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.



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.



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.

Oldfeller--FSO wrote on 04/16/12 at 09:29:26:


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.

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.

oh here, a 3min lesson a day is all it takes,

start TODAY!

http://www.codecademy.com/#!/exercises/0

 
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://www.amazon.com/Zotac-Memory-Desktop-Computer-ZBOXNANO-AD10-PLUS-U/dp/B...

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!"

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.

Yeah, cute... nice for media but I'll keep my 6 cores and 16 GB of RAM for serious database work.