Barely out of the starting block and already direct competition...
as the PI continues to drag its ass I keep looking for alternatives, already bought a 400Mhz arm system with a 3.5 inch color touchscreen and linux+QT already installed for 110 bucks to use as a PLC user I/O at work.
the longer it takes, the more the market will choke, and whats already out there is dropping like mad while new competitors cash in on the hype ... though they have the ability to make thousands of boards a day in house while PI is waiting for UPS to show up with a box or 2
already bought a 400Mhz arm system with a 3.5 inch color touchscreen and linux+QT already installed f
What is it?
as the PI continues to drag its ass I keep looking for alternatives
Likewise with the Due for me.
Rob
[quote author=Coding Badly link=topic=106980.msg802892#msg802892 date=1337739314]
Barely out of the starting block and already direct competition...[/quote]
Yeah, I've been waiting to see how the Raspberry Pi shakes out. If the VIA board becomes available (I don't consider it available to until many people actually have one) first, I'm sold. That's a lot of power for $50.
Graynomad:
What is it?
http://www.mini-box.com/mini2440v2
the specs are all kind of messed up, noobs making spec websites, its 64M ram, 64M rom, 256 color screen
Looks pretty tempting, I may have to drag my old rusty *nix skills out of the attic 
EDIT: I see it can drive a 7" LCD as well, I'm thinking master controller for my RV monitoring network. Do you know what sort of power they draw.
Rob
no clue as its not in my hands as of now (it wasnt really a concern of mine)
though
http://www.mini-box.com/mini-2440-Samsung-S3C2240-ARM9-Board-7-TFT
Graynomad:
Looks pretty tempting, I may have to drag my old rusty *nix skills out of the attic
*nix skills are required for the pi as well, though you pretty much get a blank board and have to go though (ie) debian's klingon worded, multipaged, broken up, maybe out of date depending on where you happen to link to, gawd awefull instructions (really... these people make installing a video driver look like effin rocket science is some grade school stuff at times... I know, I did a build on a Powemac 9600 dual cpu, took me a month to figure out how to change the freakin volume)
least with scripting like QTlua you can bang out a UI in a couple hours, change a config file and have a custom controller 
(or python or whatever else open source you happen to like)
but android?
android 2.3?
really does not tempt me at all.
so? dont use it, it comes with linux QT installed with a generic 2.6.x kernel, and you CAN use IF you want to Android or windows CE
aaaah... thats... how is it put? "a horse of a different colour" .... I misunderstood, thought it was an android only platform which confused me...
Osgeld:
*nix skills are required for the pi as well, though you pretty much get a blank board and have to go though (ie) debian's klingon worded, multipaged, broken up, maybe out of date depending on where you happen to link to, gawd awefull instructions
Or, you could read the RPi's FAQ, which directs you to a download page with instructions even a call-center staffer could follow for creating a bootable SD with your choice of three different flavors of Linux.
light instructions and a call center, not quite the "oh I can plug this in and it will boot to basic" that many people seem to think
I am still waiting when I can get a PI, I just think a lot of expectations are unrealistic
I got my Pi last week. I must say I was not impressed until I came across an example of displaying a HD movie, that is impressive. The other stuff looks it came right out of the 80s.
They do have a bit of an issue with poly fuses on the USB outputs, limiting USB current draw to about 100mA on a good day. The normal on resistance is about 5R and this messes up the voltage regulation on the USB power output. However my Apple keyboard with only a 22mA draw choked it. Either that or the software.
I have been playing around with the GPIO pins. For me those are the most exciting aspect of the pi. Guess I will eventually connect some nice ADCs vie I2C.
question to you guys: If you could mod the pi (or if you will mod the pi) what will/would your first hardware ad-on be?
VGA
A second serial port and 2x RS-485
Rob
I am going to fix the poly fuse issue and use a proper USB power controller chip. I have about 100 rescued from a skip.
what would your first hardware ad-on be?
An Arduino.
Because I don't want by 1GHz-class CPU having to bit-bang I2C (400kHz) out some GPIO pins.
First prize to whoever reconfigures a Rasberry-pi or similar board to be an "ethernet shield" for an Arduino!
(that may be the best way to get advanced networking features like IPV6, IPSEC, SSL, etc. And it's cheaper than the existing ethernet shield...)
Because I don't want by 1GHz-class CPU having to bit-bang I2C (400kHz) out some GPIO pins.
You will be disappointed if you did.
I have just done some quick tests to see how fast you can toggle a pin on an off with a simple loop. You can only go at 4MHz and it is very glitchie due to interrupts popping off all over the place.
westfw:
what would your first hardware ad-on be?
First prize to whoever reconfigures a Rasberry-pi or similar board to be an "ethernet shield" for an Arduino!
(that may be the best way to get advanced networking features like IPV6, IPSEC, SSL, etc. And it's cheaper than the existing ethernet shield...)
Main usage I see is to connect it to arduino and take the ethernet and sd load to the raspberrie.
Sd can take up to 250 ms and downloading a file is taking long. Moreover starting Ethernet with DHCP on my arduino in my setup takes several seconds. If these delays happen "at a bad moment" my robot is blindfolded and will not respond properly. For a 1000+ euro robot having 2 100 watt engines driving blades at 3000rpm..... 
... I prefer to be on the safe side.
Using the Rapsberry to read/write the serial data from/to arduino; Arduino could send my logging information to raspberry. Raspberrie can process the input (get out the business data) and service the Ethernet and do the SD logging.
At the same time Ethernet actions could be translated to Serial commands send to the Arduino. The nice thing about this is that you can test with the shield or with the serial monitor (so not 2 systems but 1)
This setup would take quite some work from Arduino. It would also make your website/webserver config lots easier as it runs on linux on the raspberry. And finally it would free up some pins for other usage. Maybe I can go back to the UNO 
This would not make it an "Ethernet shield" but a "Smart Serial shield capable of SD and Ethernet"
In short "don't expect me to win the first prize." 8)
Best regards
Jantje
I have been able to order my raspberry today. Expected to ship in 4 weeks.