Raspberry Pi: The TechSpot Review + How-To Setup Guide

[Guest]

Agree with the last 2 points - aiming this post at Windows users is right on the money. Let's face it - Windows is still the most widely used OS. It therefore stands to reason that this post should be aimed at the majority - especially seeing this project is aimed at introducing a large number of users to the Linux OS. I started a post about my Raspberry Pi and the stats show that 63% of people viewing it do so from a Windows OS. This project might very well change that, but you need to get the Windows users converted first ;-)

 

[Guest]

EDIT to the above post. I started a BLOG about my Raspberry Pi, not post. Blogger has some nice stats tools showing you the OS, browser, etc., of the vierwers. Windows has 63%, Mac OS 12% & Linux 11%. Interestingly Chrome has 33%, Firefox 32% & IE 12% out of the browsers. Take from that what you will...

 

[Guest]

So how about some benchmarks? Given that it I-Os to a SD card I don't expect it'll be breaking any records, but it would be nice to know exactly what sort of expectations a real-life unit can live up to. Program load times, etc. Especially, can it hit the 30fps @ 1080i that the publicity material claims?

It would also be good to know what the real-world power requirements and operating temperature was.

 

[Guest]

It should also be noted that there will be Arch, Puppy, and at least OE/Angstrom versions available soon.

 

[Guest]

RE: Benchmarking, power consumption, etc.

1) It consumes less than 2w, so it's not going to be anything other than "warm" at best.

2) The SD only impacts storage I/O performance.

3) The GPU is part of what's empowering some of the impressive things they've been showing the R-Pi to do. I'm eagerly awaiting my first one (going to be making one of the first Brambles (cluster of R-Pi's...) once the one per person restriction is lifted so I can start tinkering with old-school GPGPU coding with ES GLSL.

 

[Guest]

Cables in all directions is fine if you have a work bench to tinker on, not so good if you want to make a "productized box". Perhaps someone can come up with a case with simple internal cabling that "realigns" the connectors to one side and includes a power supply. Most phone power supplies are dual voltage too, so the solution would be universal.

 

[Guest]

Don't forget that R-Pi original idea was to bring (cheap) computing to masses - I.e. users that just starting and not those who've been 'using linux since 2006'...

 

[Guest]

" Working in the same terminal window, enter the command sudo leafpad /etc/sudoers."

This is dangerous. The sudoers file should be edited by visudo, which locks the file to prevent simultaneous edits, as well as checking for certain errors.

 

[Leeky]

" Working in the same terminal window, enter the command sudo leafpad /etc/sudoers."

This is dangerous. The sudoers file should be edited by visudo, which locks the file to prevent simultaneous edits, as well as checking for certain errors.

Could you explain a little further on this please?

As far as I understand it, visudo is an option in the same way editing the actual file was. If only one user is logged in, and running as root, there won't be simultaneous edits, although granted, its possible an error could be made whilst changing the details.

 

[captaincranky]

RE: Benchmarking, power consumption, etc.

1) It consumes less than 2w, so it's not going to be anything other than "warm" at best.

2) The SD only impacts storage I/O performance.

3) The GPU is part of what's empowering some of the impressive things they've been showing the R-Pi to do. I'm eagerly awaiting my first one (going to be making one of the first Brambles (cluster of R-Pi's...) once the one per person restriction is lifted so I can start tinkering with old-school GPGPU coding with ES GLSL.

What I'm curious about this is, while one R-Pi may be somewhat of a novelty, when you start grouping them, (@ $35.00 a pop), don't you very quickly run into the cost of an Intel Atom" and miniITX platform?

 

[Guest]

The availability situation is so sad. I'm one of the August people in the US. They could have sold the heck out of these with bundles and accessories like power supplies, enclosures, mini racks and everything else but with the availability picture being so sketchy I'm sure third party suppliers are reluctant to get involved. eBay Pis are listed out there for $200-$400 USD and are actually selling for that. The US supplier was tacking on $20 charges to US orders as freight from the UK and then refunding it back. The supply side in the US could have been handled better by 1 person working out of their back bedroom at home. A good idea but poorly executed on the supply side. At current rate of progress Intel will have theirs out before the next batch of Pis.

 

[Doctor John]

Much the same sorry story in the UK, I ordered ages ago, had just about forgotten about it!