RASPIE D. PIE

[Mako321]

http://www.raspberrypi.org/
They've got alpha boards in development, and I'm eagerly waiting for the results.
If you guys haven't seen Raspberry Pi before, it's a cheap, tiny computer that can decode 1080p30 H.264 video at under 1w.
There are 2 models if I remember correctly, the more expensive one costing $35 and the cheaper one costing $25.
It also runs at 1w under full load.
As a fully capable ARM device, there's big potential to put some nice linux distro on there and have a great UMPC or the open-source emulator thingy that Bob could never make.
I'm *Can'tSayThisOnTV*ing excited as there are finally updates on the thing, going to buy one as soon as they come out and use it for (at least) a home file server.
Original prototype board, just for fun:

Running Ubuntu 9.04 in the picture above.

 

[Antome]

Herells to the yus!

 

[Kickback]

Oh my

 

[Mako321]

Seems that the onboard GPU is capable of outputting 24GFLOPS of computing power out of the thing, and devs have been playing Quake 3 on the thing at 1080p.

 

[XCVG]

Neat, but I'm still waiting for the x86 credit card. Still, this is interesting. I wonder if it can run Android?

 

[ShockSlayer]

I'm gonna make a PCp one of these days.

 

[mymixed]

Looks awesome, I think Ill make a Pcp too! Great find mako!

- mymixed

 

[XCVG]

This is ARM based. It's only a PCp by the most broad descriptions. It won't run Windows or play PC games. Still, it's not completely useless, especially if someone makes a version of Android for it. I could build a really awesome PMP.

 

[Antome]

Well the definition of a PC will become rather obscure then with the introduction of windows 8, hmm?

And really now... If OSX is a 'mac', and Windows is a 'PC', then what is Linux? You would think it is also a PC.

The only reason I'm not using Linux right now is because there is no steam for Linux yet, and apparently wine
is still quite buggy.

 

[Kickback]

The reason i'm not using Linux is because it's flax



And yes, this is still a PC, just an ARM based one and not x86/64

 

[robm]

Eh, it runs HL2 just fine.

 

[AfroLH]

If Windows = PC, then you can still make a PCp with this thing.


There's always Windows CE.

 

[Mako321]

1. Install Debian
2. Install emulators
3. Install WINE
4. ?????
5. PROFIT

 

[bud]

I've said it before, I'll say it again. I don't know flax about computers.

But this interests me though. What can be done with this?

 

[Zero]

Mako and I were talking about the possibility of embedding this behind a phone jack panel on the wall, powering it via the phone line, and replacing the outside phone port with HDMI and USB. You can see how this would be insanely awesome, especially if you can get Netflix/Hulu on this thing.

Also, if you need Windows, you guys shouldn't forget about Windows 8. In theory, this might be able to run the ARM version.

 

[XCVG]

Eh, I have a feeling Win8 is going to be terrible. Going the same "user-friendly" direction as Win7, which ended up making things more complicated. New interface looks like flax. I'm an x86fag, so I don't want Windows on ARM. That being said, if they can pull it off kudos to them, but I have a feeling it's going to suck.

I never said something built with this wouldn't be a PCp, I said it would barely be a PCp. I'm not sure about Linux- are apps architecture dependent or not? Still, I'm most interested in Android. Why? I'm not too sure myself, but it seems like a perfect fit.

 

[Atari]

http://wiki.winehq.org/ARM

Although ARM can run WINE, it can't run any Windows programs. Why? It's not x86. WINE isn't an emulator. It supplants the plugins that Linux is missing so that run the machine code directly. Since these executions are x86, an ARM processor would not be able to execute said commands. As it is now, WINE on ARM can't even run WinCE apps.

Furthermore, most Linux programs are targeted at x86, and would still not work with this. Linux is not above architecture dependency, so stuff written for x86 won't work without a recompile and a lot of troubleshooting. There are a select few programs that work on Linux ARM. Pretty much anything that would run on a Pandora would run on this, so in theory you could make a cheaper Pandora from this board.

Also, in regards to Windows 8, so far as I remember, Microsoft is only supporting Cortex A9 based ARM processors that are 1+ GHz for performance reasons. Real information is pretty scarce about Windows 8, but the ARM PC at Computex was running on a Tegra 2, which is a dual core 1 GHz proc that is Cortex A9 based.
So if that's true, Win8 isn't possible.

You couldn't do much with this other than limited gaming (read: Quake), some very poorly optimized emulators, and some productivity software. Certainly worth the price, but not as useful as what you guys are making it out to be.

Android would work, but devs are needed because porting is actually fairly difficult, or at least for a stable, well optimized port.

 

[Zero]

I think you guys are looking at it as more of a do-everything device, where afaik its main strength would be for playback of local and streaming HD content, from pretty much anywhere. Using the example I gave before, you could easily put one of these behind a wall panel in every room of a house for pretty cheap, and use it for Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Video, and so on. If it ran on a Google TV type OS, that would be even better.

Plus, just imagine how small and efficient you can make a PMP with one of these.

 

[samjc3]

1. Install openBSD
2. Install emulators
3. Install WINE
4. ?????
5. PROFIT

Fixed that for you. Because less overhead is ALWAYS better.

 

[Atari]

Ubuntu or Debian + XBMC + plugins for Netflix and Hulu would be about what you're describing.

EDIT: Netflix streaming requires Microsofts Silverlight and uses PlayReady DRM. there is no way yet to use Playready on Linux. Novell's Silverlight port ("Moonlight") doesn't work because it doesn't support any DRM schemes.

Netflix won't work with this.

Hulu works on XBMC with some workarounds, and finally has a native Hulu Desktop client. I don't know about ARM support though.