The Raspberry Pi is a computer, it’s a platform for development, it’s an educational tool that’s cheap enough for students and schools, it’s a media center PC, it’s a server, and it can be a robot brain.
The Raspberry Pi is a computer system the size of a credit card for $25.
Raspberry Pi became such a sensation that the Raspberry Pi foundation asked website owners to devote some space to the first Linux distribution downloads. The Open Code project has become a mirror to the project and you can find the Debian (and other later distributions) here.
When it was released for public purchases on Wednesday, February 29, 2012 so many people hit the foundation’s website that they had to implement a static webpage and take down the forums. Premier Farnell and RS Components, the manufacturers, were set up to take all of the pre-orders. During the morning of the 29th, so many people were interested that all three websites were taken down. At the time of writing they were back up. The Open Code Project mirror, one of hundreds of mirrors all over the world, was hit 76 times, exceeding 60GB of bandwidth usage.
So many people are interested in the Raspberry Pi because it’s the first sub-$100 computer system that can be used for development and education. Its design and OS is open source as well.
One Laptop Per Child
The FXI Cotton Candy
There are other mini-computer systems out there, such as the FXI Cotton Candy. This system is a computer that runs Ubuntu, the size of a USB thumb drive, for about $200. The price is more expensive than the Raspberry Pi but the processing power is also greater. Raspberry Pi doesn’t expect their computer to run Crysis, so they’ve devoted their attention to making a useful educational system for $25 (intended goal price).