We all know platforms like the Beagleboard, which are cheap hardware platforms which can be used in all sorts of projects. A new entry into this market is Raspberry Pi, a British ARM board which is slated to be released in the fourth quarter of this year. For a mere $25, you’ll have a fully-configured ARM-based 1080p-capable mini-motherboard. The device is still in development, and only a few days ago, the alpha version of the board was demonstrated running Quake III.
Raspberry Pi is a non-profit organisation from the United Kingdom, aiming to develop an extremely low-cost ARM motherboard which can be used to develop cheap yet powerful hardware for developing markets, while also providing those of us in what I would reluctantly call the “developed” world with a cheap motherboard to hack around with. Their first product is about the size of a credit card, and carries an impressive set of specifications:
- 700MHz ARM11
- 128MB or 256MB of SDRAM
- OpenGL ES 2.0
- 1080p30 H.264 high-profile decode
- Composite and HDMI video output
- USB 2.0
- SD/MMC/SDIO memory card slot
- General-purpose I/O
- Optional integrated 2-port USB hub and 10/100 Ethernet controller
- Open software (Ubuntu, Iceweasel, KOffice, Python)
There will be two models – model A and model B. Model B adds an ethernet port and will cost $35. Model A will be geared towards developing markets and schools (to learn programming). It will support various Linux distributions, and they plan to sell SD cards with the distributions pre-loaded (clever). They are sufficiently funded (and thus, don’t take pre-orders), they will ship them worldwide once released, and intend to offer a buy-one-give-one program (but you can buy one on your own as well).
It’s an interesting project – nothing original, but I like how they are making it easy even for folks like me to just buy this board with Linux pre-loaded and configured on an SD card so I can get started right away. Once released, I might buy two of these, and give on away in a contest on OSNews (we’ll see). I’m hoping someone crafts a pre-made case for this one, too. You know, just to make it totally plug-and-play (I’m not really good with a Dremel).
Is there a market for something as cheap as this among you guys and girls?
i will be buying several. glad to see this developed. can’t wait!
I’ve been waiting for this to be released for a while now. Was always worried that it’s a dream and nothing will actually come of it. Glad to see it’s still alive and well!
I’ve been waiting to buy a Beagleboard device with a seperate touchscreen and 2 batteries for a while now. Which sells for about a US $200 Which I think is a pretty good deal.
https://www.alwaysinnovating.com/touchbook/
Somehow never did, I guess I don’t know how this market is going to develop.
I like the touchbooks but they’re not $200. They’re $400
Yes, my mistake.
I’m a dirt-poor university student, but if they can give me something small, cool, and quiet THAT cheaply, I’d be a fool not to buy at least one.
I had read about these a little while back (from Hackaday I think) and I was excited then. I’m definitely going to buy a few to tinker with, and I might even come up with a nice barebones case for them once they are in hand.
It’s ARM, so no porting of Haiku
, but the potential is still wide open for a device this small! 
There was an ARM port being worked on, I don’t know its condition now.
The Haiku guys are focusing on x86 for R1, but several people in IRC have said that ARM is one of their big goals for R2.
That’s awesome! I don’t hang out on IRC, haven’t since the 90s (I know, what kind of Haiku fan am I???) but this makes me even more excited for the Raspberry Pi! Hopefully it will be a viable target device.
I consider myself extremely fortunate that both my laptop (Dell Latitude D620) and my desktop (HP SFF dc5100) are just about fully supported under Haiku as of the current build. Even wireless works on the Dell, minus WPA security. The laptop I was pretty sure of since the Latitude line has a long history of being supported under BeOS, but the desktop was a gamble.
Well it looks like I will be getting at least one R-Pi to be reserved for Haiku when the port is available, and a couple more to play around with in Arch Linux.
There’s some talk on the raspberry page on some Linux driver(s?) for it not being open-source. That could be a hurdle for Haiku. Maybe it’s just the 3D gfx, in which case a port might still be worthwhile.
From what I understand, all the drivers will be open source. What won’t be is the firmware that runs on the GPU. So basically if you’re writing your own OS, you’ll have to implement the public interface, then upload the binary blob to the GPU and use that interface to communicate with it.
I don’t think that will be a problem for the Haiku team, as they are already using the more permissive MIT license anyway. They don’t have to worry about X and all its problems either; they will hopefully be able to smoothly integrate whatever binary GPU blobs might be necessary.
The D620 is fully supported? Damn, now I wish mine hadn’t cooked itself to death. I’m running an E6410 now – do you think I’ll have a problem with it?
I’m not too familiar with your current model, but the D620 had no real issues with Haiku, at least in my configuration (Core2Duo 1.8GHz, Nvidia Quadro NVS video, Dell wireless 1390 aka Broadcom 4311). I think the only thing that didn’t work at all was Bluetooth, and I don’t think there is full Bluetooth support in Haiku yet. The SATA hard drive works fine too, I think Haiku sees it as regular ATA though.
As an aside, the D620 is also about 90% Hackintosh compatible out of the box under Leopard. It’s pretty much the same specs as the first MacBook Pro, with the exception of the graphics chip, which works fine if you use the legacy enablers. The versions of the D620 with Intel GMA 950 video work perfectly without enablers, of course. The audio requires one of the custom kexts too, but I don’t remember which one. Everything else, including wireless and Bluetooth, are automatically recognized as “genuine” Apple hardware.
Why? Most of the source for Haiku is in C or C++, C and C++ compilers exist for ARM, so it’s really just a case of someone doing the hard graft to bootstrap to OS core.
I mean, they were planning a PowerPC port until Apple bailed on the PowerPC and left the PowerPC without a real desktop home. ARM is the obvious successor to that wish for multi target. I’d be sad if Haiku only ever ran on IA-32 or x86-64 as it started out on PowerPC and Intel was much later, after most of the cool stuff was already in place.
I’d buy one for sure. Great idea.
It would be cool to mod one of these inside a keyboard, so you have an all-in-one mini PC like an 80s micro.
Yeah… that’d be a great idea. Incorperate a powered USB hub on that keyboard and I’m sold.
Power to keyboard (weird right?), power to monitor, HDMI from keyboard to monitor, wireless mouse.
Would be a pretty clean design.
Thom, isn’t there a way to automatically send all posts containing a link to ifancyshop to /dev/null?
Edited 2011-08-29 02:32 UTC
This is cool, this is the new Lego! I’m going to buy several of those for playing around with them. Cool for robotics, mesh and ad-hock networks research, low-power servers, etc.
I’m only worrying if they can cope with the demand.
I’ll definitely but a few to play with. It’s really awesome to see a computer capable of 1080 at $25!
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I read about these some time ago.. Interesting, could be cool for many different applications. One thing I would like to know however is how it can handle 1080i with what type/quality post deinterlacers – if any.
For $25/$35 it seems like a fun toy to play with at the very least.
I had similar high hopes from Sheevaplug, but
1) It used an old processor that’s no longer supported
2) Supply was always restricted and took months to get the device. And there was NO communication from the vendor.
3) Had bad power supply and the company acknowledged the problem, but offered NO easy solution other than purchase a 27 dollar replacement power supply.
4) Promised the cost would come down to 50 from 99 in a year, but that never happened, instead newer models are more expensive.
5) All the new models with the exception of the latest one still use the ARM5 processor.
6) Unfriendly tech support and lack of “user friendly” developer tools.
If Raspberry Pi can come up with a lowcost alternative, and resolve the issues that plague Sheevaplug, then it would definitely be a success.
I wonder about that, will they be able to get the prize right. Or will it be more expensive and will people just stay on the fence.
I’ll probably buy two. One to set up as a media center (since it can hardware-decode 1080p and has HDMI output), one that I’ll probably use as a low-power server.
I think the Raspberry Pi will have a huge impact. Another commenter compared it to lego, and that’s exactly what it is. Modern-age lego that will be fun for all kinds of projects.
Edited 2011-08-29 06:39 UTC
I read yesterday that while it can do 1080p decoding, the HDMI port is limited to 720p output – a serious disappointment if true. Certainly not worth bothering with as an htpc platform.
It may be more of a play thing, but the price is just right, and well worth a try. Hope they send some to us folks at Linux Journal!
how does 700mhz of ARM map against X86? I had a p2 333mhz machine running quake 3 easily back in 1999. 700 mhz is a lot of processing power depending on what the machine is doing.
> how does 700mhz of ARM map against X86?
Depends a lot of which ARM!
Some ARM doesn’t have FPU..
The website says that it’s an ARM11 which means that it has “32 bit SIMD”, Jazelle, DSP, Thumb-2, but the FPU is optional and I don’t know if the Broadcom BCM 2835 has one..
It doesn’t have SIMD instructions but it has an FPU.
… at 1920×1080?
Edited 2011-08-29 14:09 UTC
As a stunt, making a “$25 computer” is cool and all, but it will take a lot more to make a functional computer and those extra parts cost the same as they do for a traditional computer.
Yes, it’s a cheap motherboard, so you save a bit building a fully functional computer, but you don’t save all that much. You can get a functional AMD motherboard + GPU + CPU for $70, and that motherboard will include things like SATA ports, and more than one USB port – not to mention about 4x the CPU power.
The ability to power the motherboard from non-traditional power sources is neat and all, but show me a monitor that runs on 4 AAs.
Edited 2011-08-29 08:36 UTC
…and at least 20-30 times the power consumption, about 6 times the size (and that’s talking mini-ITX), and a lot more noise since it will require cooling of some sort.
Totally pointless comparison.
And why will any of those things matter to third world educators?
Also, by the time you build a fully functional system the power consumption won’t be all that stellar, as you will be powering a monitor and a HDD (third world folks aren’t going to be able to afford much SSD). So you are not going to be running any usable computer based on this off of petal power, AAs or small scale solar cells.
Third world educator aren’t going to much care about size and noise either. In fact, with a standard form factor they can probably pick up a housing very cheaply on the used market. Good luck finding a housing for Raspberry Pi – maybe they can fashion one out of adobe or something.
Many third world schools don’t have mains electricity so they can’t run 110/220V computers. However they can run the Strawberry Pi via an inexpensive solar cell, lantern battery or cheap hand generator.
A case can easily be made from wood or plastic in a local backstreet workshop.
A 12v portable TV or old laptop screen can be used as a monitor.
People in Third World countries may be poor but they aren’t stupid.
And this isn’t for 3rd world nations. First and foremost this is for the benefit of the education system in the UK. What other extra benefits this may have are just gravy.
Of course in the UK I would think that getting a desktop x86 based computer would be fairly easy. The market there is probably saturated with plenty of people trying to find any way they can to get rid of their old equipment.
The real impact IMHO of the rpi will be for hobbyists. Cheaper than the arduino, more connectivity options (via available pins) and dramatically more horsepower.
I personally would like a microusb power connector so I power it from my computer with a $1 cable. Also microusb cell phone chargers have enough power to run the rpi (1W running quake3!) and should be available most anywhere in the world now, including some developing nations that have gone with cell phones in lieu of running traditional analog phone lines.
Edited 2011-08-29 21:07 UTC
I’m really impressed by this – for the specs, the speed, and of course the price.
I was trying to turn my old NAS into a micro fanless server after removing the hard disk. It’s a PPC and runs a rootable Linux, but I gave up because it is a prehistoric yellowDog 3.something and I don’t have time to spare to try to compile a newer one. This board can be a perfect replacement.
And for the speed… it is a more convincing demo than that of the AmigaOne X1000. And it is two orders of magnitude cheaper.
No power over ethernet, meh, one more addapter to plug onto my AC power socket, no thank you.
Stop complaining.
http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=368
Built-in POE would be nice, but you don’t hit a price point by adding a bunch of stuff that only a smallish portion of your user base may use.
At $25 a pop, I’d like to buy about four of them.
Me, too. If there is a buy-one-give-one option, I will do that also.
That demo was very impressive. I hope they do a good job, and this opens up a market for more competitors in this area.
I would buy one too… Would be fun to experiment with OS development for ARM with one of those devices.
I like the idea and starting to quite fancy one myself. One of the main aims of the hardware is to boost UK schools IT classes to tech more coding and computing theory than just Excel and Word skills, or at least that’s how the press is talking about it (http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/aug/28/ict-changes-needed…). I’m just not sure that this shift required a new piece of hardware to achieve this.
Surely there must be a glut of redundant ~2GHz P4’s kicking around schools and offices that would be perfect boxes to ‘tinker’ with at probably no cost at all. All they then need is a nice Linux installation and you have all the compilers, boot-loaders and development apps you could wish for to teach coding. I have a fear that they got a bit hung-up on the example of the BBC Micro as a model of doing IT right but I think that hardware is not the issue for schools – it’s the training, support and ambition of the teachers that could be improved.
Although I started coding in BASIC on my Spectrum and BBC, it was getting games to work in DOS on my 486 and coding C and eventually Java that really got me going – you can do all this now.
Heck, who needs hardware at all, just give the kids a Virtual Machine to break as they see fit in lessons.
But what I think could make this work in schools is if it gets Gov’t support as you then have a standardised bit of kit that schools can get, which along with training materials, software and peripherals could give a great, standard platform to focus efforts on to make the biggest impact on national IT eduction. That is very much like the BBC Micro effort in the ’80s. It wasn’t just the hardware, the reason it’s called the BBC is because of the BBC program that schools could use with the kit.
I think I could slap one of these in so many different places, under a keyboard, back of the LED monitor, one for the TV too and one for a MagicJack phone. For the future I see uses in Lego Mindstorms type of robots once the software catches up.
The thought of Haiku on it could be sweet too all though it would need Flash to be usable for the kids.
I even wonder if Win8 could run, probably not.
This so takes me back to the innocent days of the Acorn Electron and BBC computer. To think I spent maybe several thousand quid on my Beeb.
For me the fact that they’re primarily targeting to run Linux on this is a bit of a minus, in that Linux is a highly complex OS environment. That will inevitably make this device less amenable to the kind of tinkering that we did on our BBC Micros and Acorn Electrons as kids. Linux makes for a much less innocent experience than the old Acorn MOS of the BBC and Electron did.
On the plus side, the RISC OS Open project has shown interest in porting to the platform, and Eben Upton (one of the main guys behind the project) has indicated on the RISC OS Open discussion boards that he’ll try to ensure that the RISC OS chaps can get their hands on machines from the first production run.
As a former RISC OS user and programmer I know that it, along with the ARM chip, is a great target for budding new young programmers to tinker with. The relative simplicity of the OS makes it much more easily understood, and the close integration with the ARM instruction set makes it a great choice for tinkering.
I want one as a primary AROS machine… That is something that could be real fun… Nice simple machine plugged into your TV with a nice simple fully featured OS
I’m all for a cheap ARM-based computer. This computer would be more than adequate to run software needed by the majority of folks out there. In fact, it’s near as quick as some machines I use daily BUT….
Touting it as a modern “home computer” is a stretch. I learned so much about computing from the Atari 8-bit and Atari ST simply because the OS’s were so basic and you were really close to the metal. Linux takes all that away. Especially for a 10-yr-old wanting to learn how “programs work”.
My kid shouldn’t have to learn how Widget Libraries, X-Windows, the kernel and interprocess communication work together before he can truly understand the machine.
A simple tiny OS in the background w/ a structured version of BASIC with a rich set of 2D/3D graphics statements would be perfect. Something similar to a 3D version of Atari’s old Player/Missle graphics would work. Also encourage assembler programming on the hardware.
Requiring binary blobs to talk to the GPU is kind of lame but I don’t know of any truly open GPUs still being manufactured because everybody took this crap from vendors cuz they wanted to play that shiny new game and Call of Duty framerates meant more to them than “open” or “great efficient design”.
I’ll probably buy a couple though.