[Varn]

One heck of a machine. Hope the software folks are writing code to fit it.

Seeing this is like a glimpse into the future. I look at my 10 pound machines using 60-100+ watts of power and then multiply it by the number of machines that I run and multiply that by 100 million or a billion other machines and I think about amount of power we are using. Now divide it by 10 or 20 with using this type of machine.

Even if this technology allows another billion users to come on line the power consumption is still lower than what it is today. Capitalism at it's finest.

Originally Posted by Arragonis

For input the PI has 2 USB ports, which I use for a keyboard and a mouse but you can plug in a port and extend this if you wish. For output it has an RCA (i.e. old style TV) connector and a HDMI interface which allows it to plug into most TVs available today. I use a cheap (£7) HDMI to VGA adaptor to use mine on a computer monitor.

It also has a LAN connector and Audio - this is the diagram at the site.



Power comes from a Micro USB port, a lot of mobile phone adaptors work - my work Samsung Galaxy S2 works fine.

There are some cases available including a cardboard box, a cigarette packet and lego - all plans are on line.



I use Ubuntu on a netbook which is about 8-10x as fast as the machine I used 10 years ago but its still slow.

The PI can run Debian or Fedora (there are distros linked to by the website) from an SD card. I have an 8GB one with Debian on it.

The PI is probably not a computer to use for business critical or mission critical tasks, although some users have that in mind. It is a hobbyist thing so far.