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> The Raspberry Pi Zero - quite a small Linux computer! Okay, I have a smalllll complaint. In popular modern-day English, R-pi is not really a 'computer'. Beca

by pen2l 11y ago

> The Raspberry Pi Zero - quite a small Linux computer! Okay, I have a smalllll complaint. In popular modern-day English, R-pi is not really a 'computer'. Because you can't run a full-fledged operating system like Windows or Linux on it -- you have to run embedded version of those OSs (like Windows CE or whatever). I think I may not be totally and technically correct in my point here, but I think it's an important point to make or at least mention somewhere along the way anyway -- because, as it happens, I told someone that R-pi is basically a cheap computer... and this person was eventually miffed to find that he couldn't run the Windows applications he wanted to run on it, because those applications only could run on a x86 Windows install.

pjc50 11y ago
The solution to "cheap windows" is the various Bay Trail devices; so far the best offer I've seen is 7" tablet for £45 which comes with a year's subscription to Office 365 (worth >£50).
- hobbsy 11y ago
  do you have a link please?
  - pjc50 11y ago
    http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00O636WJU http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00O636WJU (price has gone up a bit)
- dogma1138 11y ago
  Tablets are usually locked tight. You can get the NUC board DE3815TYBE for under 100$ these days and it's completely open.
mikeash 11y ago
The problem is not people calling the RPi a "computer" (which it absolutely is), the problem is people who think "computer" means "Windows PC."
mmozeiko 11y ago
What? You can run full-fledged operating system like Linux on Raspberry Pi (all of the variants). Full Linux distribution with desktop environment, browser, e-mail client and package manager.
anowlcalledjosh 11y ago
All Raspberry Pis are computers, even with this mangled definition: just because it can't run Windows doesn't mean it can't run, say, Debian, which is absolutely a "full-fledged operating system". You can totally run a full desktop Linux install on a Pi. Your facts are incorrect.
throwawydfje 11y ago
pen2l actually you are wrong, because it runs full Linux, but also it's PRECISELY the thing that makes this so attractive to so many people: the fact that it's a full, normal, desktop, Linux PC. That gives it amazing possibilities. You can prototype on a laptop (running Linux) and just move your code, AS-IS, over to a 1 GHz Linux Desktop with 512 MB of RAM: the Raspberry Pi Zero that is pictured. Now you are correct that it's not capable of running Windows. Even the Linux that it runs is a version that doesn't support everything that a desktop version supports. (Like Photoshop etc.) It's extremely underpowered for a desktop, and not every Linux package supports its architecutre, though most do. So it's a complete PC in the sense that it can run desktop Linux applications - you can surf the web on it - write emails, do whatever you want, and you won't be using special embedded versions of applications. But for that usage it is also radically underpowered. Hard to understand what else someone might expect from a $5 computer on a chip, though, when a typical desktop costs $250-$500. The specs I listed are absolutely remarkable, but in a real desktop you use on your desk you would want 8 times as much RAM (4 GB) at a minimum, or even 64 times as much ram (16 GB). I mean if you're advising your friends. This is more about experimentation for applications where you embed a small PC. If your friend doesn't have much of a budget, I suggest they get a used PC. This PC is about as powerful as a desktop PC from over fifteen years ago. (Which they could also get, and still run some desktop applications on.)
sklogic 11y ago
IBM SystemZ are not real computers too in your definition, they also won't run your x86 windows binaries.
deelowe 11y ago
This is a very strange comment for HN. I get the gist of what you're trying to say here, but your terminology is completely off base. You really should look up the definitions for "computer," "touring complete," and well, actually learn a bit about the R-pi and arm computers in general. The R-PI is very much a full fledged computer or "PC" even. Microsoft's reluctance to fully port a desktop operating system to the device has nothing to do with it's technical merits. It's perfectly capable of running a full windows OS, if Microsoft were to choose to do so. BTW, their IoT platform is rumored to eventually offer desktop variants, so this argument will probably be null sooner than later as well. Otherwise, it's capabilities are damn near identical (functionally) to an X86 machine running Linux, BSD, Android, and a few other operating systems. There are limitations with IO and that sort of thing, which one has to take into consideration for any PC, but otherwise they are 100% functionally equivalent.
- pen2l 11y ago
  touring complete, hehe :) Anyway, yes yes I agree with the things you (and others) have said. I failed to say what I wanted to say correctly. The short and sweet of it is, sometime ago I proposed to a friend that I'd help him do some things really cheaply ... (because the R-pi is cheap!) and we eventually couldn't because we couldn't use things like Labview and so on. I shouldn't have extended this issue to terminology, whether R-pi is a computer or not, sorry about that. Basically the source of my complaint is being sliiightly bothered by the fact that when people call R-pi a computer, the everyday joe-shmoe takes from it that they can run x86 windows on it. They can't. They can maybe run Windows embedded on it (I think?) but certainly not proper Windows. I know and understand that R-pi is a computer by any reasonable definition, I'm just lamenting the reality of things in this one small respect.
  - sklogic 11y ago
    Intel Edison

by pen2l 11y ago

pjc50 11y ago

The solution to "cheap windows" is the various Bay Trail devices; so far the best offer I've seen is 7" tablet for £45 which comes with a year's subscription to Office 365 (worth >£50).

hobbsy 11y ago
do you have a link please?
- pjc50 11y ago
  http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00O636WJU http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00O636WJU (price has gone up a bit)
dogma1138 11y ago
Tablets are usually locked tight. You can get the NUC board DE3815TYBE for under 100$ these days and it's completely open.

mikeash 11y ago

The problem is not people calling the RPi a "computer" (which it absolutely is), the problem is people who think "computer" means "Windows PC."

mmozeiko 11y ago

What? You can run full-fledged operating system like Linux on Raspberry Pi (all of the variants). Full Linux distribution with desktop environment, browser, e-mail client and package manager.

anowlcalledjosh 11y ago

All Raspberry Pis are computers, even with this mangled definition: just because it can't run Windows doesn't mean it can't run, say, Debian, which is absolutely a "full-fledged operating system". You can totally run a full desktop Linux install on a Pi. Your facts are incorrect.

throwawydfje 11y ago

pen2l actually you are wrong, because it runs full Linux, but also it's PRECISELY the thing that makes this so attractive to so many people: the fact that it's a full, normal, desktop, Linux PC. That gives it amazing possibilities. You can prototype on a laptop (running Linux) and just move your code, AS-IS, over to a 1 GHz Linux Desktop with 512 MB of RAM: the Raspberry Pi Zero that is pictured. Now you are correct that it's not capable of running Windows. Even the Linux that it runs is a version that doesn't support everything that a desktop version supports. (Like Photoshop etc.) It's extremely underpowered for a desktop, and not every Linux package supports its architecutre, though most do. So it's a complete PC in the sense that it can run desktop Linux applications - you can surf the web on it - write emails, do whatever you want, and you won't be using special embedded versions of applications. But for that usage it is also radically underpowered. Hard to understand what else someone might expect from a $5 computer on a chip, though, when a typical desktop costs $250-$500. The specs I listed are absolutely remarkable, but in a real desktop you use on your desk you would want 8 times as much RAM (4 GB) at a minimum, or even 64 times as much ram (16 GB). I mean if you're advising your friends. This is more about experimentation for applications where you embed a small PC. If your friend doesn't have much of a budget, I suggest they get a used PC. This PC is about as powerful as a desktop PC from over fifteen years ago. (Which they could also get, and still run some desktop applications on.)

sklogic 11y ago

IBM SystemZ are not real computers too in your definition, they also won't run your x86 windows binaries.

deelowe 11y ago

This is a very strange comment for HN. I get the gist of what you're trying to say here, but your terminology is completely off base. You really should look up the definitions for "computer," "touring complete," and well, actually learn a bit about the R-pi and arm computers in general. The R-PI is very much a full fledged computer or "PC" even. Microsoft's reluctance to fully port a desktop operating system to the device has nothing to do with it's technical merits. It's perfectly capable of running a full windows OS, if Microsoft were to choose to do so. BTW, their IoT platform is rumored to eventually offer desktop variants, so this argument will probably be null sooner than later as well. Otherwise, it's capabilities are damn near identical (functionally) to an X86 machine running Linux, BSD, Android, and a few other operating systems. There are limitations with IO and that sort of thing, which one has to take into consideration for any PC, but otherwise they are 100% functionally equivalent.

pen2l 11y ago
touring complete, hehe :) Anyway, yes yes I agree with the things you (and others) have said. I failed to say what I wanted to say correctly. The short and sweet of it is, sometime ago I proposed to a friend that I'd help him do some things really cheaply ... (because the R-pi is cheap!) and we eventually couldn't because we couldn't use things like Labview and so on. I shouldn't have extended this issue to terminology, whether R-pi is a computer or not, sorry about that. Basically the source of my complaint is being sliiightly bothered by the fact that when people call R-pi a computer, the everyday joe-shmoe takes from it that they can run x86 windows on it. They can't. They can maybe run Windows embedded on it (I think?) but certainly not proper Windows. I know and understand that R-pi is a computer by any reasonable definition, I'm just lamenting the reality of things in this one small respect.
- sklogic 11y ago
  Intel Edison