A Least Half a Million Raspberry Pis Sold 212
hypnosec writes "The Raspberry Pi Foundation has announced that it could have sold over a million units of its credit-card-sized computer, the Raspberry Pi. Announcing the achievement, the foundation wrote that one of its distributors, Element14, has sold over half a million units of the Raspberry Pi, and even though the foundation doesn't have up-to-date figures from its other distributor, RS Components, it is expecting to have sold its millionth unit of the computer."
Re:What do they do? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'll admit I haven't done this yet (can't get my hands on one!) but I plan to use two as a cheap drivers for my 5'th and 6'th monitor. Currently I'm using an old (AMD sempton 7something) box to do this, but a Raspberry Pi should do nicely (all I really need is an X server as I just forward the apps to the display currently..)
Re:What do they do? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:What do they do? (Score:5, Interesting)
It runs Linux. It can do anything Linux can do, as long as you can live with somewhat limited RAM and CPU speed.
I added a USB hard drive to mine, grabbed a SqueezePlug SD card image, and I'm using it as the MP3 server for my Squeezebox audio players. SqueezePlug started as a bundle of Debian + Logitech Media Server built for PogoPlugs, then also various NAS devices. The Raspberry Pi turned out to be such perfect hardware for the purpose, that the developer has dropped support for other devices.
Prior to that, I left my Mac Mini up 24/7 running Logitech Media Server. It would leak memory and leave the OSX desktop unusable. The Pi uses less power, it's easier to admin, and it's silent.
I do feel I should experiment with other uses -- mine has never had a mouse, keyboard or monitor connected. Just a USB hard disk and ethernet.
Sold vs. Shipped (Score:2, Interesting)
Sold and shipped are two very different things.
Isn't that right, RS Components???
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/391521/20121005/rs-components-raspberry-pi-raspi-allied-customer.htm [ibtimes.co.uk]
Cubieboard (Score:2, Interesting)
Funny thing, I ordered a cubieboard this morning before this story was posted:
http://cubieboard.org/ [cubieboard.org]
Two of my roommates have RPis. One of them has two of them. I watched them both struggle with the RPi units when they were first setting them up. Those things are god awful. Graphics requires a binary blob, and the USB power source causes a lot of stability problems. Since the Ethernet is attached by USB, this normally manifests by the Ethernet dropping off, the kernel spewing messages about it, and the whole system reduced to a grinding mess as syslogd tries to write all that noise to the SD card. Running off of USB power is just ridiculous.
The cubieboard is 2x as fast, has 2-4x the memory, a SATA port, and Ethernet on the SoC rather than via USB. And, since it doesn't power off of a USB port I expect it to be a lot more stable. Most importantly to me: it doesn't require a binary blob for standard graphics.
Re:What do they do? (Score:2, Interesting)
I have the raspberry pi and a mk802 III. Both are cool devices but I think the raspberry pi is better for xbmc and hacking, while the mk802 III is great for browsing the web, playing flash videos, and most other media purposes.
Why do I think the pi is better for xbmc? one word Raspbmc, its a xbmc focused distro that has perfect CEC support (tv controller can be used to operate xbmc flawlessly), Full SSH and FTP support, and enough ram/cpu power left over to run a low traffic webserver. Plus I love the open nature of the pi and am looking forward to finding something to do with its GPIO pins.
The mk802 III is also cool, but its Android only (there's an effort to port ubuntu to it, but it will be a while before its finished). Plus you need to hunt down directions on how to root it, and you can't ssh into it, can't run a server, etc. Don't get me wrong, I still like it, Its powerful and its really awesome for running android apps on the tv. But It is not as fun as the pi.
Re:Its called AppleTV (Score:4, Interesting)
The Pi's 2 USB ports are standard USB that you would find on any personal computer.
Except most devices you would want to use with a Raspberry Pi don't actually work. The ports themselves are fine. The USB controller is a joke.
Well all right, the ports themselves aren't actually fine, there are lots of problems with how they deliver power (or fail to) and hot plugging has issues as well.
They have the same general shape as a standard USB that you would find on any personal computer, I'll give you that.