11-08-2012, 11:12 PM
I know this is an old thread, but just looking through my computer and I found a reply that I knocked out a couple of weeks back, just before the forum problems. For what it's worth, here it is:
But Joe, why do you think it's meant to be a desktop PC replacement? It's not; it never has been. The Foundation say in their FAQ that performance is roughly comparable with a mid-range P2, but with faster graphics. Would you try to use a even a top of the range P2 as an everyday desktop PC running Windows 7 or the latest release of Ubuntu? The fact it will run a web browser and open up a spreadsheet is really just meant to impress - and so it should, given the hardware and power consumption!
The primary aim of the Foundation is to provide a very cheap hardware package and OS that can support a number of programming languages in an educational setting - the fact the hacking community is coming up with myriad uses for them is just adding to the excitement (and helping to speed up development and awareness).
I also don't understand the point about cost. Sure, you need a micro-USB power supply and a memory card - that's around a tenner, but most people already have these. Everyone will already have a USB keyboard and mouse; indeed most school IT departments have mountains of these (as most lease companies don't want them returned when the PC goes back for H&S reasons). HDMI-compatible monitors have been around for a decade now. What else - a case? The case is clearly optional, but really nice ones are less than a tenner - most people like me will mount it inside the project it's being embedded in.
Oh, and a second-hand PC will need the OS rebuilding before you can use it safely. There's a few hours of messing about right there - especially if you don't have the restore discs (or partition) and the PC uses unusual hardware (most do) that requires non-standard drivers. And once you've done all that, all you have is a large, noisy desktop PC that you couldn't send up into the sky on a balloon! Remember - think "embedded" - outside of the educational context, that's what the Pi is really about.
Sorry to drone on, but so many people have completely missed the point. Partly because of sloppy journalism, perhaps?
As a postscript, I finally got around to trying mine earlier today. I borrowed an SD card from my camera, downloaded "Raspbian", and used a piece of free software to put the OS onto to the card. To my amazement, it worked perfectly first time - from what I'd heard previously I was expecting a number of battles, but things are clearly a lot better with this release of the OS. I think total time was around 10 minutes, including the time taken to download the OS image. Never installed Windows that quickly!
It ran better than I expected. Not blindingly fast, but better than my 1GHz P3 server machine (currently running a clean install of Lubuntu). Obviously the SD card is faster to access than a hard drive. Web-surfing was quite viable for sites that aren't too Javascript-heavy. The educational software looks like fine, and seems to run well. I spent a happy hour teaching the kids to play Connect 4. For a beta-release, it's looking pretty good.
Cheers,
Mark
But Joe, why do you think it's meant to be a desktop PC replacement? It's not; it never has been. The Foundation say in their FAQ that performance is roughly comparable with a mid-range P2, but with faster graphics. Would you try to use a even a top of the range P2 as an everyday desktop PC running Windows 7 or the latest release of Ubuntu? The fact it will run a web browser and open up a spreadsheet is really just meant to impress - and so it should, given the hardware and power consumption!
The primary aim of the Foundation is to provide a very cheap hardware package and OS that can support a number of programming languages in an educational setting - the fact the hacking community is coming up with myriad uses for them is just adding to the excitement (and helping to speed up development and awareness).
I also don't understand the point about cost. Sure, you need a micro-USB power supply and a memory card - that's around a tenner, but most people already have these. Everyone will already have a USB keyboard and mouse; indeed most school IT departments have mountains of these (as most lease companies don't want them returned when the PC goes back for H&S reasons). HDMI-compatible monitors have been around for a decade now. What else - a case? The case is clearly optional, but really nice ones are less than a tenner - most people like me will mount it inside the project it's being embedded in.
Oh, and a second-hand PC will need the OS rebuilding before you can use it safely. There's a few hours of messing about right there - especially if you don't have the restore discs (or partition) and the PC uses unusual hardware (most do) that requires non-standard drivers. And once you've done all that, all you have is a large, noisy desktop PC that you couldn't send up into the sky on a balloon! Remember - think "embedded" - outside of the educational context, that's what the Pi is really about.
Sorry to drone on, but so many people have completely missed the point. Partly because of sloppy journalism, perhaps?
As a postscript, I finally got around to trying mine earlier today. I borrowed an SD card from my camera, downloaded "Raspbian", and used a piece of free software to put the OS onto to the card. To my amazement, it worked perfectly first time - from what I'd heard previously I was expecting a number of battles, but things are clearly a lot better with this release of the OS. I think total time was around 10 minutes, including the time taken to download the OS image. Never installed Windows that quickly!
It ran better than I expected. Not blindingly fast, but better than my 1GHz P3 server machine (currently running a clean install of Lubuntu). Obviously the SD card is faster to access than a hard drive. Web-surfing was quite viable for sites that aren't too Javascript-heavy. The educational software looks like fine, and seems to run well. I spent a happy hour teaching the kids to play Connect 4. For a beta-release, it's looking pretty good.
Cheers,
Mark
