rasberry Pi (ARM chip computer)

[cast-fish]

Ye

strange about the chinese thing..they said the Pi could be purchased by anybody
globaly..

The Pi should be on sale in about 14 days time.....End of Feb.

you will have to be quik because many people will snap up these tiny computers
to use as media centers. Even the $25 dollar version works as a perfect media
centre because a dedicated OS for XBMC is being made for the Pi.

What does that mean?

well people simply download the image of the XBMC Pi distro and plug the SD
card in. The Pi then boots up as a dedicated media center on a TV....nothing else that
a user needs to do. They can even operate the center using a remote control.
The XVMC distro will also come with a web browser and desktop option...so people
can surf the web from their large TV using the remote control.

Many people will buy the Pi just for the reason above.

I have also noticed how advanced "web applictions" are becoming...tools
like "audiotool" and such........ which don't require local cpu power.

THe Pi can already run Flash in a browser....it's not exactly identical to typical
Flash in win32 but almost...

(the community will get Flash working correct anyhow)

This then means all "web applications" can be used on the Pi..

It opens up the little computer to doing a vast amount more computing than what people think.

If you look in Chrome webstore there are hundreds and hundreds of free
web apps...really good stuff allowing a computer to do pretty much anything regular

i am still investigating the Flash thing. However Pi can certainly run HTML 5 perfectly
and many web apps now use HTML 5 not flash.

anyway (just opinions)

thx

Vince

[bmarkus]

The Pi should be on sale in about 14 days time.....End of Feb.

Again... Just another two weeks...

[cast-fish]

Ye

They have the firm assembled boards completion date of for Feb 20...then the boards need shipping back to uk for global distribution... 

They say it will be possible to buy a Pi before the end of Feb....(this month)

You have to bare in mind, "China" isn't just down the freeway and turn right....kind of thing...right?

but they are even talking about going to the chinese factory just to make certain the boards
are done for Feb 20.

just wanna get my hands on one really...

i am still looking for ultra low power quad core netbooks.....fanless and with no moving parts...SSD
(they are available just very thin on the ground......ARM based)

Vince.

[bmarkus]

No preorders, first request in first served basis. Be prepared for chaos.

[cast-fish]

oh ye....it will be chaos allright.....but apparently they built all this chaos theory into how the web store will sell the boards...

i don't think the web page will hold up.....there will be 10 thousand orders in 5 days...
or something insane like that.....schools will be ordered POTS full....

just hope to get one....you know....(i am in the UK and have kind of helped the foundation)

i hope you also get lucky....

V

[bmarkus]

I will try to get one. At least as an investment to sell later and make money on it

[vinnie]

Lol, yout sense of humor are caustic!

[bmarkus]

Hardware is nowhere, but an 1.8GB Debian based ISO image is proudly announced

[cast-fish]

Ye Markus

they also announced the Fedora Linux Operating System for the Rasberry Pi called Fedora Remix.

Again, it's a free operating system for the Pi...but they have not yet correctly wired the powerful 3D graphics cabalitilty of the CHIP into  Fedora Remix....which is kind of a pitty.

I think the Rasberry Pi will be available for sale at the end of the month....about
a week from now...end of Feb 2012.

Vince.

[bmarkus]

They are going to the right direction from the kitchen desk:

Although we are still waiting for units to arrive from China, you can start buying the Raspberry Pi today. We have entered into licensed manufacture partnerships with two British companies, Premier Farnell and RS Components. They’ll be manufacturing and distributing the devices on behalf of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, and handling the distribution of our first batches as they arrive in the country. The Foundation continues to make a small profit from each Raspberry Pi sold, which we’ll be putting straight back into the charity.

Starting with version 'B' (2x USB 1xEThernet 256MB RAM).

It is available here in Hungary at the local Farnell company.



Also interesting, that Raspberry WEB is available. Well they changed it to a simple static.

[bmarkus]

I placed an order

[bmarkus]

BTW, it is version 'B'. It's preliminiray price tag was $35. I get it locally for $42,3 + 27% tax (single unit).

[maro]

Does this include the local shipping charges? In my case the price from the local Farnell page translates to ca. 65 USD, and at that level I've simple lost any interest. And of course it was not available for shipment anyway.

[bmarkus]

They are 20 minutes away so I will simply jump in to the office. Adding $2 of anything it would be free to the door. In-country it is cca. $6.5 but free above $100 orders.

[cast-fish]

Yes


see recently these "web applications" from the Chromium store have really interested me.
There are hundreds and hundreds of them for FREE which allow you computer to do lots
of stuff. The apps don't appear to use your local CPU hardly at all...so you can run several
apps at the same time.

It's amazing what apps are available..i was able to "mimic" many of my win32 desktop
computing apps with tiny free chromium web apps...in an afternoon. Radio players...stream
recorders....you name it...

I think this idea takes a computer like the Rasberry Pi into new territory....making it a totally useful
desktop computer.

Chromium can also run on Android 4 now....taking any low cost tablet computer into new
computing territory...

I love many of the free apps for Chromium...examples are

"audiotool"  a DAW as a web app  (Digital Audio workstation)
"radio player Live"
"Cortexit"  screen reader
"Dark scroll" word processor


but there are infact hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of these free apps

a really interesting app is  web VNC inside a web page. Allowing you to remotelty connect to another GUI desktop(server) just by using a web page on a local machine someplace.  (in other words any Public computer connected to the web)



Vince