[BozemanLUG] Raspberry Pi anyone?

[Scott Dowdle]

Mike and Jeff,

----- Mike wrote -----
> I was looking quickly over their site just to see what there is to
> see, and it looks like there is no special process for becoming a
> reseller. There's no bulk discount on the hardware, but it is less
> expensive to ship if you buy in bulk. In short, to be a reseller,
> buy a bunch of them and sell them to someone else. That's it.

I wasn't expecting a discount really... because they are a non-profit selling them basically for cost.  I guess what I'm looking for is someone with some money... who could afford to buy a bunch of them... and then resell them... with a slight markup for the cost of processing.  If said person were using any profit to buy more boards... or give some of it to some free software related charity, mark it up even more.

I'm not in a position to buy lots of boards.  I can afford 1 at $35 though. :)

----- Jeff wrote -----
> i've been playing with a http://pandaboard.org/ recently, it's a bit
> more pricey at $185, but has OMAP4460 dual-core 1.2GHz with 1GB ram,
> and runs android nice and fast.

That definitely looks good too... but it's more out of my price range than the Raspberry Pi is.  So far I'm not that interested in running Android... and I still don't have cell phone much less a smart phone.  If someone wanted to give me an iPhone, I'd turn it down.  I wouldn't mind getting a cheap Android capable cell phone and I'd probably use it like an iPhone Touch (no cell service) and use it with WiFi.  A LUG guy in Missoula has been buying service cleared used Android phones on eBay, installing CyanogenMod on them, and then giving them to his girlfriend and family.  I wouldn't mind one of those.

To me Android is way bloated... and that's coming from me as a KDE user. :)  But seriously, I haven't really used it at all so I'm really just pulling that opinion out of my butt.  Why do I think that?  Well, I've heard lots of people say it is slow... unless you get a dual-core processor.  I attribute that slowness, and poor battery life... to performance problems caused by using Java as the underlying platform.  But you know me, I'm not a programmer and I'm really just being irrational with that opinion... that isn't based on real benchmarks or data.  If I understand correctly most Android games are native binaries compiled from C++ code rather than using the Java-based stuff.  I wish more apps were native binaries.  I assume since game developers are doing it that way they must be getting better performance as a result.

Thanks for the input!

TYL,
-- 
Scott Dowdle
704 Church Street
Belgrade, MT 59714
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