Re: [9fans] Mini PCs

[Bakul Shah <bakul@bitblocks.com>]

I have a different view on this.

Boards like the RaspberryPi are just fine as a hobbyist
hardware hacking/embedded platform.  At $25 to $35 a pop I can
buy a bunch of them and put them to different uses.

If you design any small board with a few ICs & a microproc, it
can end up costing in the same range or more in parts alone
(even if you make a few hundred to sell, per board cost will
not be much lower).  With the raspi I only have to add app
specific logic if needed. Sure, I wish they'd done a bunch of
things differently and I wish it was more open and the USB
core they used had proper documentation etc. but it has plenty
of good stuff I can alreay use that I can't get as cheaply
elsewhere.

But I'd rather run plan9 on it than Linux.  I am attempting a
port but don't let that stop anyone else from trying.  If you
are working on a port or you want to collaborate, please
contact me off the list. I can certainly use all the help I
can get and there is no point in duplication of effort if it
can be avoided.