“The Linux operating system for the Raspberry Pi bare-bones computer is ready to download. The Arch Linux ARM download is based on Arch Linux, which the Raspberry Pi Foundation says ‘provides a lightweight base structure that allows you to shape the system to your needs’.”
Low cost systems can only benefit people in these bad economic times.
…and that one’s a more complete OS.
It’s available from the same download page, though, at http://raspberrypi.org/downloads.
+100 OP
And here if you get slow speeds off their site.
http://www.element14.com/community/groups/raspberry-pi#
The Debian build was available before the Arch build; the latter had some fine-tuning to be completed from what I understand.
Also, how is the Debian build more “complete”? Is the Arch build missing boot code or something? If you are referring to the fact that the Debian build is GUI-centric, that’s hardly a qualifier for “complete”. With both systems you can use the package manager to install whatever interface you wish. The Arch build is command line by default because it allows you to start with a fast, slim base and mold the system into whatever you wish. That doesn’t make it less complete, it makes it smaller and more modular. Besides, two lines of commands will give it a full GUI:
There’s nothing wrong with using either distro, or Fedora when it becomes available. It’s all down to what you’re going to use the system for.
As for the article’s title, it would have been better to say “Arch Linux Distribution for Raspberry Pi Ready” or something to that effect. Fedora is the reference platform, and as I said earlier Debian was available before Arch.
As far as “slap it on the card, slap the card in the Pi, and go” goes, yes, the Debian build is more complete for the average user.
But that’s not who the Pi is designed for anyway – in fact it’s completely against the whole ethos of Pi’s mission statement!!
Edited 2012-03-06 11:40 UTC
Now you’re the one who’s making outlandish claims. The foundation’s most often touted goal is to create a low cost computer that can be “used by kids all over the world to learn programming”. Debian is a perfectly adequate platform for this goal, as are many other distributions. While I agree that Arch is an excellent distribution and well-suited to tinkering, to suggest that Debian is somehow the antithesis of that is ludicrous.
Edited 2012-03-06 14:20 UTC
Slow down, take a deep breath and re-read that I said.
I never claimed that Debian was against the principle of Pi (in fact I wasn’t even commenting on Debian at all). I simply said people who just lazily want a working desktop are against the principle of Pi.
You said yourself that it’s designed to be a low cost programmers board, so in-spite the knee-jerk reaction, you’re effectively agreeing with my statement.
Now if only you could undo that unnecessary down-mod you’ve given me…..
Edited 2012-03-06 16:58 UTC
Since when is having a full-fledge, working GUI the “antithesis” of a programmer’s paradise? Why is a CLI interface suddenly the “holy grail” of teaching kids about programming?
Not all programmer’s want to use vi. Not all programmer’s want to tinker with the basic configuration of an OS.
Some just want a system to boot to a nice GUI, and provide them with the tools they need to start programming. Like a nice GUI text editor linked with a terminal app linked with a compiler linked with a debugger.
Debian works well for those types of programmers, who just want to get into the programming, and not the OS tinkering.
I’ve messed around with the RPi emulator using the Debian build and I really like it. I’m still going to use Arch for my own projects of course, but at a school I think I’d rather they used Debian or Fedora. Kids, and especially teens, tend to have short attention spans and would surely benefit from being able to jump right into a familiar interface.
Oh for crying out loud, can you not f–king read?
At which point did I even imply anything which you’re accusing me of? At which point was Linux distributions humanised and referred to as a person rather than object? (ie where i talk about “who” and “people” when making my point and where I suspect most people have jumped to the wrong conclusion)
I’ve repeatedly stated I wasn’t passing comment about Debian but instead about users who are not interested in tinkering. I never even suggested that those kind of users are typical of Debian.
Please excuse me if I sound unnecessarily arsey, but I sick and tired of having idiots like yourself twist my comments into some anti-debian bullshit – particularly when I’m actually a great fan of the distribution.
So, for the love of god, learn to f–king read before jumping on the defensive.
</rant>
edit: and yes, I know there’s no need for language like that nor personal attacks, but to read a reply where someone is accusing me of bashing Debian / GUIs when that very posted you’re replying to is a comment I’ve made stating I’m not even discussing Debian nor GUIs – well it’s more than just a little frustrating
Edited 2012-03-06 21:21 UTC
Uhm, I think you’re responding to the wrong post, or had a different post in mind while writing your reply, because it doesn’t make any sense compared to what you quoted.
Your post was in reply to mine where I made no comment about Debian.
Hence my rant.
No they aren’t. The Pi designers themselves have said they wanted the Pi to be an affordable basic computing alternative for people as well.
I wish people would bother reading everything the foundation has said before they post. There’s so much misinformation and false assumptions about the Pi it’s almost sickening.
Exactly. It’s not like the RPi foundation is going to ask everyone buying the device what they are going to use it for anyway. If I wanted to buy 1000 of them to make a cheap render farm, they would still get their cut and wouldn’t ask any questions.
Actually I have read a lot of what they’ve posted and been a regular to their site and still missed that part. So I think part of the blame must lie with them for sending out mixed messages (which all in all, is such a minor complaint given how commendable their achievements have been).
Anyhow, thanks for the clarification
Edited 2012-03-06 21:42 UTC
wow there’s some hissy person out there that have blanket modded my posts down.
I guess it’s a difference of opinion on the meaning of “complete”. What you just said is exactly true: Debian is the “slap it on the card and go” distro for sure. Once again though, I would say that makes it user friendly compared to Arch, not any more complete.
Arch as released for the Pi (or for x86 for that matter) is a complete operating system in every sense of the word: It boots the computer from disk, it supplies drivers and configuration for all hardware, it gives you a fully working userland environment, the ability to connect to networks, the ability to build software from source, and the ability to install software via the package manager. Not having a mouse-driven GUI interface right away simply means it’s not for beginners.
Now, if someone attempts to put Linux From Scratch on it, I’d say they are starting with an incomplete OS, as it has to be bootstrapped from a chrooted instance until you’ve built enough of it to self-boot and continue the build process natively. Come to think of it, that sounds like a fun project!
Edited 2012-03-06 17:55 UTC
Wow, that’s a flame-bait comment and a half…
They developed for the thing using Fedora Linux. You can purchase it with Fedora Linux. There’s also Debian Linux available from the get-go.
IOW, “the Linux OS is now available” is wrong on so many levels.
For a more complete listing of OSes for RPi:
http://elinux.org/RPi_Distributions
Is this why Microsoft wants to port Windows to ARM then?
Because with it’s dependency on x86 it potentially risks being locked out of running on computers such as the Raspberry Pi.
Microsoft ported Windows to ARM mostly for consumer devices like tablets and phones.
No, they did so to compete with iOS and Android mostly.
But seeing more hardware like this, the Cotton Candy, PandaBoard, Beagle Board as well as machines like the OpenPandora and the stuff AlwaysInnovating are working on could pose a threat as soon as next year with the quad core Cortex A-15 series with their Mali-T658 GPUs that are supposed to have round about the graphics processing power of a PS3.
Hopefully by then OpenCL will be hammered out and we’ll see be able to see what can really be done on ARM hardware as OpenCL 1.1 is a stated feature of the next gen Mali GPUs.
A quad core ARM CPU with a GPU that supports WebGL and OpenCL a DSP that can handle H.264 and VP8 @ 1080p w/ 2Gb+ of ram will easily be more then “good enough” for the vast majority of users our there.
I wouldn’t put it past Canonical and Mozilla to try their hand at selling such a beast to the general public in either tablet, netbook or nettop form.
Canonical have publicly stated that they’re trying to make inroads on tablets and other such embedded devices and you can see their intention with Unity and how it scales better for embedded devices (from TVs through to tablets) than a traditional WIMP environment would.
However I will never see many people picking this up as Android is already there. Also Ubuntu doesn’t really have a good track record with reliability.
True and true, however I’d still be very tempted to give Ubuntu TV a trial whenever it gets released (been meaning to test drive the development releases).
It may not convert me from XBMC, and I may hate Ubuntu on the desktop, but I’m definitely interested in giving Ubuntu TV a fair trial.
No need to stir away from XBMC chief!
http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/571
I’m just waiting for Quadcore A15 devices to finally let go my PC
…we are getting there
Yeah I already know about that and already have a Pi on order (but not to run XBMC – I have more than enough HTPC’s already).
Thanks for linking news from last month.