[HN Gopher] First Impressions with the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W
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First Impressions with the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W
Author : alexellisuk
Score : 176 points
Date : 2021-10-28 11:19 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.alexellis.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.alexellis.io)
| kristianpaul wrote:
| Interesting, dint know faasd
| kzrdude wrote:
| Will existing HATs for pi zero work for this one? I'm wondering
| about the ANAVI Infrared pHAT
| Stampo00 wrote:
| The idea of using it as a self-hosted Github Actions runner spoke
| to me. I wouldn't have thought of that. Thank you!
| alexellisuk wrote:
| Don't blame me. The idea came from Martin Woodward (from
| GitHub) and I was surprised how I had it up and running,
| executing builds in a few minutes.
|
| What kinds of things would you run with yours? Maybe you could
| use a GitHub action to trigger IoT lights on and off.
| one_off_comment wrote:
| I use Github Actions mostly for automatically publishing my
| website when I change its content. But I haven't fully set up
| my build pipeline to my liking. And getting logs and stuff
| when the pipeline goes sideways isn't very easy right now
| with Github Actions. If I hosted my own running, at least I
| could poke around my build environment to see why it failed
| until I have it running reliably enough to let the cloud
| handle it.
|
| That's a long-winded way to say: debugging.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| Personally, I'd prefer to get a standard Raspberry Pi 4 model
| for any server-like duties. Get the 8GB RAM model and it's easy
| to run a lot of virtual machines on it for all of your
| different mini-server needs on a single device.
|
| Managing a lot of different little Pis for different server-
| like things is fun for experimenting with clustering and multi-
| server management tools, but it gets old fast if you really
| just want several different VMs or containers.
|
| VMWare ESXi is even available for the Raspberry Pi now:
| https://www.servethehome.com/getting-started-with-vmware-esx...
| matthewaveryusa wrote:
| >VMWare ESXi is even available for the Raspberry Pi now
|
| Wow, thanks, I'll definitely be checking that out
| devwastaken wrote:
| Raspian still relies on inferior wifi management. You have to
| replace with network-manager to get it to connect to Enterprise
| wifi. Is there any specific reason why it's not the default?
| moffkalast wrote:
| Well that's stock on both Debian and Ubuntu still, right? It's
| more of a question why they haven't replaced it either.
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| It's not.
| kiwijamo wrote:
| Been a while since I've used Debian but I'm sure Debian is
| already using NetworkManager. This means the Raspberry OS has
| actually removed NetworkManager from its Debian base and put
| in something else. I agree with the OP this shouldn't happen.
| For my Raspberry Pi, I ended up switching out the Raspberry
| Pi OS' default networking manager thingy in preference for
| NetworkManager so I could share wireless networking
| configuration among my devices. It also helps with
| troubleshooting as well since I can just use the same
| commands I use on other Linux machines even those running
| other distros.
| jandrese wrote:
| Probably because SystemD network management is harder to use on
| a headless install. With a Raspberry Pi you just need to edit a
| couple of lines in the boot.conf to have it connect to WiFi on
| boot.
|
| You can deploy one without ever plugging in a keyboard or
| monitor.
| pc86 wrote:
| How do you edit boot.conf without a keyboard or monitor?
| test6554 wrote:
| This question is so apt that it gave me a chuckle. I've
| done it before, but I had to think about that one for a
| second. You have to edit the file while the SD card is
| plugged into a separate computer.
| s800 wrote:
| Mount the sd card elsewhere, the boot partition is FAT
| formatted and can be edited on most OSes.
| ArgyleSound wrote:
| it's on a FAT partition, you can edit it by plugging the sd
| card into something else
| walrus01 wrote:
| you pre-configure the boot.conf and other settings on the
| same system you use to write the raspbian image onto the
| microSD card, before you put it in the pi. if you get the
| config right you should be able to boot a pi headless and
| ssh to it over your 802.11n/ac/ax network immediately after
| the first time it powers up.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Does anyone else have feelings about "there's too many tiers of
| Pi" yet?
|
| I'm not sure if I feel that but it's on my mind.
| michaelt wrote:
| I don't know about too many tiers, but they've certainly run
| out of sensible naming ideas.
|
| Who the hell signs off naming a product 'Zero 2' let alone the
| 'Zero 2 W' ?
| exporectomy wrote:
| It's becoming like USB version names. If you're familiar with
| them from working with them all regularly, you can just
| remember what name means what. But for newcomers, it's a
| massive struggle. I feel that naming things in general
| imposes a lot of cognitive burden on people. Chrome version
| numbers are beautiful. Just incrementing integers, the way we
| numbered things as kids.
|
| I wonder if the naming mess is intentional for marketing or
| an accident of not predicting the future well enough? They
| certainly seem to be trying to keep it simple and it's
| nowhere near the impossible muddle of, say, Intel and AMD
| CPUs or Nvidia GPUs yet.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| IMHO, the relevant ones are 3B+, 4B+ and zero. The zero comes
| on many forms, but if you are using it, their difference should
| be clear enough.
|
| For random stuff you do once, if you need a powerful computer
| (weak-desktop-like) with great IO, you go with 4. If you need
| great IO on a weak normal computer, you go with the 3. If you
| need a powerful-desktop-like computer, you go with AMD64, and
| if you only need great IO and not much of a computer, an
| Arduino.
|
| The zero goes on things that you will do many times or that
| have very specific constraints.
| blippage wrote:
| Yes, I think there are too many. Everyone tends to go for the
| latest and greatest. The Pi is heading towards becoming a PC
| replacement, but I'm not sure what advantage that is.
|
| Instead of have faster computers, I want a faster OS. Or
| preferably very little in the way of an OS. Something like a
| DOS, perhaps. Something where you could write blazingly-fast
| software because the kernel is straightforward. And I want a
| real-time kernel.
|
| I'm vaguely aware that there's some stuff out there, like RTEMS
| and a real-time Linux, but I suspect it's all a pain to set up.
|
| I've played around with writing my own "kernel" - but it's more
| in the style of a "unikernel" - which is a pretty good
| approach.
|
| The real problem occurs when you want to use the USB. A USB
| stack is not easy to implement. I also had the SD card working,
| but I haven't been able to get it working lately.
|
| I would like to see Pis flourish as a way of implementing
| Operating Systems, but the hardware is too complex.
|
| Maybe some kind of Pico/Pi hybrid might be feasible. That might
| sound an insane suggestion, but Ebon has mentioned in the past
| that a combo of a Pi with a microcontroller is a good one. Why
| not take this idea to its logical conclusion and put both on
| the same board?
| bri3d wrote:
| STM32MP1 is a good example of your hybrid idea - it combines
| a Cortex A7 Linux application-side stack with an STM32
| Cortex-M4 based microcontroller on the same SoC.
|
| This is very useful for running hard realtime tasks on the
| microcontroller and "control" / GUI / application-stack
| intensive tasks on the Linux side, as you suggest.
|
| With that said, all this does for toy OS development is makes
| it more complicated.
|
| I think what you are looking for for your use cases might
| really be just an RTOS on a microcontroller with some
| provided driver blocks. Take a look at ESP32 as well :)
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| Thanks for posting that!
|
| On the table next to me I have a system that's comprised of
| a SOM running Linux for a UI and an STM32 for real-time
| control. They talk over a serial port. I didn't realize
| that ST had combined the two. That's definitely useful
| information!
| spicybright wrote:
| Is there anything fundamental in pi hardware that prevents
| putting a real time OS on it? (I'm not a hardware engineer)
| thenewwazoo wrote:
| How do you define "real-time"?
|
| The Broadcom CPUs in the RPis have unpredictable pauses to
| let the GPU refresh the RAM (really). That makes them
| unsuitable for _hard_ real-time applications where you
| _must_ service an interrupt within a certain time, or emit
| a signal on a strict deadline, etc.
|
| They're just fine for soft real-time applications where
| some jitter is acceptable, but what counts as "soft" real-
| time versus "not-at-all" real-time is the subject of some
| debate.
| foxfluff wrote:
| Not at all. It's just that writing drivers and supporting
| all the peripherals is a massive undertaking (even Linux is
| often way behind on support -- chips that came out years
| ago might have poor or no support for some peripherals and
| the only support you find is in some vendor fork of an
| ancient android kernel).
|
| There's also the fact that compared to PCs, ARM boards are
| kinda special snowflakes. DOS could boot and run on
| thousands of different machines ("IBM PC compatible") from
| different manufacturers, in part thanks to BIOS abstracting
| out some of the core peripherals, in part thanks to (de-
| facto) standard peripherals. Your custom ARM OS? Well, it
| won't boot on the next board. UEFI is sort of changing
| that, but really it pushes the problem to the bootloader
| (until they start implementing UEFI in firmware).
|
| In a way, I actually prefer not having to rely on BIOS or
| UEFI, because that protects me from stupid implementations
| and allows me to customize things. And on the other hand,
| if you want high performance drivers for modern
| peripherals, you probably don't want to rely on a firmware
| abstraction for it (but it'd still be nice to be able to
| boot and get a shell & some basic I/O going even without
| hardware specific drivers). But that means you do need
| drivers in your OS, and as long as chips keep changing as
| often as they do, it's a never-ending battle to stay on top
| of driver support.
|
| PCs also gave you a nice escape hatch in that you'd plug in
| your peripherals to a slot and you could choose parts that
| you have drivers for. That's not really the case for
| laptops of course, and ARM SoCs integrate most of the
| peripherals so if you get a new chip, you get new
| everything.
| foxfluff wrote:
| Not really, but that's because I largely dismiss the early Pis
| altogether. They sit in the awkward space where they're larger
| and faster than a microcontroller but practically speaking
| require an OS that wastes a lot of the available resources; for
| running Linux applications, they feel way underpowered. Pi 3
| seemed powerful enough to be interesting and I did a small
| project with it, but Pi 4 pushes it to where I'm actually
| starting to like the platform (though I'm still anxious for a
| Pi 5).
|
| Now with the Zero 2 W, there are three tiers: the Pi 4 for
| SBCs, Zero 2 W for providing connectivity for things that don't
| really look like computers as such (but still need Linux for
| whatever reason?), and then the Pico for microcontroller
| projects. The difference in capabilities between each tier is
| large; they cover a wide spectrum of use cases. You can't
| complain that there are too many tiers.
|
| It's good to know that you can fall back to the older Pis if
| you have very specific/niche needs that they fulfill better
| than the new ones, but you'll know it when you need them, and
| having these extra choices doesn't hurt.
|
| If you don't have very specific requirements, just pick the
| most appropriate of the three new ones. Easy.
|
| I guess I'm also disregarding the compute module, because I
| haven't seen particularly compelling reason to look at it.
| Again I guess if you have very specific needs and can design a
| carrier board for it, have a go at it. Otherwise, ignore.
| throw10920 wrote:
| > for running Linux applications, they feel way underpowered
|
| I think that's because the Raspberry Pi's might be best used
| as tiny consumer servers, not desktop (or embedded)
| computers. They seem perfect for running things that require
| an OS and a moderate amount of processing power - say, DNS,
| Syncthing, audio streaming, ssh tunnel point, a VPN, a small
| personal (static) website, or a NAS that doesn't have
| particularly high performance requirements.
|
| So, Linux "applications" but not in the sense of Firefox, or
| other interactive GUI programs.
|
| (this ignores the lower barrier to entry that they have than
| actual microcontrollers, which is a different kind of use-
| case)
| el_oni wrote:
| A pi2b lives under my desk and runs a discord bot, pihole
| and database. Now that I've learnt docker im tempted to go
| back and containerize everything on it
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| Yep. I use them in headless robotics applications and they
| always seem fast. And then I have an 8GB unit as a media
| server at home and it feels sloooowwwww. Loading a video in
| chrome takes forever but they're really good at running my
| Python robotics stack in docker!
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| I think the later Pi 3 models are still fine; they're a
| little slower (CPU and IO), but they're cheaper than the 4
| while still running 64-bit ARM and being reasonable capable.
| I would agree that unless you have existing stuff to replace
| in place the Pi 1 and 2 are irrelevant today:)
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > They sit in the awkward space where they're larger and
| faster than a microcontroller but practically speaking
| require an OS that wastes a lot of the available resources;
| for running Linux applications, they feel way underpowered.
|
| The Raspberry Pi isn't competing with a microcontroller.
| They're on opposite ends of the computing spectrum. If an
| application can be quickly developed and run on a
| microcontroller, using a full embedded Linux system would be
| overkill.
|
| As for Linux work: The Raspberry Pi 4 is plenty fast for most
| embedded applications. If you're trying to use it as a
| desktop replacement it's going to feel sluggish relative to
| an actual desktop, especially if you're only using an SD card
| instead of a USB3 SSD. However, it's generally not a problem
| for most non-desktop use cases.
|
| Compiling large projects is the only place where a Pi 4
| starts to feel limited, but cross-compilation is available
| with plenty of guides online.
|
| If you have a situation that requires more power than a Pi 4,
| you should probably be using a real desktop or VM anyway.
| These are embedded systems that start at $35, not something
| competing with a $500 NUC or a $2000 laptop.
| foxfluff wrote:
| > The Raspberry Pi isn't competing with a microcontroller.
| They're on opposite ends of the computing spectrum.
|
| The spectrum is wider than that, but if you're comparing Pi
| and MCUs, today you have 32 bit multi-core ARM
| microcontrollers that run at hundreds of MHz and make a 486
| look wimpy. And for a microprocessor, the first gen Pi is
| pretty darn wimpy (wikipedia compares it to a 300MHz
| Pentium II). Yet the performance difference between a first
| gen Pi and a Pi 4 is absolutely massive.
|
| That's what I mean by the awkward space. Yes it's still
| faster than a high end microcontroller, but if I need an
| application running on modern Linux, chances are I don't
| want to deploy it on Pentium II class hardware except in
| very niche circumstances. So it's neither a
| microcontroller, nor is it a decent microprocessor for
| modern OS. It's about right in the middle of the spectrum
| where it kinda sucks for any application that can be
| implemented on a microcontroller and sucks for anything
| that needs a "real computer".
|
| I need to point out that I actually work as an embedded
| software developer in this space where we have high end
| microcontrollers running a custom RTOS and applications
| that offer largely the same functionality and interfaces
| that we also implement using low end Linux-capable ARM
| solutions; what you can implement on a microcontroller is a
| heck of a lot, but Linux capable chips have gotten cheap
| and using them sometimes saves development effort on the
| driver & application stack. There's plenty of overlap,
| they're totally not opposite ends of the spectrum.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| > very niche circumstances
|
| Which happens to be exactly where the pi excels. I'm
| currently writing an application to record my homebrew
| information and also capture basic sensor data. A PC +
| arduino/sensor platform would be overkill and an
| ESP8266/ESP32 would slow me down.
|
| Pi 2B running PHP? Perfect.
| huachimingo wrote:
| There are some game servers implemented using RPi,
| specially in open source games.
| dsr_ wrote:
| In end-user space, Pi has a bunch of good niches:
|
| * There's an application that runs on Linux already and
| you want a cheap way of running it in a small space --
| like a shairport-sync audio client feeding a local music
| system, or a web-connected
| clock/calendar/tasklist/notification.
|
| * Very low cost, replaceable desktop for a kiosk, a
| classroom, whatever where it will run either simple
| office applications or be mostly a web terminal. (If you
| just want low cost, a used laptop might be a better value
| -- but if you need to be able to repeat and/or replace
| it, a Pi is better).
|
| * Friendly target for someone who doesn't really
| understand embedded systems and will be tinkering for a
| long time.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| The first product I ever shipped with a Pi was a
| controller that needed a nice UI and some data storage.
| For a one-off, the $35 cost for a Pi2 probably saved at
| least $1,000 in dev cost than if I were to throw a
| microcontroller at the problem.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| This is the first time I'm hearing of the Pico. Is there any
| reason to use it, instead of the ESP32 or ESP8266 boards, or
| one of the many Arduino compatible uC's?
|
| The competitors seem to be much more common than the
| Raspberry Pico (i.e. it is much easier to find expansion
| boards, examples etc. for them). They seem to cost roughly
| the same too, and the ESPs even include WiFi and in the case
| of the ESP32 even Bluetooth, which makes interfacing with
| them so much easier.
|
| I'm kinda surprised they released that. The RPi was awesome
| because it was the first mass-produced SBC (making it both
| affordable and well documented/supported). There are many
| competitors, but none so universal and common. With
| microcontrollers, I don't see any unique selling point,
| nothing that could get them to that position.
| my123 wrote:
| Good documentation and the killer feature is the PIO.
| (Programmable I/O unit)
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| The different options are definitely appreciated.
|
| The default choice should be the base model Raspberry Pi 4. The
| other options (compute module, Zero, higher RAM versions) are
| for specialized needs. Even if you're using the Zero or Compute
| Module you probably want the normal Raspberry Pi 4 around for
| development.
| spicybright wrote:
| Same. If you're shopping for a ras-pi, I think you're already
| in the market of people that are ok researching many models
| to find one that matches your use case best.
|
| It's different from, say, apple having 10 different types of
| mac books each for slightly different use cases.
| xor99 wrote:
| Not really: the pico is in the mcu space, compute module for
| industrial projects, pi4 as large sbc, and pi zero as small
| sbc. Seems like a good range. I think the least differentiated
| are the pi4 and pi zero but there's still a big difference when
| you think about applications (e.g. trying to stick a pi4 in a
| diy smart speaker or multiple VMs).
| occamrazor wrote:
| I wouldn't say so. RPi doesn't discontinue products, but it
| doesn't really make sense to buy most older models.
|
| In practice there are 4 RPi's: the Zero (5$ is hard to beat),
| the Zero 2 W (small, cheap, with WiFi) and the 4 Model B.
|
| Then there is the Pico, but it is a microcontroller, a
| completely different product, and the CM4, for large scale
| deployments.
| ThatPlayer wrote:
| I also like the 3 A+ for an inbetween Zero 2 W and 3/4. Don't
| need a USB OTG adapter you'd need for a Zero, and not as big
| as the 4.
| martin_a wrote:
| What baffles me is the rather bad availability of older
| versions.
|
| I'd have guessed that there's somewhere a warehouse full of Pi
| Zero Ws, but I can't buy one right now in Germany. There's a
| shop in Switzerland, but I'd have to pay import taxes and
| whatnot to get hold of that.
|
| So, let's try a Model 3 B+ then... Same as before: Official
| vendors are almost all sold out, one has some but it's 15 to 20
| Euro above the recommended price...
|
| Something's broken in the reselling system if you ask me.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| > So, let's try a Model 3 B+ then... Same as before: Official
| vendors are almost all sold out, one has some but it's 15 to
| 20 Euro above the recommended price...
|
| An econ student would probably tell you that this is the
| market adjusting (or trying to) against the official price
| not matching the supply/demand intersection, so they're only
| available at the "real" price that unofficial vendors
| provide. (Of course, it may be more complex than that
| simplistic reading, hence econ _student_ :])
| micheljansen wrote:
| It says on the official Raspberry Pi website:
|
| Are you discontinuing Zero and Zero W?
|
| No. We seldom discontinue products, even where they have been
| superseded by more modern product at the same price point.
| Zero 2 W is $5 more expensive than Zero W, and joins the Zero
| family as a third member.
|
| Note that Zero and Zero W are currently experiencing supply
| constraints in the context of the global semiconductor
| shortage. We hope that this will be resolved in 2022.
| madisp wrote:
| if you don't mind a soldered-on header then berrybase seems
| to have plenty of Pi Zero WHs
| blacksmith_tb wrote:
| I prefer the WH, unless you have serious space constraints,
| soldering your own is a little fiddly.
| justincormack wrote:
| In case you didn't hear, there is a global supply chain
| crisis and a chip shortage.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| The PI is almost always sold off, since the first version.
| Availability has always been low.
|
| What you are seeing is probably because the 3B+ is the most
| sold version, and replenishing anything is slightly harder
| right now.
| pytlicek wrote:
| Nice article, well written. I like Alex's approach and I like
| that I have found all the information I wanted to know about this
| new shiny board :) Keep up the good work alexellisuk :)
| alexellisuk wrote:
| I know many of you may be wondering if you should get one of
| these, and if they can be used to create a cheaper cluster than
| RPi4s. I try to answer that as well as talk about my experience
| with the RPi Zero and how quick it is with Go and Node.js
| compared to the older generation.
|
| Are you running Zeros now or other models? What would you run on
| an RPi Zero 2?
| spicybright wrote:
| Just a question on pi clustering in general. Is there an
| advantage vs buying a single more powerful computer, or a few
| powerful machines instead of a dozen+ pis?
| pbalau wrote:
| Nope, you build a RPI cluster for the sake of it.
| iszomer wrote:
| Isn't this more of question on redundancy, ie: "two is one
| and one is none"? RPi's aren't technically best known for
| general purpose usage.
| ohthehugemanate wrote:
| The big difference is number of cores you have to work with,
| and to a lesser extent the amount of RAM. For say 800EUR you
| can get probably a 4 core CPU, maybe 8. I guess 8GB RAM? Or
| you can get 10 raspberry pi 4s for a total of 40 cores and
| 40GB RAM.
|
| What makes more sense for you will depend on your workload
| and scaling requirements.
| [deleted]
| rasfincher wrote:
| Thanks for your RPi content Alex. Even though I'm not really
| active in the space, I still enjoy reading/watching about
| what's going on.
| marktangotango wrote:
| My dream device for clustering is dual core 1Ghz+, 1GB ddr4
| (ddr3 in a pinch) and wired Gb ethernet. In bulk (where bulk ~
| 100) price $5-10. Some of the allwinner and rockchip based pi
| clones get close but price is a lot more.
| sitkack wrote:
| You can hit this now with the CM4 modules,
|
| For qty 1 @ $30 you get 2GB and 4 cores, you could put 2 more
| ethernet ports on the PCIe port for a total of 3. That gets
| you into the same-ish performance regime.
|
| I am all for aggregates of low end compute, but I think
| something with more processing power and more PCIe lanes
| would scale better.
|
| https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/raspberry-
| pi/SC02...
| tomcam wrote:
| You don't ask for much ;)
| monocasa wrote:
| I run rpis in my house with an RTOS I wrote. It'll be nice to
| dump support of armv6 for space constrained use cases that I
| used a W.
| 1MachineElf wrote:
| I wonder if this faster CPU will cause the stenogotchi project
| consider de-prioritizing performance optimization of their code.
| djanogo wrote:
| How are people dealing with subpar SD card storage option which
| is guaranteed to fail if there are ANY consistent writes?
|
| Why don't they add M.2 port?, it would instantly make Pi lot more
| reliable.
| askvictor wrote:
| Am using (high quality) USB for my pi storage now. Recent
| firmware can boot directly, though before that I was using the
| sd card as boot partition only, having everything else on USB.
| Depending on the application, network boot (i.e. completely
| diskless) might also be an option - probably the most reliable
| one, but needs wired ethernet so not possible on the Zero.
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| Sandisk makes high endurance microSDXC cards, e.g.
| SDSQQNR-064G-GN6IA, which are inexpensive. Beyond that, they
| also make industrial SLC microSDXC cards with very specific
| longevity guarantees, e.g. SDSDQED-064G-XI, but those are
| rather expensive.
| hadlock wrote:
| I've switched to only buying SD cards from AAA+ platinum-rated
| photography websites (B&H, Adorama), they seem to be the only
| reliable places to buy non-counterfit SD cards these days. I've
| never had an issue with an SD card since I made this shopping
| change. Shipping and price are about 10% higher, but guaranteed
| quality product is worth it.
|
| If you buy your SD cards from Amazon or Ebay you can't
| guarantee quality for these products.
| kiwijamo wrote:
| What SD brands do you usually buy? Are the Sandisk Extreme
| range any good?
| hadlock wrote:
| Sandisk, Lexar, Prograde. Depends on the application.
|
| My raspberry pi doesn't do many disk operations so the
| speed isn't critical and 90 MB/s is plenty. My digital
| camera, on the other hand, has dual SD card slots, and can
| record uncompressed(!) 10 bit 4k video @ 60fps but needs 2
| x 400 MB/s continuous write, which is... a pretty specific
| need. And cost accordingly.
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