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Raspberry Pi releases an OS to breathe new life into old PCs

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Re: Raspberry Pi releases an OS to breathe new life into old PCs

#41
post #7
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of Chromebooks are still shipping with 2GB of RAM and they do a perfectly sufficient job of running the "Internet" for most everyday users. I would argue your lower limit of a reasonable Internet browsing experience is higher than average because of your technical background. 512MB would be limiting for sure, but a machine with 2GB of RAM running a Linux desktop, especially with an SSD if possible, would make a…

2 GB of RAM and a swap is capable of running even ubuntu x64 comfortably. Take away swap and browsing becomes a problem, I wouldn't suggest SSD because of that.

Just don't use an SSD from 2004 and you'll be fine

Re: Raspberry Pi releases an OS to breathe new life into old PCs

#42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The details around the commercial relationship between Qualcomm and the Raspberry Pi foundation is lacking quite a bit in transparency in my mind. I guess that one of my suspicions here is that some people are making lots of money on something that is billed and marketed as a selfless charity. ( https://www.raspberrypi.org/files/about/RaspberryPiFoundatio... is not nearly detailed enough.) OLPC is a whole other kind…

>"Qualcomm" I think you're thinking of Broadcom.

Ehm. Yeah. :)

Re: Raspberry Pi releases an OS to breathe new life into old PCs

#43
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The details around the commercial relationship between Qualcomm and the Raspberry Pi foundation is lacking quite a bit in transparency in my mind. I guess that one of my suspicions here is that some people are making lots of money on something that is billed and marketed as a selfless charity. ( https://www.raspberrypi.org/files/about/RaspberryPiFoundatio... is not nearly detailed enough.) OLPC is a whole other kind…

Any specific allegations you'd like to make, despite having got the related company name wrong, or just nebulous smears?

(Yeah; I meant Broadcom, not Qualcomm.)

No specific allegations. I just find it odd that Broadcom apparently still sell these chips at a low price only (?) to the RasPi foundation - just because of a personal relationship - someone who worked at Broadcom then created the RasPi foundation.

What does Broadcom get out of this exclusive relationship? (Is it still exclusive?) It just smelled odd when I first heard about this way back in 2012 or so when it first launched. Four years later there's lots of volume, but the same arrangement is still going strong. I find this peculiar.

Re: Raspberry Pi releases an OS to breathe new life into old PCs

#44

SSDs are what breathe new life into old PCs. And they are quite cheap. My wife's laptop turned from extremely annoying to decent, almost pleasant to use.

Think that's a different class of old PC. They're talking about computers with 512MB of RAM, you're getting up towards 4GB before spending money on an SSD is going to be a sensible I'd say.

Re: Raspberry Pi releases an OS to breathe new life into old PCs

#45

SSDs are what breathe new life into old PCs. And they are quite cheap. My wife's laptop turned from extremely annoying to decent, almost pleasant to use.

SSDs and extra RAM are the two best upgrades to improve how fast and responsive everything feels.

Re: Raspberry Pi releases an OS to breathe new life into old PCs

#46
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of Chromebooks are still shipping with 2GB of RAM and they do a perfectly sufficient job of running the "Internet" for most everyday users. I would argue your lower limit of a reasonable Internet browsing experience is higher than average because of your technical background. 512MB would be limiting for sure, but a machine with 2GB of RAM running a Linux desktop, especially with an SSD if possible, would make a…

Well, I'd argue that Internet browsing with 2GB is only suitable for reading news and email. This then is a common denominator for layman user, who then wouldn't be using Linux or Pi to begin with. However, this thread is not about Chromebook (and I agree with you there about Chromebook - my wife uses it for email/youtube browsing, and it works perfectly fine). There's a big difference between Chromebook and Linux/Pi…

Argue all you want, I do all my work and browsing in virtual machines and those usually just have between 1 and 2 Gb RAM and 1 CPU core. Works just great.

Re: Raspberry Pi releases an OS to breathe new life into old PCs

#47
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any specific allegations you'd like to make, despite having got the related company name wrong, or just nebulous smears?

(Yeah; I meant Broadcom, not Qualcomm.) No specific allegations. I just find it odd that Broadcom apparently still sell these chips at a low price only (?) to the RasPi foundation - just because of a personal relationship - someone who worked at Broadcom then created the RasPi foundation. What does Broadcom get out of this exclusive relationship? (Is it still exclusive?) It just smelled odd when I first heard about t…

Well, what _do_ you think Broadcom gets out of this?

And more importantly, what do I (as a RPi user) lose out?

Re: Raspberry Pi releases an OS to breathe new life into old PCs

#50
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any specific allegations you'd like to make, despite having got the related company name wrong, or just nebulous smears?

(Yeah; I meant Broadcom, not Qualcomm.) No specific allegations. I just find it odd that Broadcom apparently still sell these chips at a low price only (?) to the RasPi foundation - just because of a personal relationship - someone who worked at Broadcom then created the RasPi foundation. What does Broadcom get out of this exclusive relationship? (Is it still exclusive?) It just smelled odd when I first heard about t…

The arrangement is unusual, but I wonder why you're using words like "odd" and "peculiar" to describe it, as if Broadcom has ulterior motives.

Broadcom sells parts cheaply or at cost and in return gets some free advertising and the appearance of being altruistic. It all seems fairly uncomplicated.

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