111–120 of 144 posts
Focus on environment friendliness is laudable and required. But it seems this is similar to other vendors such as Dell for example. recycling: http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/uscorp1/dell-environment-rec... Packaging: http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/uscorp1/dell-environment-pac... >>> Symple PC runs the open source Ubuntu Linux operating system and doesn't require you to give your data to a company you may or may not…
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There's an organization in Minneapolis which does a similar thing. It's called Free Geek Twin Cities, and they recycle old PCs and put Ubuntu on them. It's about $40 for a computer, or one can earn one by volunteering for 24 hours. I used to volunteer there when I was less busy.
When I first moved to Portland I volunteered at Free Geek. But it was mostly because I didn't know anyone and it seemed like a good way to make like-minded people. It worked.
I wonder how anyone makes use of Ubuntu for even just 'web work' with just 2GB RAM. The browsers are becoming ever more bloated; I know I had swap issues on my non-SSD laptop before I upgraded from 4 to 8. Right now it uses 3.3 with 9 Chrome tabs open, an IM client, gedit and terminal. It's unfortunate, of course, because 4GB of older DDR1/DDR2 memory would be much more tough to find/expensive than 2.
I regularly use a netbook with 1GB of RAM (Dell Mini 9). It's on #! (I know, I might need to look for an alternative), which uses Openbox, but I have no problems with web surfing as long as I max at about 5 tabs. I also don't use a lot of web apps. With HTML5 video, videos work well enough. I can even run Eclipse if nothing else is open without too many problems, although for development work on it I'm usually using…
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Plenty of TVs and monitors still have a VGA port, so that's not a surprise. Furthermore this is basically a PC from 10 years ago and not a top notch one (I'm looking to HD, CPU and network card - I had a laptop with 10/100/1000). It's interesting that you can still run a 2014 OS on that hardware. There is probably some value in using an Intel chip instead of an ARM one even if I bet that most Linux software runs on A…
People never stop making excuses. VGA is dead. http://www.raspberrypi.org/help/faqs/#videoVGA
VGA will stop being used when it stops fitting most use cases out there, and not before. The connector standard is capable of 2048x1536 at 85hz, which, making an educated guess here, is probably a higher resolution than the monitor you're using right now. Most monitors and TV's sold nowadays are 1920x1080.
4K will probably be what finally kills it off (3840 x 2160), but I'd give that another 2-5 years before the hardware reaches enough market penetration for manufacturers to stop including the plug out of necessity.
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Certainly agree with that sentiment! We are getting to the point where it makes sense to have 'disassembly' robots, this paper ( http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0967066108... ) looked at that (it wasn't the focus per se but an example). I can clearly see that 'anti-factories' where raw materials are recovered and unrecoverable materials made inert will be a thing.
Still, the market isn't going to solve this on it's own. Other peoples children are going to be cheaper than robots for the foreseeable future. In fact, poisoning the local population could be considered a minor issue compared to contaminating the water tables. Sick people die, but a contaminated water table keeps killing people for generations. I think strong local regulations, as well as an emphasis of recycling lo…
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That's what I did, too. I want to create a Pi 2 blade server and use it for local docker PaaS (for builds, running tests, etc.), but can't find a good case for that. The dog bone one takes too much space and is too generic.
You mean the stackable dog bone-shaped ones? They don't look that big to me, but maybe the pictures don't do them justice. I'm not sure whether it'd be appropriate for what you want, but this is the case I bought: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ME5XUAG/ I'm happy with it, and I can't really imagine a case being any smaller and still protecting the Pi while providing access to its various ports (including the SD card). I…
[0] http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00MYFAAPO/?tag=nikolay-20
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40 watts while idle = 28.8 kwh a month so 13.5 cents per kwh = $3.88 / month to run. Rasberry Pi B+ uses 1.21 watts while idle so about 11 cents /month. So a Rasberry Pi will pay for itself in about 10 months.
Given that the Raspberry Pi costs half as much to start, even adding a case, you're ahead on day 1.
I wonder how anyone makes use of Ubuntu for even just 'web work' with just 2GB RAM. The browsers are becoming ever more bloated; I know I had swap issues on my non-SSD laptop before I upgraded from 4 to 8. Right now it uses 3.3 with 9 Chrome tabs open, an IM client, gedit and terminal. It's unfortunate, of course, because 4GB of older DDR1/DDR2 memory would be much more tough to find/expensive than 2.
Edit: oh, I forgot about flash. Earlier today Firefox with one tab was hovering at 400MB and flash was at 200MB.
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I deleted a post about the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox and how these machines were in fact not green. I was wrong. Given the right uses, like an elementary school computer lab for learning Scratch, Logo, etc; they would be fine. The problem is they are right on the cusp of the next cycle of Moore's Law, Raspberry Pi is now quad core and 1GB, it puts it in the same class as this machine. The cost of "g…
The main power draws of these systems will probably be the monitor they are attached to, the older PSU inside, and the hard disk. Keep in mind that for a RPi based solution, you still need to provide all of these. The tiny PSU needed for a RPi will probably be quite efficient, so maybe count that one out. Also, as great as the RPi 2 is, I still don't think it is the same class as these machines, which have a 3x clock…
> I haven’t tried any normal desktop applications (other than Chromium), but I’d say the Pi 2 is finally worth considering as an full-fledged educational computer (i.e., beyond the introductory toy stage).
from http://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2015/02/07/1200
With a newer monitor and the current generation raspberrypi, it should powered directly from the USB hub in the monitor. With a bolt through VESA mount, a wifi dongle and netbooting off an NFS, a rapidly deployable Raspberry Pi school lab should be easily doable.
Yeah, this. http://www.adafruit.com/product/1320 PiBow VESA Mounting Layer Plate
Monitors I would look at are (needs HDMI, speakers, internal USB hub):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA6R42AH7073
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824116141
DC in is nice, could run the lab off batteries or direct solar for off grid installations.
The problem is the software configuration for the NFS bootserver and making the netboot images.
Someone should make a VM image that can netboot a cluster of Raspberry Pis with a choice of roles (scratch, web browsing, quake 3, etc). With remote mounted home directories (served from ZFS, for snapshots).
One modification I'd like to see for the raspberry pi is better sleep support. I don't know if the SoC could do it, but if it could go into extra low power mode, possibly powered by a supercap, it could wakeup on external events (like an RTC) and not take any power from the USB.
Sorry guys, make it smaller and I may bite.