RaspberryPi Matters.
George Rosamond
george at ceetonetechnology.com
Mon Jan 14 01:21:04 UTC 2013
On 01/13/13 18:27, Brett Wynkoop wrote:
> On Sun, 13 Jan 2013 11:12:26 -0800
> Tim Kientzle <kientzle at freebsd.org> wrote:
>
>> Wonder how this compares to BeagleBone, PandaBoard, etc.?
>>
>> http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/12/one-million-raspberry-pi-have-been-sold-since-launch/
>
> I bet more pi have been sold because they are cheaper and they have
> more press.
>
> I plan to get a Pi as well, but I am waiting until I have my BeagleBone
> doing all I want it to do first.
I tend to think the audience for the BeagleBone, PandaBoard, etc. is a
bit different from the standard Pi buyer. And probably significantly
lower in sales due to the angle of the Pi marketing and publicity.
The NYC Maker Faire Pi event was packed, and the audience questions
focused on the graphics abilities of the Pi. I also think the Pi
blossomed as a holiday gift to and from a wider array of people,
including the last-minute relative who bought it for their "relative
who's into computers" or who is aspiring.
Not to downplay the significance of the numbers, but I think a lot of
Pis will end up sitting quietly on bookshelves, gathering dust, in much
higher proportions than the other boards.
It's all good though. More ARM and embedded boards out there means more
interest, activity and familiarity. And ultimately even cheaper boards
from more manufacturers, not to mention on EBay...
Which is why I think ultimately each of the BSDs should be able to
provide a simple image easily dd'd from Windows or OSX that is as
user-friendly as the current stock Linux ones, with full GPIO support,
etc. Heck, maybe even with a cutesy thttpd-based interface.
And at some point when things are truly stable, we can start getting
board manufacturers to provide it as an option on microSD cards.
g
More information about the freebsd-arm
mailing list