Has anyone heard of these? I’m thinking of getting one for hobby purposes. The main reason is that I liked playing around with YDLinux on my PS3 before I had to update. The biggest feature seems to be the price point at $35. I’m aware of more powerful competing products but they’re in the $100 plus range and like I said I won’t be doing anything productive with it.
Right now there’s a backlog and they’re not taking orders. They just started shipping pre-orders within the last couple months.
Does anyone have one or something similar? What do you use it for?
FtGKid2 just got one (B model). We talked about it Sunday night. He wants to use it to learn ARM programming. He’s also thinking about using it as a media player.
He does Python programming already so he’ll probably start off programming in that.
I’ve been keeping an eye on it. It seems cool. I don’t know beans about computers, so I’ll only consider getting one to play with if folks come out with some very hand-holding guides.
I’ve programmed a lot of embedded boards like that, though usually they’ve been more expensive than that one.
Programming one isn’t that different from programming any other embedded board or certain types of PC programming, assuming you are using a higher level language (C/C++, python, etc). Unless of course you are writing the device drivers for that board, which I’ve done. That’s a bit hardware specific.
ARM processors are a bit brain dead. They are good for applications that do simple integer arithmetic or just move data around, so you find them a lot in routers and such. They don’t perform all that well at number crunching though.
Most embedded versions of linux include busybox. If it doesn’t come with this one I’d recommend adding it.
I personally would get the one that has the ethernet port. If I’m reading it right, model A doesn’t have it but model B does.
I suspect that the graphics may look spiffy, but the overall graphics performance (speed-wise) probably isn’t as good as they make it out to be.
Just as a point of reference for those playing along at home…your cell phone almost certainly has one or more ARM cores in it. I’ve used managed NAND parts (persistent memory) that used an ARM as a controller.
-D/a
I finally got my spot in line to order one, then I couldn’t justify the expense. Yeah, $35 was too much that day. Glad I didn’t shoot myself in the head. Incidentally it would have been much more after the sale and all.
I’ve dabbled in Python ( by that I mean that I know what importing means and not much else, save a few basic arguments). I was really hoping to do some HTPC stuff with it, and not much else, but they’re so COOL.
I got mine a month ago (June 10th to be exact). It took about 2 months from the time I placed my order. My total cost was a little over 40 bucks. I already had suitable SD cards, cables, and a power supply. I made a case for it out of a plastic band-aid box. I’ve mostly played around with it. I put Debian squeeze on it and installed tbaMUD. Most of the time I don’t connect a monitor or keyboard–just connect it to my network and ssh into it. It boots up really fast. I only used the GUI enough to see that it works. I haven’t even tried to use sound yet, but it’s supposed to support sound through HDMI. I’m using a cel phone charger to power it, but I’m tempted to get a rechargeable backup battery to see how long it will run.
It has to boot from an SD card, but it’s supposed to be easy to pass control to a USB drive at boot time. The OS images are 4 gigs. If you put them on a bigger card (I did) you’ll have to resize the partition to be able to use the full card.
Whatever you can dream of. They are tiny computers stripped down to the most essential components. You could use them as the foundation for a media server, video game console, robotic controller, or just about anything you can think a moderately capable and cheap general purpose computer could be used for. They are for tech-savvy hobbyists and inventors.
Mine arrived last weekend - I’ve installed Raspbian (A Debian variant) on it and I’m reasonably impressed.
I mean, in very general terms, it’s not a fast machine, but I’m surprised at the capabilities of such a small board. It runs a full desktop environment at HD resolution. It’s completely silent and barely generates any waste heat. I’m not sure what I’ll use mine for yet, but it’s a lot of fun to play with.
I ordered two. I want to set 'em up as a nice, noise-free LAN baby monitor integrated with my entertainment center - plus a backup player for those rare files my WDTV live doesn’t like.
I need to get one. I love the project but never really found any reason to get one. I have a $50 Pogoplug running Debian that acts as a media server, home automation controller and runs various other scheduled jobs. The Raspberry Pi might be fun to play with though.
Was talking to FtGKid2 last night about his Pi and remembered this thread.
He is indeed using it as a media player. Has a 1.5T HD attached. He runs VLC as his player to a 19" monitor. (This is what he essentially uses as TV. No antenna/tuner, no cable. All off the Internet.)
The problem he has is that it only has 2 USB ports. So one is his HD and the other is his keyboard. No mouse. He said it seems improper to spend $30 on a powered USB hub for an econo box. (Never mind the HD and monitor.)
So he’s figured out how to do most anything using the CLI. I have never been so proud of the kid! Maybe he’ll learn PL/I and JCL next.