World: r4wp

And then we build a spaceship and take a trip to the Moon. I always 
wanted that!

OK, I build a telescope for our observatory, to watch you walking 
on the moon :-)

Yeah, we can't have, people say, it didn't happen. ;)

I have Amiga running on my cell phone.  It doesn't have quite the 
luster it used to.  In the 90's, I owned a large Amiga store and 
I did all my work on Amiga computers.  It was so much nicer than 
PCs.  However, there are now hundreds of Linux and BSD distributions, 
not to mention Windows, Mac and Android (yes, also a Linux distribution). 
 What I really miss is simplicity and the ability to easily customize 
a system to do only what you want and no more in a lightweight and 
efficient manner.

For this reason, I like Arch Linux.  Small, fast, easy to customize 
to do exactly what you want.  And it runs Rebol.

But I use Windows 8 at work, Windows XP and Windows 7 at home, and 
Linux for development and specialized tasks (like file serving).

You use Arch Linux on your Raspberry Pi, right? How's that going?

I use Arch Linux on Raspberry Pi.  It works very well.  However, 
I have switched to Raspbian at present as some of the components 
I need are not yet available on Arch Linux and I don't have time 
to port and test them.  However, my project is almost ready for the 
first site test.

I wonder, if it's worth getting a Raspberry Pi at this point and 
try compile World to it.

Raspberry Pi is just medial thing. That thing is just small computer, 
nothing more imo, much hyped, than usefull, unless you build some 
kind of min-pc or player. IMO something like Beagle Bone (Black), 
with many IO pins, is more interesting. BTW - during SO chat, Carl 
mentioned he is getting Beagle Bone Black. That's imo, where Rebol 
could find some niche - embedded, automatition, etc.

The main difference between the Beagle Bone Black and the Raspberry 
Pi is the manufacturer of the system on a chip (SoC).  RasPi is Broadcom 
and Beagle Bone is Texas Instruments (TI).  The Beagle Bone Black 
has a faster processor (1GHz vs. 700MHz), but the RasPi can usually 
be reliably overclocked to 1GHz.  They both have a lot of I/O pins. 
 The RasPi is also a little cheaper.

If you want real power for a little more ($89), get this:

http://www.hardkernel.com/renewal_2011/products/prdt_info.php


Quad-core 1.7GHz Arm-A9 processor, 2GB on-board RAM, 10/100 Ethernet, 
2xUSB2.0 ports, Micro HDMI, Micro SD card slot, hardware audio codec, 
run Android 4.x or Ubuntu 12.10

Pretty hot specs for the price!

DC Input is statet as 5V / 2A. That's 10W. The Amiga1200 used 20W, 
if I remember correctly. Not bad for these new small computers. Ras 
Pi may use half of the ODROID, so about 5W.


A cluster of computers each running at a couple Watts, that would 
be something! :)

When you buy such a bare board, you have to build a computer around 
it, which makes it much more expensive and uses a lot more power

RPi runs at ~3.5W in my experience. But performance / watt efficiency 
of a RPi is rather low.

Bo - imo those are really different purpose boards. Beagle is geared 
more towards an automatition - all those pins properly exposed directly 
on the board. Also - look at the number of "capes" available. I would 
not use Raspberry Pi for embedded ...

Agreed.  However, for some applications there has been more developed 
for the Raspberry Pi, which makes it easier to develop a finished 
product, especially if a lot of I/O is not needed.

Kaj: For embedded applications, all you need to add to the ODROID 
is a MicroSD card with the OS on it.  That doesn't add any higher 
power requirements.  If you want to add a hard drive, DVD-RW, monitor, 
etc. to it, of course it will take more power.  However, those aren't 
needed for most embedded applications.

Yes, but John compared it to an Amiga 1200, so you have to take into 
account the floppy drive it had and such. It was used as a personal 
computer, so you have to add a monitor, keyboard, mouse, perhaps 
a hard drive, etc.

We're picking up written off PCs that are hardly used for less than 
a Raspberry, so the price advantage is not that clear cut

power savings?

Not much if you need those extra peripherals

My laptop takes 6-8W during normal desktop+internet usage on battery. 
But can take up to 80W when running at full CPU/GFX performance when 
running a 3d game :-)

RPI would be size and weight advantage. Hide it under a table. Hard 
to do with a 10 year old desktop for the same price.

The Pi can also be used as a cheap thin-client.  Just hook it up 
to the back of a monitor and have it run a remote desktop connection 
on boot. :-)

I've hidden several nine year old desktops under my desk. :-) If 
you get the small desktop models, they're not that big. And with 
those boards, you have loose boards, loose power supplies and lots 
of cables to hide

The Raspberry is actually on top of my desk to protect all that loose 
stuff :-)

I actually wanted to use RPIs in that project I am still a part of, 
instead of those old desktops, but no REBOL or Red and won't be relevant 
when I'm leaving the project.

Do you mean you can't use REBOL or Red? They're both available on 
Raspberry

For such mobile systems, I think it would be better to use those 
new mini PCs inside a USB stick. They're very similar to a Raspberry, 
you get them in a case, and they can feed off a monitor

Then again, why not use laptops? Even easier to set up on location, 
and easier to program

Kaj, need full GUI.

We did that once, but we relied on donated hardware.

Yes, no REBOL then. Red has the GTK GUI on Raspberry, but it's basic 
so far

Probably not far from the forms type of app you need, though

Henrik, it looks like your wait for GUI on R3 on RPi won't be long, 
based on Robert's announcement he just made.

Awesome work, Robert and team!

Congratulations Robert and Saphirion!

good news robert!  thanks for all the work and investment!

Thanks Team Saphiron!

What is the link to download r3-gui.r3? There's incrrect link on 
the webpage, leading just to the same page, not target file ...

Also docs are not working from the Saphirion website, links throw 
some svn error. Maybe it should be pointed to github docs?

found the link http://development.saphirion.com/resources/r3-gui.r3
... the download section link leads to /downloads though ...

checking. Which docs fail? We moved some around.

gui docs ...

all of them ...

maybe your svn server is down then ...

no, changed path. fixed.

Is there a link for the mac saphir build?  Or was that just to say 
it builds?

It seems R3/Saphir for OSX doesn't run on 10.6.8. Can anyone confirm?