Linux Fans Gorge on Raspberry Pi ($35 PC is a smash hit!)

Tech News World ^ | 2-29-12 | Richard Adhikari

[bigbob]

I was one sitting at the PC at midnight hoping to score one of the first batch of this incredible $35 Linux PC but the interwebs were quickly reduced to smoking rubble by the onslaught of would-be buyers. Websites of both Premier Farnell and RS Components - major UK-European industrial distributors - quickly were overloaded, and the initial production lot sold out. Entrepreneurism and free markets at work!

But with the phenomenal response and major companies now onboard, the foundation that developed the R-Pi as an educational tool will soon be able to support waiting users.

For more information, http://www.raspberrypi.org/#licensed - although you'll have to wait a day or two until the full website replaces this temporary static site that was put up just to deal with the high traffic around the launch date. Updates can be found at their twitter site: http://twitter.com/#!/raspberry_pi

I got a chuckle out of this exchange last night after someone tweeted: "BBC Tech News ranked the R-Pi as the #1 story and Apple's announcement of iPad3 as #3 on it's news site". This prompted someone from the R-Pi group to reply:

"Apple has a market cap of $500bn. We have Liz's collection of fridge magnets and a few coins down the back of the sofa."

[palmer]

Sounds like a good thing, a pocket server. Why people want pocket clients (e.g. phones) is beyond me. Plug it into a decent display or use it remotely, it makes the most sense to have small low-power computers be servers.

[The Duke]

I’m building my own new 6-core Linux server tomorrow. :) (A bit more than $35, but a lot less that computers once cost)

[Tomato lover]

I am viewing this webpage using Firefox & Linux Mint 11.

Haven’t booted into Windows in months. No need to do so. Love it!!!

[Aqua225]

You’re joking, I hope :)

[Menehune56]

The picture from the article for a quick look.

[reegs]

So, a question from a technological neophyte: what would this little computer be capable of? Basic tasks like web surfing, or could you do some processor intensive stuff on it, say Adobe Creative Suite?

[Wonka]

Thanks for the reminder!

I placed an order for one from next month’s production run at

http://www.newark.com/jsp/search/productdetail.jsp?id=83T1943&Ntt=83T1943

(Newark is apparently the US affiliate of UK’s Farnell)

[Menehune56]

From the article
The credit-card-sized device ... plugs into a TV and a keyboard. It can be used to work on spreadsheets, play games, and do word processing, and can also play high-definition video.

Sounds fairly basic but I think the tiny form factor is the selling point.

[Wonka]

That would be: Basic Tasks

Adobe Creative Suite is not available on the Linux platform AFAIK.

At least for a while, this will be a computer for people who like computers rather than those with clear tasks they hope to accomplish. (Unless the task is to fiddle with a computer whilst learning about it.)

[PJ-Comix]

Raspberry Pi is the name given to an ultra-low-cost computer that went on sale recently for just $35.

Any coupons for them out there yet?

[Bobalu]

Looks like a lot of fun for 35 bucks.

It has an ARM11...a very nice processor.

[PJ-Comix]

The credit-card-sized device ... plugs into a TV and a keyboard.

Quite a size difference from this computer that took up almost the entire interior of the Forbidden Planet.

[palmer]

Dead serious. Anything more than a command line, emacs, a compiler a few utilities accessed by ssh is overkill. If you happen to carry around a client like a phone you could always use it as a terminal.

[Fire_on_High]

That’d make a mighty fine IRC box.

[The Duke]

I see where the Opera browser is available for Linux ... that should pretty much do it for me. :)

[varina davis]

save

[Publius6961]

Bookmark

[Darth Reardon]

Anything MORE than emacs?