
Raspberry Pi production grows, $35 Linux computer now available in bulk - shawndumas
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/07/raspberry-pi-production-grows-35-linux-computer-now-available-in-bulk/
======
m_myers
For those who are interested, there's a new Stack Exchange site for Raspberry
Pi developers and users: <http://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com>

Some example questions:

"How do I run the Raspberry Pi on Solar Power?"
<http://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/86>

"How can I extend the life of my SD card?"
<http://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/169>

"How do I install Google Chrome?"
<http://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/374>

~~~
linker3000
I'm torn at hearing about this because although it seems a logical move, the
RPi official site has its own support/tech forums (and Wiki), so do Farnell
(Element 14) and adding another technical resources site is going to fragment
the support collective even more.

~~~
alexchamberlain
I find the SE format much easier to read and find the information I want.

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sophacles
Imagine all the cool stuff you could do with a box of these... yet a huge
chunk of the things I keep coming back to are various nefarious or gray area
uses, where these are cheap enough to be effectively disposable:

* Put them in cheap weatherproof housing, with cheap storage, and place them all over as communication and file sharing hubs. Combine with meshing (like the commotion project) and use them in arab spring situations. Essentially darknet building.

* Put it in your coffee shop with ettercap running and mitm everyone. So what if the thing is found - presumably you can get another with proceeds.

* Similarly put it anywhere you need/want a gateway that doesn't look like a gateway. Good wifi at some coffee shop? Put your box there, and now you have device to do whatever from, and you can be 1000 miles away. No need to break anything. Total time saver. Want to get around firewall crap? Just have this guy in the wiring closet opening a "reverse shell" out (probably to the afore-mentioned gateway :) ).

* (not nefarious or grey at all) - cheap video player/presentation player. It has hdmi out, so you can just send it a video feed/remote desktop feed via wifi and not worry about cables/connectors/drivers that are still an issue in 2012.

~~~
ars
If only it had VGA output - there are so many incredibly cheap old LCD
monitors on eBay. You could setup a huge number of very cheap terminals
anywhere.

~~~
astrodust
Are you serious? VGA is a terrible analog standard that would've made the
video output of this device useless.

Having HDMI means any kid can plug it straight into the family television
without any problems, or they can always get a new, cheap monitor for well
under $100 if they shop around.

It also doesn't preclude the Pi from being used to drive large displays for
commercial applications or for classroom presentations.

~~~
nnnnni
Since I'm not made of money, my only display device with HDMI is a Google TV
that I got for free (won it) a couple of years ago. If they wanted it to work
with "the family television without any problems", they could have added
composite video out.

~~~
andrewaylett
Per <http://www.raspberrypi.org/faqs>, it does have composite video out.

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polshaw
The Pi has been a great show in the perils of poor supply chain management. I
woke up early on release day to try and get one, failed, continued to fail for
quite a while, and never ordered one.

It would cost me, in the UK, £29.50, and take '5 weeks'. For £39, and a little
quicker, i can get the all-winner a10 based MK802, which has;

    
    
        * a much more powerful 1Ghz+ A8 processor
        * a much more powerful GPU (mali 400)
        * much more memory (1GB vs 256MB)
        * wifi
        * a case
    

The pi surely has it's niche still (gpio, community), and to be fair to the
crew, their aims have always been separate from ours-- aimed at education and
not hackers. And it did start all this. But IMO, at least until they can get
the model A out at lower cost, there is little attractive about it today for
someone looking for a tiny arm computer.

Interestingly, if they had used kickstarter (or just taken pre-orders) they
would have been able to get manufacturing off at 100K+ quantities, and
wouldn't have had these problems.

~~~
glimcat
The MK802 looks interesting. But in the USA, it's showing as $99 versus the
Raspberry Pi's $35.

<https://www.miniand.com/>

My main interest in the Pi is that it represents a newish class of computing
devices which are cheap enough to treat as ad-hoc embedded computers. The
MK802 looks interesting, but it doesn't seem to fall into that category. Even
the Pi is still towards the high end of what I'm hoping to see.

~~~
polshaw
$35 is just the headline price, there is shipping on top of that (taxes?).
MK802 shipped @ $60[1]. So is +$20 worth that? (plus, the wait was 12 weeks
when i checked a us retailer for pi)

1\. [http://ipadalternative.com/101-mini-pocket-pc-android-
linux-...](http://ipadalternative.com/101-mini-pocket-pc-android-
linux-2160p-hdmi-out-10ghz-flash-103.html) no doubt elsewhere + ebay, too.

E: sorry, i quoted the 512MB ram version's price, can't edit earlier post.
still twice rPi.

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TomAnthony
When these first came out I was gagging for one, but since then the enthusiasm
I had has been slowly dwindling.

I wonder how many others are like me, and how much more they might have sold
had they waited to have a bit more stock at launch.

(I'm not taking anything away from the product or the team, just an
observation/question on launch strategies.)

~~~
freehunter
Huge hype then huge wait times have that effect. I know with Guild Wars 2, I
was hyped beyond belief... two years ago. I then played the betas this
spring/summer and thought "yeah, this is cool. I guess."

Extreme hype wears off quick, and needs to be capitalized upon immediately. I
can already feel the same thing happening with the Microsoft Surface.

I do know that if I could have bought 10 RPis in March, I would have. Last
week I paid for my preorder of one and feel thats probably enough.

~~~
j_s
Thanks for taking the risk to share your detailed anecdotal agreement with the
OP, even though apparently someone felt it was worth downvoting.

------
sho_hn
Unfortunately I'm rather disappointed with regard to the Raspberry Foundation
living up to its obligations. They had made a deal with Nokia for a "Qt on Pi"
device program that would get 400 units into the hands of Qt developers, and
these were supposed to be among the first to go out:

[http://blog.qt.nokia.com/2011/11/24/qt-5-with-rasberry-
pi-a-...](http://blog.qt.nokia.com/2011/11/24/qt-5-with-rasberry-pi-a-
delicious-mix-with-home-delivery/)

However, they never managed to get the expected page up where one would redeem
the coupon code. Eventually an email-based way was put in place, but to this
day, nobody in the programme has received their Pi.

Yes, this is a "didn't get free stuff" whine, but still, they promised and
never delivered.

~~~
throwaway14830
Not focusing more on software is, in my opinion, one of the biggest mistake
they made so far. They should have increased the price a little bit and at the
least sponsored some driver development.

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reginaldo
Meanwhile, I'm still waiting for the one I ordered from RS on May 24th. Never
heard from RS again. Dropped an email and got no answer. I do _imagine all the
cool stuff I could do_ if I could only grab a box full of these at a
reasonable price here in Brazil, but for now it is just imagination.

~~~
danieldk
I ordered mine on May 9 from Farnell, and received it just today. It's the
same with some friends who ordered one.

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donniezazen
I would rather pay more for better hardware support. Their are several
problems with inability to provide enough power. Accessories won't work out of
box, etc.

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agumonkey
I wonder if components and build price has lowered since february; enough so
they could drop the price a bit lower. Or maybe make board, psu, wifi dongle
(you'd buy them anyway) kits for ~40$.

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tuananh
what's the point when delivery time is still approx ~ 10 weeks+. I rather buy
it on eBay and get it in the next few days.

~~~
catch23
maybe that's a business opportunity... order 1000, then sell on ebay for a
markup.

~~~
ricardobeat
If they ramped up production as advertised, that won't fly.

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drudru11
if they just had 1 gig, this would be great for server environments

