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Fedora remix download delayed by a couple of days

We’ve just had a message in the Fedora thread on our forum from Chris Tyler, who is leading the team behind the Fedora remix for Raspberry Pi. ~~The whole thread is worth a read~~; Chris has been giving lots of detail on what’s going on at Seneca College, where the work is being done, for a while now. I’ve asked Chris if it’s OK to copy his latest post here, because it’s all about what you’ll be downloading in a couple of days. So without further ado, I’ll hand over to him:

The last few days have been very exciting and exhausting for both me and the ARM team here at Seneca!

We chose today for the release event in order to get it out before the hardware was released, and before our midsemester break next week when our local celebrants would be away. The plan was to do some final release docs and signing over the weekend and then have a fun but simple celebration where we could tell the local community about what we’d been doing.

Things haven’t unfolded quite the way I’d envisioned — first, the event took on a life of its own, and second, I spent the weekend violently ill and with a fever, both of which consumed a lot of unexpected time and energy. I’ve also become aware of just how large and active the Raspberry Pi community is as we’ve watched the first SD card image get massive attention, and the short video that VideoSeneca posted on YouTube received over 60K hits in about 36 hours, and it’s obvious that my traffic estimates for the release were naive.

All this to say: we’re proceeding with the event today, and I’m especially looking forward to talking to the high school students, teachers, school principals, school board technologists, as well as the local hackers/makers and Seneca students and faculty who will be attending. We’re going to focus on enjoying the event today, and then over the next couple of days wrap up a couple of remaining issues with the release, sort the bandwidth issues (watch for a call for help with that tomorrow morning), and write up some good notes with details on the Remix, the installer, and future plans.

Thanks for your patience with this process and the teething pains, and if you’re in the Toronto area this afternoon, please come on by!

157 comments

Raspberry is making waves … great expectations.

60K ?? and only 10K units. Please make some more really quick :D

I’m taking the next few days off work so I can sit at home hitting F5. Hopefully I’m quick enough to buy one when they finally go on sale! I give myself 1 to 5 odds.

Its all good. Take your time, guys. I think we can all live without the R-Pi for a bit more.

Well I can’t :D

Of course you can! If you don’t want to is something else. :)

I heard that vitamin C and zinc are supposed to be good–but not together. : )

Take your time, get it right….

It’s not like we can really do much of anything without having the hardware in our hands anyhow, so I’d say take your time, get it right, get the documentation together so we’ll all understand how to use it once it’s available. No real rush until the boards start shipping…

And dang it, have a nice party tonight! You deserve it!!!

+ 1

Will there be some localisation files or something? I don’t mind working with an english system but my mother tongue would be prefered of course. ;)
If you tell me how to do it I might even translate the whole thing and make it available for other german users. ;)

I don’t believe there will – I hope we’ll see some localisation work done by the community after release, though.

About language and basic settings:

We (read: me and maybe other software developers) should create a piece of software that is automatically started the first time a Ras Pi image is started?

The idea is to let the user adjust some basic settings.

The software can look for a file, fx. named: /etc/raspi/startup/settings.
If the file does not exist, it assumes that the basic settings had not been set, and it will then start a chain of already installed applications to set keyboard layout, language etc.
The user will of course has an opportunity to stop the application before the chain of programs are started.

We (I) can borrow some of the source code from the Fedora install program used on Live CDs to install software on PCs.

That would be a lot more user friendly to have such a program. In my humble opinion that should be done before the big launch later this year, 2012.

Good idea? What is you opinion?

Most of the Linux applications are already translated to hundreds of different languages… I have translations for 125(+variants [Brazilian Portuguese simplified,classical and taiwanese chinese….]) different languages in my system. Not every application is translated ofcourse, but still. If I’m not horribly mistaken German linux community is quite active and translations exist for nearly every app.

Hi, i am from Denmark. It is Fedora, so it is very likely everything is translated, you just need to download them packages for German after boot and haveing logged in.

If needed, I’d be more than happy to (help) translat(e)(ing) to Dutch… Just let me know :)

I really hope I can be online when they first go on sale xD. Please don’t put them on sale until at least 5 PM UK time! Not fair to us North Americans :P

*BUT* with the huge amount of anticipation… the sooner the better, right? Living in Indiana, however, I sympathize with your concern. I’ll be getting one from the first batch… even if that means a bit of sleeplessness.

They have said that there will be plenty of warning before release, so you could probably wake up, snag one, and go back to bed.

That’s not a good time for me, that’s 11:00 am and I’ll be at school if it’s during the week… + People will be at work. I don’t know a good time, maybe 12:00 AM GMT? that’s at least a time few people will be working, on both sides of the ocean.

The amazing thing about living on a revolving globe is that it’s always 4am somewhere. We’ll be giving you all plenty of notice about when sales start; so you can always set an alarm if it’s night time where you are, or make an excuse to be in front of a computer if it’s not.

Indeed, it’s nearly always 4am here in Sydney, when it’s a reasonable hour in the UK or USA. ;)

Great to know you’ll give notice.

The issue is that everybody will come on the raspberrypi.com website at the same time and frenetically refresh the site.

Sometimes large e-commerce do sales at a given times, and I’ve seen their site crash or being unreachable.

Like Sparkfun’s free stuff day, yeah.

Assuming someone can’t order from the first batch, when will the second one be available?

I prefer 4am ;P better avoid 6am – 11am. But seriously, AAAAAAAAAAh I want one !!!!

Have you considered that 1) you’re a foundation, 2) that you’re not making much money on this at all, 3) foundations always need to fund-raise, and 4) the reason this is so exciting isn’t really because of the price, but instead because SO MANY PEOPLE will have one that every niche can be served. So charge more for the first 10,000!

We make enough on every unit, even at $25 and $35, that we can support the Foundation more than acceptably. We’d be crazy to raise prices above what we’ve been promising all along; as we’ve said a million times, the low price is of paramount importance in making these available to everybody. We don’t want to limit availability to those with deeper pockets, but to reach everybody right from the start.

True.

Not to worry all in good time :D

I watched it three times ;)

First, Fedora team: take your time, enjoy the party and keep up the good work!

Also, can´t someone make a betting site where people can guess on how long it will take before all the boards are bought? I think 24 hours is not to high of an expectation? =) Its greate of course that there is so much anticipation. I for one can´t wait!

It would be soooooooooo great that it would take about 24hours… that would mean I could get one of the first batch.
I’m thinking more like of a hour or 2…

best regards,
Guilherme

I’m betting on about 2-3 hours. If that. I think RPi is oversubscribed about 1 to 4. And expect that to rise in the weeks after once people start blogging the coolness. ;-)

So better get cracking on the second lot! How long does it take from order to delivery?

Hours? You guys are either joking or foolishly optimistic! They will sell out in seconds! As we’re getting advanced notice there will be a lot more than 10,000 people hovering when the switch is flicked. The only way to get one will be to F5 at the given time.

Current interest in the project is a poor indicator of what the interest levels will be in a few days time. There’s a HUGE difference between saying “we’re making a computer for $35 which will be available sometime in the future” and saying “here’s exactly how you can buy a computer for $35”. It will go viral as soon as the date and time is set. The attention the announcement will generate should not be underestimated.

I think it’ll take minutes… if the site doesn’t crash.

A woot bandolier of carrots is a pretty good indicator of what we can expect from Raspberry Pi. The e-commerce site will hopefully not crash but only run slowly and time-out for a lot of people. If it crashes then all bets are off, as it could be a day or two as the truly determined never stop hitting F5.

My university made the mistake of doing this the first year we had online class scheduling. Registration opened at 5am and the whole campus (about 10,000 people) tried to register at the same time. If you were on at 5:00 everything went fine. If you were on at 5:05 you didn’t get to register until noon.

I think Raspberry Pi is going to have more like 50,000 people on the site at once, and that’s conservative. I plan to try and get one when the floodgates open, but I haven’t bothered to download the software. If I get one I’ll do that during the week or two it takes for it to be delivered. Otherwise I’ll wait until I get one, and get the updated software then.

This will be a great example of how to create your own DDOS against yourself.

{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denial-of-service_attack}

4hrs.

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At this point it’s somewhat suspicious that there is no exact release date. it’s only 1 week until the end of the month. So assuming you’re releasing this month, but not on the last day… sometime in the next 6 days you’ll go SURPRISE it’s out… very odd, one would think you’d know when there’s less than a week left.

Oh for (insert appropriate term here) sake get real.
Is your ENTIRE life dependent up on having a board in your sweaty hands. Are you that paranoid to think there is something BAD happening ?

Nothing bad’s happening, but things are a little bit more complicated than Cory thinks, which is why we can’t disclose the minutiae of what we’re up to at the moment. All will become clear before the end of the month, I promise.

Ahhh – but some of us are hardware nerds with a mission.

I want to take a look pretty soon because I have a bunch of students who desperately need something other than a lap-top to get to grips with the idea of embedded systems (they’re GCSE students, buy the way)

If we could move any faster, we would be doing. We’re also hardware nerds with a mission; but the scheduling of that mission is constrained by laws of time and space. And bureaucracy. The bureaucracy is very important.

It’s the bane of my existence but, Amen to this!

I think everyone is in awe of the hoops you’ve already jumped through. Hopefully not too many more, then maybe you can relax?!

Oh, I have all kinds of plans about how to relax after all this, believe me!

There are RULES of time and space? I always thought they were more … guidelines.
Now, bureaucracy on the other hand, IS a law unto itself.

Odd, below the reply buttons vanished.

But honestly…you think you’re going to have time to relax after this? Good luck with that. I think once you’re past 100K units maybe then….

Guys,
Having had some experience import/export from China is not something that can be hurried or short-circuited.

laws of time and space?

You are British, just borrow the TARDIS!

AllyR,
May suggest that they do learn about design, the part that does not involve the coding, the really important part, understanding the problem, analysing possible solutions, peer reviewing the solutions, the architecture of design, how it’s going to be broken up, first order estimates of how long each section is going to take, how to stage the design, how you are going to test the design, how you are going to prove that the design has been tested well, what tools are going to be used and then document it all.
That is what Design is about, not just going tappity tap on a keyboard, that’s the easy bit !

Perhaps I should point out that these are students with extremely complex educational needs, and the main problem is keeping their focus and interest. Qualifications are secondary to them learning life-skills – problem solving, cooperative working, social interaction – they can already use computers for day-to-day tasks, after all.
It’s not the software my lot are interested in – that can be handled quite well from the systems they already posess. What they are hungry for is something they can interface to the real world and to get physical results from – there’s only so much you can achieve with an expensive lab interface.
What they have expressed an interest in is building a robot from scratch – just think of the range of educational opportunities – electronics, mechanical design, actuators, sensors, problem-solving, project planning, process analysis (logical design) – the list is endless. And the best part? They will be learning those life skills at the top without even realising it.
And RasPi will mean that I can spend most of my (small) budget on peripherals, not on computers!

To AllyR:

Perhaps you should look into Arduino boards. They look very similar, but they are microcontrollers. They don’t us an OS, but you can program them from Windows or Linux. They have inputs to read in from sensors (you can get a variety to sense light, sound, distance, pressure, temp, humidity, etc) and they have over a dozen outputs that can each drive LEDs, motors, or a relay that could control larger devices.

I’m not sure this device will work well as a robot, but the Arduino boards are all but made for that. I’ve made robots that drive in circles or wander the hallways. Making a robot is no easy task though…especially for people who do not know much about electronics….

Maybe searching up Arduino Line Following Robot would give you some ideas? Just from looking at this project, I’m not sure its well suited for making a “Robot”…

….Although honestly the thought did cross my mind…I mean a robot with wifi? You can’t lose there!

Maybe It could come get me when I have a facebook message….hrm….

Heh, I can wait… I just think they should admit it’s delayed so my hands can stop sweating.

But it isn’t delayed! So I suggest you sit there and quiver some more until we make an announcement. It’ll do you good.

Why are you so worried about it? It’s not like they have your money (this is why they DIDN’T take preorders).

Even if they don’t get it out until the first, who cares? Yes waiting is frustrating, but I’d rather they take their time, test it, and ship out a high-quality system then ship out a bunch of boards that dont work.

It would have been better to have offered pre orders, they would hae had the capital to produce a much bigger 1st lot(yeah, I read why they cant do it: they wont get the money till after shipping, silly UK specific rule IMO )

That’s not the only reason.

Silly UK rule? Its simple business.

There’s also the potential for rip-off.. the foundation has to protect itself, no doubt a deposit is down, and the rest payable upon completion. To do otherwise would be a huge risk.

If those boards are being made in China, just know nothing shipped out on time in China! If they gave you 23 February as shipment date; you will have to go through 28-step-process (15 of them being at Chinese government alone!) starting from shipment date to actually get them out from the country! I’m just saying..

I am fine with this. Take your time; it’s a project thats worth the wait.

For most of us at this stage, quality is of the essence, and not time.

I’d far rather wait for things to be right than to have to patch and re-patch because I was impatient.

I can’t fap to this :[

I can :p

1 internets for you, sir.

[…] Here is the original post: Fedora remix download delayed by a couple of days | Raspberry Pi […]

I’m willing to have my site (mirrors.500mb.us) act as an ‘official’ mirror for this as well, if you guys are going to manage any downloads for it. Shouldn’t be that much effort to add the FCRemix to the download script.

I want it, I want it yesterday.

I accidentally raspberry pi, what I do now?!!?!?

What is the standard desktop in Fedora remix for Raspberry Pi?

I’m only going on the video here, but it looks like LXDE to me.

Judging by the logout icon in the bottom right of the screen, it’s probably Xfce, actually. Last time I used Fedora I believe they gave both Xfce and LXDE a very consistent look, any way.

I am pleased that the download activity suggests that the Rpi will be huge. When I first stumbled on the Rpi on a BBC web report, I thought “I have just got to get me one of these: Now!”. but over the last few weeks it’s dawned on me that I should probably take a bit more time. The Rpi represents to me the opportunity to get back to a simpler time when I was happy to make an animated ball bounce on a tv hooked up to my VIC20. I was a ten year old then. Now my son is ten he uses IT all the time. The IT he uses is all shiny and cute and helpful allowing him to get it (or is that IT) to do the things he has seen IT do before. I hope that the Rpi can once again get ten year-olds and 40 year-olds interested in getting sprites to bounce on a tv screen (and some!). But I am also fearful that I currently lack the technical knowledge to support my son in simply setting up an Rpi. So now I am more excited about the community that is building up around Rpi than the Rpi itself. I hope that If I take my time I will learn from the community so that when the time is right I can then get an Rpi to open up a better understanding of computing for us.

I’m sure you’ll have no problem in setting up your RPi. Theres documentation all over the place, and a lot of people offering to help.

It could be worth looking if you have a Linux User Group (LUG) in your area. From experience of my local LUG (the Devon & Cornwall GNU/Linux User Group) there are members with all sorts of experience from folks who have years of experience and build their own custom distributions and whatnot to complete newbies who are just getting started with Linux. They’re all generally a friendly bunch too and always willing to help each other out, either on the e-mail mailing list, chat room or at a LUG meeting (which for us usually consists of a few of us meeting up at a local cafe or pub once a month to chat or have a look at each others latest toys).

Rob

RPUG is an even better acronym than LUG :)

RasPUG, RasPiUG?

I would predict all boards sold out in 2 minutes or less, if they announce the exact time of release atleast 24 hours in advance and the servers dont crash

Which would be a good reason to sell them via a lottery, right? Or just charge a higher price. Or ask people “How much would you be willing to pay for a RPi?” and then charge the top 10,000 bidders the price which is 10,000 from the top.

There are a lot of reasons to sell things which are in higher demand at a higher price.

We’re a not-for-profit. We don’t have shareholders to satisfy, and we don’t draw salaries (we’re forbidden by law from making any money ourselves from the project). We’re satisfied we can make what’s needed to keep the Foundation in very good shape with the model we have already. Our goal is not to make as much money as possible, but to get these in the widest distribution possible – there might be “a lot of reasons to sell things which are in higher demand at a higher price” if we were a normally constituted business, but we’re not. We’re something else, and we will ONLY be selling at $25 and $35.

I’ve decided not to take part in the frantic quest to get a 1st batch ‘Pi’, but to wait and see what actually happens. It seems as if the Alphabet Soup Brigade are determined to use the first batch to do wizzy things that would be completely incomprehensible to most children.

Maybe, later, the ‘Pi’ can do something useful in the classroom, but that requires a number of things that are not yet in place, including a teacher-proof setup process, jargon-free educational materials including exercises at various levels, affordable ancillaries (we’re in danger of paying more for a monitor cable and a power supply than the computer…), and the ability to buy in meaningful classroom quantities of 20+. Until then, this is a toy for geeks, not something that will promote real IT knowledge in schools and in young people. So I’ll leave it a few months, and see if things are any better. On the plus side, I don’t have to worry about the hardware going ‘stale’ in the meantime because it isn’t bleeding-edge gear anyway.

Congratulation for completely failing to read/understand any of the blog, FAQ, Wiki or forums posts on this subject. I’m not going to explain why – please read the aforementioned sections where everything (I really do mean EVERYTHING) you have mentioned is covered.

Be nice. Not everyone is reading everything obsessively like some of us.

That was being nice. These answers have been answers many times had the OP bothered to even look. Why should I (or any of the other admins) be polite time after time after time when people simple don’t bother to read information that is already there?

BTW, obsessive reading by the mods and admins is the reason this forum isn’t full of arsehats and is still worth visting. I’d prefer not to read obsessively and put up with some of the lazy people who post, but hey ho, it’s my contribution.

Um, the initial release is intended for developers and not educational use anyways!

So, yes, you can term it a “toy for geeks”, if I get one, thats what it will be. Its the grown up equivalent of lego for me

Okay Folks, it’s clear that one of the first things I am going to have to submit to the repository for Raspberry Pi is my clairvoyant subroutine that lets me forecast the future. I will get that submitted just as soon as I figure out the time widget that will let me look forward in time. If anyone has done anything like that, it will be very appreciated. Until then, I’m just going to have to wait with baited breath the arrival of the Raspberry Pi hardware. I am beginning to suspect it is much more popular than I ever imagined so I may actually get to order one around mid 2013. (I don’t need a clairvoyant subroutine to tell me this, I live in the states and will almost always visit the web site too late to order anything). It’s okay though, I don’t have a dying need, I am just very interested. I want to be able to say “I bought one of those things!”

I have a time widget, but it only works on old hardware (i4004) . Would that be any help?

No, I did some work om the 8008′ but not on the 4004. I also did 8080 and Z-80. Maybe I could translate it. Built my own S-100 bus computer back in the days. I will see if I still have the reverence books, but translating 4bit to 8bit is not just doubling everything. 8>)

It’s funny, i meant to type “reference”, but maybe “reverence” is a better word for those ancient computing beasts. Without those baby steps,where would we be today?????

convalesce

[…] thread is worth a read; Chris has been giving lots of detail on what's … Read more here: Fedora remix download delayed by a couple of days | Raspberry Pi This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged chris, chris-tyler, forum, giving-lots, […]

what will be the options for payment, when it is finally released? (i hope the question isnt asked in the forum yet) paypal? creditcard? or like the merchandise stuff via bill?

FAQ’s:
“We will accept most major cards, PayPal, and offline payments.”

How do these compare to the R-pi?
http://www.bluechiptechnology.co.uk/Category/3.5-inch-Single-Board-Computer

Oops, I meant this one!
http://www.bluechiptechnology.co.uk/Product/RE2-Single-Board-Computer

Quite similar in spec, the Pi GPU is faster but the CPU is slower. More ports on the linked device, but no HDMI out (although DVI is there). What I wasn’t able to find out was the price of the board (a kit with extra bits is £299 AFAICT), so that’s likely to be the big differentiator. I reckons its going to be over £100 each, so quite a lot more expensive for similar specification.

Most eyecatching difference is the wifi/bluetooth that’s on board. I for one would love a Model C with wifi even though I understand it would raise the price a bit.

If the Rpi is as big a success as some people think I’m sure that model C will materialize!

I’ve already got a 2GB SD card with the debian release image already installed… it’s just waiting for my RPi… :)
F5
F5
F5
F5……

Will you limit the amount of boards one person can buy to one or two? I would love to buy many but to be fair to everyone, I believe everyone should be limited until the second batch comes out. That way more people can get one. Also, is there a list of working SD cards? I couldn’t find one.

The FAQ says one pr person…

You know searching the forums here or try google?

There’s a limit one per address for the first batch, or more precise one per credit card/name. And for the list of working SD cards have a look at the Wiki: http://elinux.org/RPi_VerifiedPeripherals

Great we’ve got some cream. Now gimme some Rasberry Pi to go with it.
Big thanks to the guys @ Seneca for churning that cream. C’mon Pi makers.

[…] http://www.raspberrypi.org – Today, 9:02 AM […]

Just to swim against the stream a little….

Just for info my son has built a bedside unit that was designed around RPi with a touchscreen internet etc. for his Design A level. Unfortunately the slippages mean that he has to finalise it before the RPi becomes available, so he is has built in something else from E*ay so that his project will at least function. He had left enough space to modify the design to do this in case RPi didn’t come through.

He planned it all last year, did the CAD and CNC, built everything to fit. He has all the components ready but has a sad credit card sized gap in the middle. Bit of a shame really, he won’t be able to stick the sticker on the side and show it is really a new design inside and out….

His heart sank every time there was more publicity, as it progressively reduced the chance of getting a unit before he had to submit his work even if they did come on sale. If the first production batch were already on sale today, the chances of actually getting one for his project seem so low as to make the RPi irrelevant as a plan.

Relying on new tech developments is always liable to delays and unreliability etc, so I am not complaining. And good learning point for my son to have a backup plan. I just want to mention there are some people out here in your target market who are, for good reason, genuinely disappointed. And that from their point of view the schedule has already slipped over a cliff.

Maybe next years students will be looking to use it for similar projects. Something to consider for timing the next batches, should aim to get them into the students hands before November latest, so they can be reliably planned into projects.

Perhaps some should be reserved to sell only via schools in the future, otherwise the odds seem to be they will not get reliably to the target community in enough numbers to make a difference.

So indeed don’t rush, no problem with delay, take time etc, etc,, for us the bus has already left with a obsolete Intel passenger inside.

Sorry to here that he is disappointed, however, there has never been a firm release date, so the schedule hasn’t really dropped off a cliff, since there hasn’t been a schedule to fall, or a cliff to fall off.

A good introduction to the perils of thing sort of project though – should hold him in good stead for encountering the real world.

hello,

Ok great machine, but where is here ?

Here is where. Usually.

Do you have numbers for how many people have subscribed for the email notification for launch date?
Just to give an idea of how many people are likley to be trying to purchase one of the first 10k.

Where can i subscribe to the email notification? I’ve been checking this blog every hour or so :) Can’t wait to get my hands on a Raspberry Pi. It’s a wonderful idea! Keep up the good work!

Front page, top right, under the search box.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying the whole thing is a hoax. I’m just saying it the whole thing were a hoax then this is exactly how it would play out :p

I very nearly didn’t let this comment through. Do be aware that there are a bunch of us killing ourselves (all unpaid) in bringing the Raspberry Pi to market; we don’t have a sense of humour about this sort of thing. This kind of comment just makes me feel even more tired and more stressed out than I was before I read it. Thanks for that.

Deeep breadths .. Long and slow

In thru nose

Hold it

Out thru the mouth

Just realise 99% of us are behind you and just hugely appreciative of all the work that has gone in to get this far.
I for one am also just a teeny bit of excited :)
Cant remember last time there was so much buzz around a product that i cared to buy.
Hope the pressure easies up soon for you.

@Simon the Stig2k

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying you are an whole arsehat. I’m just saying that if you were an arsehat, that would be exactly the sort of thing you would post.

Eben does a lovely arsehat mime. You should ask him to show you some time.

Scared now.

James, let me just say: you are awesome. (And it’s not just because your name is James, although that doesn’t hurt. :-))

Don’t let the trolls get you down. You can’t help that the scum of the earth had their human decency surgically removed.

Actually, I think it is indeed just because my name is James.

If this were some sort of scam/hoax, then they certainly would have offered pre-orders. If they were to create this big of a scam, and not monitize it, then they would be extremely stupid. The whole fact that they aren’t accepting pre-orders proves they are legit.

So relax, press F5 a few times, and have patience like everyone else here.

Liz — have you considered charging more for the first 10K? It’s practically a nominal price anyway, and by charging money, you avoid silly wasteful things like repeatedly hitting F5 on the date of the sale. Consider this: Ask people how much they would pay for 1 of the 10K. Sort their bids, and sell them to the top 10K for the price that the 9,999th person bid. It’s fair because everyone pays the same price, but it also ensures that the foundation captures the extra value (rather than having a bunch dumped on EBay the first day). And we know that you’ll invest it back into the project rather than spending it on PR, or a launch party, or whatever.

I’ve answered you twice already. It’s a NO – and I’m starting to get a little aggravated by having to say so repeatedly. Please stop asking!

Sorry. I didn’t see that the first one got posted. Spam Free WordPress tries hard to be Reply Free WordPress in my experience. I appreciate your commitment to the price, but I’ll also note that the first few prototypes were sold at a higher price. The problem I’m trying to solve is NOT making more money for the foundation, but instead to discern people’s desire. You have an allocation problem. More people want the first 10K than you can supply. People will commit resources to getting one of the 10K. I can’t imagine anybody thinks that hitting F5 is a productive activity making the world a better place. Nor do I imagine anybody thinks that the 10K should go to the people with the fastest computers on the fastest networks. Nor should they go to the people who jump on the email fastest to hit the website. The RPis WILL be allocated, and people will be unhappy. If you don’t have a plan for managing that allocation (yes, I see the 1-per-credit-card), the allocation will happen in a way that you might not like. By engaging in the bidding process I described, you get to find out who really REALLY wants one of the 10K, but everybody pays the same price, so it’s fair. Prices are information.

Hold that thought. I think you’re going to be quite surprised when we launch.

We are not newcomers to business.

I will plan to be surprised.

I hope you launch soon. I’m going home in about 10 minutes time, and would like to be stuck on the train safe in the knowledge that mine is on its merry little way!

Here’s my guess …

When you launch you will be taking orders from everyone for a short period, probably one or two days. Then you will randomly select 10K customers that will each receive one RPi from the first batch. Credit cards not being charged until you deliver.

That way you will get a very good picture of how big the interest is and how big the second batch should be.

So, probably less than two weeks before sale, and you think its a good idea to rip up the plan that’s been in place for months and do something different, and, by reading it, really quite expensive to set up and run?
You seem also to think that the 10k is it. No more. Whereas in fact the next batch and the next will follow on very quickly. So all your scheme does is force the price up for the first batch to a level the target market cannot afford and the Foundation get slated for increasing prices we have always said won’t rise. (The Ebay items are not relevant – they were special release collectors boards)

I don’t recall seeing anything about going on sale in ‘probably less than two weeks’, I’d thought it was more imminent than that and before end of Feb – is this some new as-yet-unreported news, James?

Two weeks is more than the end of February :o

Since I don’t know the exact dates, I put probably less than two weeks for legal reasons. ie. So some nobber * doesn’t accuse me of providing misleading information.

I leave others to decide whether it worked or not.

* Prof. Brian Cox’s favourite insult.

As i said before, I’m planning to be surprised.

Oh, and to address one more thing: you said “So all your scheme does is force the price up for the first batch to a level the target market cannot afford”. I cannot see how that could happen. My scheme ensures that your target market will get boards they can afford, because by definition, they won’t bid a price they can’t afford. And in spite of what you say about the “special collecters”, the 10K ARE a special build because they don’t have cases. Anyway, you seem to have your own plan for allocating 10K amongst 50K people. It will be surprising to see what your plan is. I shiver in anticipation.

Russ – you are starting to sound a bit snarky. Less of that, please, lest I have to plonk you.

I would dearly like to get my hands on a Pi but if I have to wait then I can. I remember when I had to wait for a Birthday and Christmas combined for my BBC Model B. At least now I can have a beer while I’m waiting :o)

Excellent choice. I recommend 5 pints of Old Pec. That should knock you out until the Raspi’s are released!

You have to be careful with alcohol in such case. A little too much and you miss the window for buying. Also: http://xkcd.com/323/

I do have a few questions about the Remix spin and didn’t make it to Toronto in time for the presentation (it being Mardi Gras and all).

– Will it allow for USB webcam (Cheese Webcam Booth)?
– With the B Model, can I use remote desktop mgmt?
– Can I install VLC? (Assuming that I am able to access RPM Fusion?)

The better question is:
Why should you not be able to do this?

Well…because these items I question have RPMs that have been sourced for different CPUs and motherboards than this one. Fedora 14 on which this is based just comes out with these features. So…does the chipset of Raspberry Pi have the right drivers and build to carry these features?

I guess I won’t know until I actually have one of these.

We love you Liz, Eben, , and James! :)
(And the rest of the team)
And, most of us understand that prices will be 25$ and 35$.
And we know it is not a hoax.
And we thank you for your work.
And thank you for your tireless replies to comments :)
All the best.

PS any chance of Elite coming with RPI?
With David Braben and all … :) ?

There is indeed a Free David Braben with each Raspi.

It’s a bit like a Free Nelson Mandela. But wireframe.

*Applause*

Here become weekend’s days.
Should I stay at home pressing F5, or should I go to the pub?

Any chance a Release day be at a weekend?

A source of mine said me that the launch date will be at February 30.
….
:)

Awesome. I’ll be here the moment my oven clock says it is 24:00.

I don’t think they read that one properly ;)

Here’s how to do it.

Sign up for email notification
Set your PC up with the email program running continuously
Set email program to poll server every 10 minutes
Connect PC sound output to HiFi
Set HiFi volume to 11
When it pings, log into the Pi Shoppe and buy.

You may be in luck!

You can use also “Mail Alert” from Android Market, and setup in our phone a rule to alert you when a @raspberrypi.org e-mail arrives!!!

BTW – no need for 10K units to sell out in 2 minutes… For the first batch, first do something useful by getting buyers to solve recaptchas (http://www.google.com/recaptcha) and then throttle the sales rate by allowing a successful recaptcha solution to grant entry to the order page every x seconds. Sparkfun did this recently for their ‘Free day’: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sparkfun-electronics-third-annual-free-day-event-draws-more-than-32000-unique-website-visitors-138035798.html

Just an idea…

Worst experience ever.

I actually regret spending any time on that and will never participate to something even remotely close to that.. Please do NOT do that… ;)

I agree, ReCaptchas are _the worst_!

I’ve not been out the house in 3 days!

[…] Aufgrund gesundheitlicher Probleme des leitenden Entwicklers wurde der Termin aber um einige Tage verschoben. Das Raspberry-Pi-Projekt will den Käufern des lediglich 35 US-Dollar teuren Mini-Computers diese […]

It will be soon at Pi Time.

I’m will not eat until I can order a Raspberry.
Please tell me the release date, i need nutrition.

Normally I don’t use any kind of automated email notification on my mobile, because I hate google and whatsnot doing things without me knowing what they preciaely do; but for the next couple of days… I will not be putting myself at a disadvantage :-)

Brilliant work. Am really looking forward to developments and the release of the Pi and associated software..

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