More Than Half a Million Raspberry Pis Sold
raspberrypi.org
raspberrypi.org
Unlike the Pi these offerings usually come with Bluetooth, WiFi, larger flash and 1GB RAM in dual or quad core configurations, and pre-packaged in consumer friendly boxes ready for hooking to a display, although access to auxiliary IO buses may be more difficult. SATA (Mele A1000G), GigE (Wandboard) and mini PCI designs (i.mx6 Sabre Lite) are even available.
"We don’t claim to have all the answers. We don’t think that the Raspberry Pi is a fix to all of the world’s computing issues; we do believe that we can be a catalyst. We want to see cheap, accessible, programmable computers everywhere; we actively encourage other companies to clone what we’re doing. We want to break the paradigm where without spending hundreds of pounds on a PC, families can’t use the internet. We want owning a truly personal computer to be normal for children."
Price
Performance
Exposed I/O
Device Size
Community Size
I don't know of any board that beats the Pi on more than 3 of these attributes.
The allwinner sticks you mentioned are comparably priced, but have a smaller development community and very limited I/O. If all you want is a little media player, I think they are a good choice though.
http://liliputing.com/2012/07/allwinner-pledges-support-for-...
As for lower level development, you are probably right, few boards can claim to beat the Pi.
[0] http://www.newark.com/jsp/search/productdetail.jsp?id=43W530...;
Edit: nevermind... looks like I just got lucky when I ordered mine. Newark now says "7200 Expected to ship 6 Feb, 2013"
The iPad charger from Apple is 10W (5v @ 2A) so even the knock offs try to meet that spec. If you are careful (and this is important because there are some crappy ones out there) you can get them for $10 - 15 and they are quite small.
I usually get a 9' (3M) USB cable, that lets me put the Rpi on a table close to a monitor even when the outlet isn't too close.
The HDMI cable is a much better way to connect your Rpi to a monitor than composite video :-) I haven't got audio over HDMI working, but a small portable speaker plugged into the headphone jack works great.
The K400 from Logitech gives me both a keyboard and a mouse. I don't use wired keyboards with the Rpi since it is way too easy to drop the keyboard and have its cord yank the works off the table and on to the ground.
I've also got one serving up a static view of some database with json and thttpd. I've found that NFS mounting storage is more effective than using the SD card (in another thread where we were debating the longevity of SD Cards I took one and wrote a bunch of files to it until it failed, which it did fairly quickly, so I try to keep all file systems mostly readonly on the SDcard and R/W mounted ones. You could also use a USB drive for that. The Rpi's Achilles heel is that everything goes through USB though.
[Edit:] I forgot to mention some lego bricks http://www.thedailybrick.co.uk/instructions/Building%20Instr...
Edit: Thanks for the responses. May be I should have explored the site more instead of just reading the article. http://www.raspberrypi.org/about
While it's not quite as simple as a arduino, for those of us who like Linux anyway, it makes it almost trivial to wire into all sorts of projects - Wireless Helicopters, Door badges, tiny webservers, etc.
It's a great piece of kit, and a nice introduction into the embedded HW world.
Arduino AVR is helping people get into hardware.
Raspberry pi is helping people build cheap netflix settop boxes.
edit: maybe I'm jaded. We've got about 4 totally idle raspis at our hackerspace that have been donated by people who have no idea what to do with them, but bought them anyway.
Yet, our stack of arduinos get use constantly.
I'd agree with that, based on my own personal experience. Of the several people I know who have them, half have no clue what to do with it, and the other half are using them as tiny media centres. There's definitely not much hardware hacking going on.
And I can understand it, to be honest. I can't think of a good use for one that isn't already covered ably by some other computer I have. Media centre? Xbox plus external hard-disk does the job. Small *nix box? Better off using my MacBook -- it's got everything built-in.
The best idea I came up with was a mini backup server connected to my router that pulls power from its spare USB port, but even then, it's easier just to plug in an external HD once in a while, or dump things onto one of the SD cards I have in rotation.
That's hardware hacking.
In reality, those of us who don't bring a pickaxe and a carbide lamp to work are just "systems integrators" anyway. Attitudes and titles don't pay the bills.
Most of the value in the pi is the video decoder. So, that's the types of projects it gets used for.
Arduino arduino arduino
The HDMI port on mine has never been touched. I'm using it right now to control my roomba though its SCI interface. An uno with a wifi shield costs way more than a Raspberry Pi with a usb wifi dongle. Unless you need more GPIO pins or lower power consumption, Pis just make more sense.
I am glad I don't go to your hacker space, that is a pretty unnecessarily nasty attitude.
500ma is a problem. The fact that you can't easily run it off of a battery without buying additional [expensive] hardware is a problem.
Nasty attitude? If you're telling people that a raspi is a good intro to embedded electronics, then you're harming their development.
This isn't even what the raspberry pi was intended for. It was intended as a cheap machine to introduce people to programming with. For that, it's awesome, but I have yet to see anybody actually use it for that.
And yes, the power is not a concern for everybody under the sun.
So in short, development is easier and more flexible (obviously), peripherals are cheaper (for the difference between the usb adapter I got for my Pi and a wifi shield from sparkfun, I would have $75 left over for an "expensive" PSU for a Pi... I mean come on... At least with the Pi you have the option of just using ethernet if you want to be cheap, with an arduino that will still set you back more than the price of a Pi), and the devices themselves are more flexible (get tired of your project for some reason? No problem, just ducttape it to the back of your TV and use it as a media-pc whatever.).
Downsides are... worse GPIO and you need to feed it 500mA. Wow. Anyone who does not find that daunting is surely an idiot.
Nasty attitudes have harmed peoples' development far more than $35 computers ever have. Your vitriol is baffling, how could something so minor evoke this? How have raspberry pis really wronged you?
And who says that embedded hardware must run off a battery? You're sure one to talk about stupidity.
Yes it uses more power, but for many applications, that doesn't matter.
If your device needs a web server, you're probably not just starting to learn about embedded electronics.
If you want to learn about web servers, do that, if you want to learn about embedded electronics, get an arduino.
Next time you spend $25 for an ATmega32, remember what you called those other people.
Try and pop the ARM chip off of your raspi and see how it works out.
For ARM, I prefer to solder my own LQFP at about $7. http://twitpic.com/btvkmd
You're right though, someday I'd love to be able to transplant BGA packages.
It can be done. Surface tension is a wonderful thing.
My son (6) got his pi as his first computer, we built a lego case for it and he gets excited everytime he connects peripherals. It may not be hw hacking for us, but it is for little folks.
On a personal note, I don't want a replaceable battery or hackable ROM on my phone. I want that thing locked down tight, and small as possible. I'd rather "hack" a $35 board than a $600 phone.
Avoid shopping at Amazon (it's a ripoff by someone who is hoarding units).
It'd be great if RPi could find a way to expand production. At the very least, being more upfront about the delays in production and who will actually get units, would be a big help.
The Pi is going to be the master controller for my central heating system. There will be a Web interface and I hope to implement something with a service such as Google Latitude so I can have a 'back from holiday' mode where the system knows when I'm, say, back within 25 miles of the house and fires up the heating and water again.
That's my fun project for when I have some spare time.
http://www.openvirtualization.org/open-source-arm-trustzone....
More information on the "opensource-ness" of Raspberry Pi:
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/10/all-co...