Raspberry Pi credit-card sized Linux PCs are on sale now, $25 Model A gets a RAM bump
The good news is that Raspberry Pi's highly anticipated teeny-tiny Linux computers are on sale now, just barely making the promised February launch window (good thing it's a leap year).
Context & Ripple Effects
After months of build-up among the hobbyist and Linux communities, Raspberry Pi's credit-card-sized computers go on sale today, landing inside the promised February window — and the pickup is unusually broad for a $25 product, with the BBC, Guardian, Ars Technica, GigaOM, The Verge and others all carrying the news on the day.
The launch lands on well-trodden ground: Linux has been running cheap and invisible hardware for years, from Google's search servers to the Motorola Razr and TiVo recorders, and by 2009 versions were explicitly running on inexpensive commodity boards. What changes with the Pi is that the cheap Linux machine is now a general-purpose computer sold directly to people who will program it themselves.
First-order effects
- Buyers can finally place orders, with the $25 Model A shipping with a RAM bump over its original specification — the immediate change for everyone who had been waiting on the February promise.
- The sale moves Linux off devices consumers merely use (phones, DVRs, search infrastructure) onto hardware they own and modify, at a price point no mainstream PC sits near.
Second-order effects
- Microsoft's FAT filesystem patents, the legal uncertainty flagged around open-source implementations back in 2009, become a live consumer issue as these boards ship to non-expert buyers expecting plug-and-play USB storage.
- Peripheral and storage vendors gain a fresh mass market of sub-$35 computers that arrive without keyboard, display, or card, pulling demand toward cheap SD cards and basic accessories.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, ultra-cheap Linux boards become a standard platform layer — the same trajectory that took Linux from Google's server racks to the Razr and TiVo, now extended to programmable desktop-class machines in schools and homes.
The trend: General-purpose computing is following Linux down the cost curve, from data centers and embedded gadgets to a $25 programmable PC.