(ledPin, LOW);    // sets the LED off
        delay(1000);                  // waits for a second
      }

~~~
nbadg
Arduino is awesomely easy in this regard, but lacks a proper operating system,
and the individual pins have fewer modes than systems on a chip. That is, in a
way, exactly my point: the operating systems we have are so bad at portable
systems that going without one can actually make development easier. That's a
big problem.

~~~
netik
I think this is a 'right tool for the job' problem. Frequently you don't need
an operating system to do basic tasks. I don't see this as a problem at all
for simple things to a point.

Even something that seems as complex as as reading a sensor and writing data
out to a CF card doesn't require an OS if the basic library support is there.

------
escobar
There's a heading that reads:

> Developers, Developers, Developers

I've always cracked up whenever I see Ballmer's developers video, so I was
pretty happy that Microsoft's IoT team has a sense of humor and was able to
get that approved (if they had to)

reference if you haven't seen the original Ballmer video:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vhh_GeBPOhs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vhh_GeBPOhs)

~~~
meburns
Yes! This made me so happy when I got to that section :)

------
revelation
Is the Internet of Things now a Raspberry Pi 2?! A quad-core 900MHz CPU with a
whopping 1GiB of RAM and a dedicated GPU?

So, for how long can you run a RPi 2 from a CR2032 cell or an AAA battery? A
minute or two on full bore? Because that's the kind of energy budget people
are generally talking about when they mean internet of _things_.

The RPi2 is a fully-featured media center, not a door lock or light switch or
power sensor.

I guess the problem for Microsoft with the whole IoT thing is simply that they
will never have Windows there, the devices you _actually_ use for IoT measure
their RAM in KiB. And, frankly, _operating systems_ are very far down the on
list of _things we need to make IoT a reality_.

------
stillsut
The AirHockey Demo seems like a complete rip-off of a Spanish maker's product,
which he has been promoting:
[https://github.com/JJulio/AHRobot](https://github.com/JJulio/AHRobot)

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think some credit is due

------
joezydeco
A robotic hockey table doesn't seem very IoT to me.

I'm a little confused as to what Windows brings to the table for embedded
devices at this point, especially screenless ones.

~~~
WorldWideWayne
Microsoft just came out with an Android Emulator this year too. It's faster
than any other emulator that I've seen and it's really well integrated with
Visual Studio.

If you've never really used Microsofts tools before and all that you've heard
about Microsoft has originated from the crowd that hangs out at HN, you can be
forgiven for not knowing that they make very fine quality tools.

~~~
joezydeco
I've managed a 25-year career out of staying away from anything Microsoft in
the embedded arena. WinCE, WinCE Auto, Windows Embedded, Windows XP Embedded,
Windows XP Embedded Cool Ranch Flavor, Windows Mobile, Windows Phone, Windows
Phone 8, Windows whatever-the-hell-it-is-today. And that philosophy has saved
me a lot of pain over the years.

The tools might be great, but I don't ship tools. I ship applications that
need good solid runtime libraries.

Win10 might be a fresh start and that's all well-and-good. But I'll believe it
when I see it. Slapping on a buzzword like "IoT" won't change things. I
develop lots of IoT stuff and I see no reason to go near Win10.

~~~
Todd
I've managed a 25-year career out of using the right tool for the job. I focus
on Windows, but I use Linux, OS X, etc. when it makes sense.

The flavors of Windows that you mention are part of a longer term story, and
are really just two operating systems: Windows CE and Windows NT. Windows CE
was important for targeting the small devices of the 90's era in which it was
developed. Now we can run NT on the 'small' devices that we have today. I
think that's pretty cool. Now we have Linux and NT (and FreeBSD, etc.) and we
have more choices.

EDIT: Phrasing

~~~
joezydeco
_Now we can run NT on the 'small' devices that we have today._

Funny how things change. A Raspberry Pi isn't a "small" embedded device. It's
a small _desktop_ device. It just happens to get embedded in a lot of stuff
now.

I still can't/won't run WinNT on the 72MHz Cortex-M3 (w/64KiB SRAM) that's the
core of my customer's current product.

~~~
Todd
Good point. CE and NT are definitely not for embedded devices, in the
conventional sense of the word. They're also not real-time (as you know), but
then neither is Linux. Embedded really is a whole other world. It's a fun
space to play near, though, with more conventional systems and tools.

------
doomspork
Next on the list of bad IoT ideas, we port Flash to the Raspberry Pi.

~~~
TD-Linux
Or even worse, use Flash for a car instrument cluster. Oh wait, that's already
been done: [https://www.adobe.com/inspire-
archive/june2010/articles/arti...](https://www.adobe.com/inspire-
archive/june2010/articles/article6/index.html?trackingid=GXWGB)

(used by a lot of Ford cars)

------
typon
Does it come with the same privacy issues as its older sister?

~~~
cptskippy
It requires you to install Windows 10 on your Desktop so... yes.

------
MiguelHudnandez
For anyone wondering what IoT stands for, it's "Internet of Things."

------
joeyspn
Sincerely I prefer to run ubuntu. Last week I installed Ubuntu Server 14.04 in
my Pi 2 and it works like a charm. Totally recommended...

[https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ARM/RaspberryPi](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ARM/RaspberryPi)

Ubuntu Snappy Core (also marketed for IoT)... mmm not so much great. IMO still
few community and howtos for building your snappy apps (even Raspbian is
better)

------
intrasight
I just don't get why they would put up a barrier to entry by requiring Windows
10 - at least I can't think of any technical rationale.

~~~
elchief
probably for the same reason that Apple requires you to own a mac to build an
iPhone app

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
Except that OS X and iOS are both Apple environments for Apple hardware, while
the Pi is an independent hardware product.

So no - there is no good reason for making Win 10 essential, beyond corporate
dementia.

Seriously. Why on Earth does MS seem to think there's going to be a stampede
to install an OS that doesn't do anything outstandingly special, has a high
cost of entry (in time and effort, if you don't want Win 10) and is already
competing with a good few established contenders?

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
> Except that OS X and iOS are both Apple environments for Apple hardware,
> while the Pi is an independent hardware product.

Windows 10 IoT Core doesn't have a shell. It's only worth putting on the Pi if
you have a Windows 10 app developed for it.

------
VLM
License? Seems hard to find online. Not looking for anything unusual for the
existing raspi community, just what do I have to do to make a project on it
then distribute a bootable sdcard image to users around the world for free.
I'm guessing its a total non-starter but if I were surprised by it being
BSD/GPL that would be interesting.

The hardware compatibility part of the release notes look like a bad linux
install from 1995, which is pretty funny.

------
jchrisa
I'm in the middle of writing my first C# app, targeting the Intel IoT Gateway
(all with MonoDevelop on Ubuntu.) How things come full circle...

------
pedalpete
I've got an Intel Galilleo that Microsoft sent me which I was hoping to use to
play with the embedded windows platform, but it was so locked down, all you
could do was write arduino sketches, now they release their Windows for IoT
and it only works on Raspberry Pi 2?

I've got beaglebones and RPis that I'd love to give Windows 10 a play on, but
they've shot themselves in the foot by supporting such a small part of the
hardware market.

I've been a microsoft fan for a long time, I have a Windows 10 laptop, Windows
Phone, and want to at least give them a try for IoT (though I have no problem
with my linux installs), but I think they've lost me on this one.

Who thought they could come into a market which is well served by the linux
community, offer very little if anything compared to what is already
available, make it difficult to install, have it work on a small subset of
hardware, and make it a success.

I don't understand Microsoft's strategy here at all!

------
rcarmo
I'm curious as to the mention of a "Web Control" and how long we have to wait
until we can use DirectX for graphics, seeing as I've been trying to use Pis
for digital signage[1] for a while with varying results (we've since started
using cheap Android boxes with great results, but I wish I had more choices).

[1]: [https://github.com/sapo/digital-signage-
client](https://github.com/sapo/digital-signage-client)

~~~
thenewwazoo
I had to recently roll my own signage solution and have built something I
think is pretty compelling using Yocto[1]. I'm using CuBox-i devices running
Linux and Midori (which is based on WebKit). I don't know if it does
accelerated rendering but the boxes are much more powerful than Pis (and are a
lot less dev-kit-y than Pis). If nothing else, hopefully a pointer to Yocto
will be useful to you - it's pretty great.

[1] [https://github.com/luciddg/kiosk-yocto](https://github.com/luciddg/kiosk-
yocto)

~~~
rcarmo
Thanks, I'll look into it. Right now the Android boxes we're using cost €50
(less if you buy in bulk) and do both accelerated rendering and HLS video, but
I'm always looking out for more options.

------
jpablo
Seeing that they just added Wi-Fi and Bluetooth support I find ironic that
Windows has the disadvantage on drivers and Linux has the upper hand.

------
pen2l
Sorry, silly question: can one use this Win10 R-pi as a "real computer"? (more
to the point: I want to run labview programs on this r-pi, because of its
small size/cost -- give/receive triggers various home automation equipment
etc., I'm wondering if that'll be possible with this)

~~~
miguelrochefort
You can install LabView on it, just not if the OS is Windows 10 IoT.

[http://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW-Idea-Exchange/LabVIEW-for-
Ra...](http://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW-Idea-Exchange/LabVIEW-for-Raspberry-
Pi/idi-p/2082026)

~~~
pen2l
Sorry, I must be missing something. I see no mention of a successful Labview
install on an R-pi, no matter the operating system. Maybe I missed a thread?
I'm okay with any operating system of course, I just want my Labview program
to run on it.

------
williesleg
Why would anyone want to put such closed-source bloatware licenceware with no
future on anything?

It's a trap!

------
jbb555
Does this run win32 applications?

~~~
cube00
No, but it will run apps that use a subset of the API for universal apps (ie.
the app must be able to handle some parts of the API missing)
[https://msdn.microsoft.com/library/windows/apps/dn726767.asp...](https://msdn.microsoft.com/library/windows/apps/dn726767.aspx)

------
lhaussknecht
Sad that they showed a node example. What about asp.net on .net core?

~~~
serichsen
Yeah! Or COBOL! PHP! INTERCAL!

~~~
tychuz
ASP.NET is not oldschool - it has MVC (with best templating language - Razor),
real time with SignalR. Stop living in Visual Basic and Web Forms age...

------
mtgx
Supporting a proprietary platform on Raspberry Pi kind of defeats the point of
the openness on which Raspberry Pi was built, no?

~~~
farresito
Unfortunately, there are a few parts of RPi that are closed, like the GPU, if
I recall correctly, but I do agree with you that it sort of goes against the
philosophy of tinkering that openness brings.

~~~
tankenmate
There is a reasonable Gallium / Mesa driver for the GPU on the way; for simple
OpenGL / OpenCL workloads it works reasonably well. It is being actively
worked on so it is still improving.

[https://wiki.freedesktop.org/dri/VC4/](https://wiki.freedesktop.org/dri/VC4/)

------
dafrankenstein2
thats awesome!

------
MrZongle2
I'd love to try this out.

But I have _zero interest_ in migrating any of my perfectly fine Windows 7
systems to Windows 10. Other than a shiny "FREE!" sticker, I have yet to see a
compelling case for me to upgrade.

