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Raspberry Pi's $35 Linux PC

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Arizona Hot:
Will the nostalgia of playing with now antediluvian technology (see Things your kids will never know - old school tech! ) make the Raspberry Pi a sucess?
Another nostalgia article?
  

Renegade:
Ummm... I'll take 2? :P

At that price... sheesh... You cannot go wrong.

EDIT:

Odd... Page won't load for me... http://www.raspberrypi.org/ seems down for me (and just me)... :(

EDIT 2:

Well, can't buy it, but registered interest.

Rover:
 ;D  These have been on back order for months. 

I think I ordered mine in Feb.  It's due to arrive this month.   One of the guys @ work had his in the office the other day.  It was running XBMC.  Pretty neat.  ;)

 :Thmbsup:

Carol Haynes:
Got mine - it is picky about USB devices. Can't get a wireless keyboard/mouse combo to work (even with a powered hub) - had to buy a cheap no-frills USB keyboard and mouse.

If you haven't got all the bits you need then you find it isn't as cheap as you thought.

Note it comes uncased (they are going to supply cases shortly if you want one) - so you have a bare board sitting on your table and getting hot!

You need:

HDMI or yellow-phono video capable monitor (HDMI carries audio too so an HD TV Is a good option)
Monitor/TV cable
USB mouse and keyboard (you may have more luck than me but it didn't like the cheapest MS Wireless Desktop set I could buy - deliberately bought this to limit the number of USB sockets required!)
Ethernet cable (also required to set the clock correctly as no BIOS or RTC battery)
If you aren't using an HDMI monitor/TV with speakers then you need speakers or headphones with jack lead.
Fast SD card (ideally class 10 to load with a Linux image - this is the main drive so you need the fastest you can get otherwise it is VERY slow)
Power supply (you need something like a Blackberry charger with a mini-USB connector). You can't power it from a USB socket on your computer!

If you want additional storage an external USB hard disk (in which case you also need a powered USB hub as there are only two USB sockets)

Note there are Linux images available from Raspberry Pi website. The recommend one (a Debian Linux) is not overly impressive out of the box. Very few apps preinstalled - mostly educational programming apps without manuals. One is included and if you want the manual you have to buy it from the developer! Also painfully slow (even with a class 10 card) - so much so that the browser included (Midori) frequently times out loading pages.

Not sure what apps can be installed without needing to be recompiled because it is ARM based.

All in all it is a bit of fun - but actually not that cheap if you have to kit it out (if you have a junk cupboard full of suitable bits you are OK), and performance is a bit underwhelming.

Given that there are a number of similar projects on the threshold I think I wish I had waited to see how it all shakes out.

4wd:
Well, can't buy it, but registered interest. -Renegade (June 14, 2012, 12:59 PM)
--- End quote ---

You can also register at RS Components (Australia), it'll be AU$41 delivered, cheaper than Element 14 - (formerly Farnell and the 14th element is Silicon in case you're wondering :) ).

The queue must be mighty long, I registered a while ago and so far they've invited two lots of 4000 to order.....and I wasn't one of them.

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