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/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl General Category >> The Cafe >> Millions of people buying this $35 linux box /cgi-bin/YaBB.pl?num=1334593767 Message started by Oldfeller on 04/16/12 at 09:29:26 |
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Title: Millions of people buying this $35 linux box Post by Oldfeller on 04/16/12 at 09:29:26 I've been saying for a while that Microsoft only had one last real chance to keep their monopoly on operating systems with Windows 8. And they have blown it again. They have tried to restrict Win 8 to keep folks from having other operating systems on the machine (and got slapped down about it right smartly by the EC). They have failed to lock out all the Linux competition. So, to try to do the same thing by another path they want you force you (the loyal Windows people) to buy a NEW office for windows products to go on your ARM chipped products and then none of your old file formats will readily transfer. Ain't that nice? Meanwhile, this little $35 poppet has shown up on the market and has over a million back-orders waiting at this point in time. Why? Because it is a complete PC that will do Linux just fine and folks in Europe, Asia, Africa realize that it is stupid to pay Microsoft $350 for operating system and office software that does the exact same thing that Open Office does for free. And now you have a $35 cute little PC to run it on. All the information about it http://www.raspberrypi.org/ A quick blurb that covers the high spots. [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sTKb9Vjkek[/media] Warning: don't jump on the bandwagon for this tiny PC for at least 6 months until all the new customized software sets for the little bugger are all written and completely debugged by the HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of eager programmers jest salivating to get their hands on the little device. Wait for the still yet cheaper cased version that will be dispersed through the school systems. Because they can, the linux nerds will have written a little Linux distro that fits the completely understood and known RP device and it will also be able to use the massive GPU that the chipset has to share some of the computational workloads, so it will only get faster/better with some time. IT IS INTENDED FOR CHILDREN -- so don't think it is too hard for you old farts to use. Millions of grade school kids all over the world will suss it out completely, so you old grandpas can certainly do it too. :D Meanwhile, I have been running Linux Mint for 2 full years now and I haven't booted my XP for the best part of 3 months now .... haven't needed it. Linux seems to be workable good stuff to me. Further amusing note: My daughter went over to Mac about 5-6 years ago, paid OVER $3,000 for a super nice light Mac laptop then she shelled out a further $3,000 for software this and that and the other. She just got notified that her Mac OS has hit end of life and she needs to buy a new laptop/OS -- she was a little pissed at that because her old stuff is working fine and she HAS ALL THIS EXPENSIVE SOFTWARE THAT WON'T WORK ON THE NEW MACS. I've been talking Mint to her hubby for a while and he has been dual booting Mint for over 2 years now on a Windows machine. He likes it, so he took her mac, repartitioned it and put Linux Mint on it. Mac is funny -- they stop supporting the OS and the machine simply stops not to long after that for some obscure and "unsupported" reason. Eric showed Katie, my daughter her new boot time selection of OS systems and that he had found replacement open source softwares for everything she had spent $3,000 to buy at the Mac store. He knows durn well what is going to happen, she'll break bad and go buy a new Mac for herself and he'll inherit her perfectly good Mac laptop -- all sussed out and ready to go. :D |
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Title: Re: Millions of people buying this $35 linux box Post by CaptialThumper on 04/16/12 at 11:06:58 As an avowed *nix fanboi, I'd love to believe that Linux will dethrone Microsoft's desktop monopoly. But it's not going to happen. People use what is pre-installed on the boxes they buy and/or want what their friend/family/business uses. Sure, some suppliers will pre-install Linux on a new purchase, but I think you still end up paying some kind of MS tax (or at least that was the case back in the day). And as much as I like OpenOffice/LibreOffice, it's not MS Office, no matter how much you want it to be. There's also the routine maintenance/upgrade/sysadmin stuff you should be doing to keep a *nix box running smoothly. Modern distros might do a better job of this than I grew up with, but it's still largely beyond comprehension for people who think that their car only needs gas and oil changes to run. And this is from someone who hasn't owned an MS-based computer since 1990 or so. (OS/2 Warp, then several Linux distros, then a Mac as of '06, and Linux at work). Linux's real frontier for growth and excitement is the mobile and "invisible" (i.e. embedded where you don't know what's running) platforms. Android is good example here. MS hasn't been able to compete successfully here, and is likely never going to catch up. But keep fighting the good fight, Oldfeller! |
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Title: Re: Millions of people buying this $35 linux box Post by spacepirates on 04/16/12 at 11:13:52 4B6860626168686176040 wrote:
Me and three of my "eager linux nerd" friends bought these, ha ha. They ran into some distribution problems (something about their shippers wanted a certification that they part didn't have yet) and so we haven't received ours but we all have our ideas for it. Right now we've got plans for an HTPC (home theater pc), a file server, an arcade machine emulator, and a home automation server. given that these things have GPIO pins, you can (with a little additional circuitry, depending on the application) make them control/interface with just about anything that outputs a digital signal. so many possibilities! the Beagle Board (http://beagleboard.org/) is another kind of tiny-pc device, but it is considerably more expensive, then again it is hard to stack up to $35. the CPU on the raspberrypi i think is around 700mhz, which pales in comparison to what modern desktops can do (3.2ghz isn't uncommon) but the RP should/will handle internet, email, pictures, video (1080p HD video!), and word processing all just fine and dandy. |
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Title: Re: Millions of people buying this $35 linux box Post by cornfuzed on 04/16/12 at 11:21:00 Im thinkin more infrastructure... nas (once dual nics) firewall cloud but yep im waiting on 2nd gen at least but for $35 dunno if i could go wrong... Guess ill wait till spacepirates gives it a heave ho... and for a rock solid distro Sabayan or Gentoo... But for others who just want it to !@#!@! work... my preference for the masses is Onyx..last time i used mikersux '94... still vm winders to tshoot issues and support infrastructures with mikersux servers ... and 2/3 of all webservers out there... apache... 1/3 mikersux IIS... |
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Title: Re: Millions of people buying this $35 linux box Post by Oldfeller on 04/16/12 at 12:08:59 Jest wait a bit ..... RP has been confirmed as going into the official Linux kernal tree next rev. along with all the nits & nats & nerds to turn on the GPU/CPU work sharing and do all the "hard switch" work/share that the big Broadcom GPU is fully capable of doing. 700 mhz CPU with a four times more powerful GPU all running off a 5 volt standard cell phone charger. Requires no EMF case (but one would be still be nice because then they can overclock the CPU, the GPU and the HDMI outputs upwards considerably if it were in a metallized plastic case). Since the Raspberry Pi main dudes all work at Broadcom in the department that is designing the Broadcom systems-on-a-chip stuff I would not be surprised to see some sort of next generation Raspberry Pi in a few years with much better operating specs at the same low price point. Those output pins could also power a adder board with increased "whatever folks thought they might need" in the short term. Still, with the completely tuned mini distro that is coming together as we speak, the thing could make up "an old man's PC" even as it is today. |
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Title: Re: Millions of people buying this $35 linux box Post by Stimpy - FSO on 04/16/12 at 12:57:24 I hate cable salads, those boxies are cute but wait till you hook them up to all your stuff. I am happy buying/fixing/owning "old" panasonic toughbooks, they are the best, fast, cheap, upgradeable, bulletproof, dustproof, waterproof, foodproof, fallproof and can run any OS you want. currently I have a dualboot CF-74 ($150) running a good ol' hacked xp called tinyxp and also ubuntu. Also have a thin client (under $50) with WiFi but no HHD (OS runs off a CF card) hooked up to a smallish flatscreen (26", also under $50) for watching films and such. 8-) |
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Title: Re: Millions of people buying this $35 linux box Post by Stimpy - FSO on 04/16/12 at 13:02:12 oh here, a 3min lesson a day is all it takes, start TODAY! http://www.codecademy.com/#!/exercises/0 ;) |
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Title: Re: Millions of people buying this $35 linux box Post by Oldfeller on 04/16/12 at 17:49:35 Cable salad? My existing PC has a cable salad that is even bigger, a big white CPU box sitting on the floor and jest ONE of the fans inside the case pulls more power than the Raspberry Pi does in total (discounting the screen which is a wash between the two systems). Heck it takes more power just to run the power supply that sits in that case than the RP takes in total. And the power supply costs more to replace than the RP, too. The RP takes the power output from one 650 milliamp cell phone charger to run whole the show. Three AAA batteries can run it for a couple of hours ..... (assumes the CRT screen has its own power in both cases) I just hope the final package is fully fast enough to be useable once they get it all optimized. Think of it, gradeschool kid gets given a learning toy to use, he maximizes it, uses it to articulate his science lab project robots and keep data on his biology projects and at home he uses it to Tweet and Blog and play music and movies instead of doing his homework. Then he grows up and gets MicroSofted for the first time (screwed for thousands of dollars repeatedly). But he remembers he can do the same stuff on his Pi or his cell phone or his tablet just as easily and a whole lot cheaper. The upcoming generation isn't going to believe in MS or Apple so much .... android and linux will be their fall backs. |
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Title: Re: Millions of people buying this $35 linux box Post by Oldfeller on 04/16/12 at 22:00:14 Some companies are paying attention to the shift in OS emphasis. Lookie at these guys ... selling a full system box for $278. Lots of memory, lots of hard drive space. Heck, I can remember paying that much for a 60 gigabite hard drive not all that many years ago. Zotac AMD E-350 1.6 GHz Dual Core Mini PC with 320 GB HD, 2 GB DDR3 Memory and No OS Desktop Computer ZBOXNANO-AD10-PLUS-U http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/31zB3ZRWPDL._SL500_AA300_.jpg http://www.amazon.com/Zotac-Memory-Desktop-Computer-ZBOXNANO-AD10-PLUS-U/dp/B006HFVYUC/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1334638335&sr=8-4 |
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Title: Re: Millions of people buying this $35 linux box Post by Serowbot on 04/16/12 at 23:01:02 This stuff is like rap.... I know it's in English... ...but I wonder when I fell off the bus... :-?... |
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Title: Re: Millions of people buying this $35 linux box Post by arteacher on 04/17/12 at 04:21:54 I don't think I ever got ON the bus. :-? Years ago- probably '94 or so- I was part of a group of art teachers who were tasked to give other art teachers a taste of what computers could do for them in the classroom. The job was NOT given to me because of my experience with computers. I enlisted the help of my son, who is a Class A computer geek, and some other geeks from the school I was teaching at at the time. Each teacher sat at a computer with a mentor, who showed them how to surf the net for art related material, print out stuff, and other basic stuff. After that the teachers were all sitting around drinking coffee and the geeks were all clustered around a computer, talking. I was listening to the geeks, and the only thing they said for about 20 min that I understood was "Whoaaa...Coool!" |
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Title: Re: Millions of people buying this $35 linux box Post by Savage_Rob on 04/17/12 at 08:03:27 5C7F7775767F7F7661130 wrote:
LOL! I remember paying about $500 for a 32MB Seagate ST238 RLL drive. It had a blazing 65ms access too! |
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Title: Re: Millions of people buying this $35 linux box Post by Oldfeller on 04/17/12 at 13:46:10 Serro, the point is we are all falling off the bus. The kids determine what the future will be like and they don't care much about which gadget and which OS -- they geek them all and roll right along on "whatever" is at hand. Google has the idea -- base yourself out of the cloud and you can get to your stuff from anywhere on anybody's hardware using "whatever" software is at hand. Only requires a web touch path, that's all. We are like total dinosaurs to them, typing on our keyboards and looking at our CRT screens. |
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Title: Re: Millions of people buying this $35 linux box Post by SimonTuffGuy on 04/17/12 at 15:14:41 That's a cool little design. I'd buy one to play around with... But I'll still sell my computer builds all day long for a living. :) |
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Title: Re: Millions of people buying this $35 linux box Post by Savage_Rob on 04/17/12 at 15:58:42 Yeah, cute... nice for media but I'll keep my 6 cores and 16 GB of RAM for serious database work. |
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Title: Re: Millions of people buying this $35 linux box Post by Oldfeller on 04/17/12 at 22:14:48 First full critical review of the Raspberry Pi by a performance PC magazine is in, along with their initial over-clocking results. http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/pcs/2012/04/16/raspberry-pi-review/1 And shockingly, it rated out at 90% with a Best Buy recommendation, even after they pointed out all the software lacks in the current distro's drivers that I mentioned in the first post. And the bit-tech guys say they checked with Flash people and the Java people and Flash and Java intend to support the Pi with detail optimized customized flash and java ports of the existing ARM softwares. Now THAT is downright amazing, but it is great PR for the companies involved as if they blew the RP off they would be blowing off Mom, patriotism, school kids, and whatever corporate image they still have left internationally. So, Torvalds is putting the Pi customizations into the Linux kernel tree, Java and Flash are gonna play with customized ARM ports, Broadcom has agreed to let folks into the driver blob for the GPU and the CPU to allow tweeking/cross use so the little darling should be a little stick of dynamite when it is done being played with. And all this fun and goodness is going to be available for your fingers to tweek inside open files on the SD card. You might have to acknowledge you understand your $35 is at risk for systems destruction if you go overclocking the crap out of it inside the freezer compartment of your fridge, but what are little bitty fun toys for, anyway? And guess what the CPU liquid nitrogen super-cooler folks are gonna do to it ..... |
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Title: Re: Millions of people buying this $35 linux box Post by Savage_Rob on 04/18/12 at 06:52:18 Gotta think that a faster ARM proc would cost less than supercooling but may not be as much fun... but then you could OC that bad boy too... |
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Title: Re: Millions of people buying this $35 linux box Post by spacepirates on 04/18/12 at 07:52:54 I might not have a supply of liquid nitrogen, but I do have a few spare CPU coolers and fans floating around.... |
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Title: Re: Millions of people buying this $35 linux box Post by Oldfeller on 04/18/12 at 09:52:30 Raspberry Pi is just the shoulder of the iceberg, the rest of the ice mass is just now beginning to rise up out of the ocean. The very tip of the ice berg, the Trim Slice and Cotton Candy are out there, but they are very expensive at $199 each and the support showered upon them by everybody is minimal at best. Folks who charge an arm and a leg had better be able to develop and maintain their own software. This is the next PI candidate ($70-$100) being pushed by the Chinese computer industry by supporting it with a "charitable" consortium software development company that is promoting the Allwinner chipset by providing all the drivers and such. http://liliputing.com/2012/03/mele-a1000-is-a-70-hackable-linux-friendly-arm-based-pc.html http://liliputing.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/mele_01.jpg This one has a 1gigahertz A-8 current modern ARM phone chip in it and a full meg of on board memory. Folks certainly haven't finished cooking the software yet and it is a Chinese commercial enterprise instead of a funky British charity, so it will never catch the buzz the Pi has gotten. BUT -- Allwinner chipsets has a 2 gigahertz 4 core A-8 chip coming out next quarter which will likely make it into a more current version of this box. Also note this puppy supports VGA and all other forms of graphics plus it will run all the full current mainstream Linux distros as soon as the drivers are created. Yet nobody is buzzing about this one at all .... Because of the very low price and massive cultural acceptance the Raspberry Pi is going to be the landmark device, the one that will be remembered as the start of a new age in computers where everybody (including grade school kids) has one and lots of people understand what they have at a deeper level. I think it bodes for start point of the end of the MicroSoft era of computing, not that MS will go away soon but it's relevance will move to be more like Sun and its expensive but very capable design workstations were 15 years ago. When people finish playing their Pi games, they will want something similar with more horsepower to play with and somebody will give it to them. :D Oldfeller, typing on an ancient 1 gighertz AMD motherboard about the size of a dinner tray using a full Linux distro that would run on the Mele box shown above. |
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Title: Re: Millions of people buying this $35 linux box Post by longtucky on 04/19/12 at 23:21:54 These are really cool, and the beagleboard looks very interesting as well! I've been looking for a good solution to put into a VW camper for a low power computing device that can handle basic stuff like web browsing and writing code. I'm a web developer looking to take my business mobile and low energy, little devices like thisccan help make it possible. Now who's going to figure out how to power it on solar? :-? Currently running xubuntu/xfce on a toshiba laptop, only boot up windows when I need to use Adobe products. 8-) |
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Title: Re: Millions of people buying this $35 linux box Post by Oldfeller on 04/20/12 at 13:24:24 Any panel that output five to six volts can do the job. A six volt rechargeable battery could offer both voltage buffering and short term cloudiness bridging. What's funny, somebody asked Eben if he was afraid somebody in China would rip off the design and slap a allwinner chip into it and then undersell him pricewise -- he said he hoped that they did and were massively successful at doing it. The goal is to have lots of very affordable useful little units available freely to everybody. And somebody will. And that is good for everybody. |
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