I've been using the BeagleBone A6 (pre-Black) at my University this semester for an embedded systems lab (Computer Engineering undergrad). TI provided them to s

I've been using the BeagleBone A6 (pre-Black) at my University this semester for an embedded systems lab (Computer Engineering undergrad). TI provided them to see what we could do. Cloud9 was fun to play with, and allowed quick access to all the functions you might want on the headers. Pretty easy to develop on, and requires very minimal setup or work to actually start programming in js. Next, I put Ubuntu (Angstrom is very similar) on it and played around and was able to get familiar with where all of the pin input and output files lived, and how the muxing was put together in the OS. Once you explore a bit it's pretty quick. At that point, just pick a language and start writing whatever you want. I've written shell, C, and python for it for various projects this semester. It's super easy to run a web server on it to control the board from afar which makes for a killer demo at a hackathon or something. Also would be super easy to have it control things around your home from your smartphone. Some notes / reminders: - X11 (Xming for PC) if you don't want to / can't use HDMI and you want a GUI (lxde). - Don't put a 5V data line into the UART pins (or most pins), classmates busted at least 5 A6's this way (new model may have improved). I haven't used a Pi yet, and have a Model B coming my way now, but I'm absolutely grabbing a Black or two to see if it's any better. Would definitely recommend it!