Raspberry Pi 2 launch: Six times faster with Windows 10 and Ubuntu support

[RV_]

Well now, I might have kept my Pi and 8 it 2! Now it looks like it will be a candidate to take over as a streaming media server attached to the back of a TV!

 

Excerpt:

 

"A major update to the credit card sized Raspberry Pi board is introduced, with a boost to the CPU and memory expected to help it run as a general-purpose PC.

 

The next version of the hugely popular credit card-sized computer, the Raspberry Pi, is available today.

The Raspberry Pi 2 boosts the board's specs to a quad core processor and 1GB of memory - with the new machine racking up several times the benchmark score of its predecessor, as well as being able to run Windows 10 and Ubuntu.

The new board will cost the same as the first-generation, dual-core model B+, and is billed by the Pi's co-creator Eben Upton as the first model capable of running as a general-purpose PC

 

The new board will also be able to support Ubuntu and Windows for the first time, courtesy of the boards' ARM v7 core, with a Snappy Ubuntu Core image available now.

 

"We've been working with Microsoft for the past six months to enable Windows 10 on Rapsberry Pi. It runs, I've seen it running, it's pretty cool," said Upton.

 

"This is Windows 10 intended for IoT applications and the intention here is to have a device which you can use to build IoT devices," he said.

 

"The intention is you can take a Windows 10 application that you can run on Surface, PC, a Windows phone and now Raspberry Pi as well."

 

The Raspberry Pi version of Windows 10 will be available to makers for free."

 

Wow! Much more in the article as it runs down its capabilities here: http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/european-technology/raspberry-pi-2-launch-six-times-faster-with-support-for-windows-10-and-ubuntu/?tag=nl.e101&s_cid=e101&ttag=e101&ftag=TRE684d531

[wa_desert_rat]

Well... I just posted this and it went off into the great bit-bucket in the sky when I hit "Post".

 

I spent this morning ironing out some glitches in a client's network; most of which revolve around a pretty old Netgear router. Looking for a new router suitable for an organization with several sites spread across Washington's largest county (in terms of size, not population) all connected with VPNs. Most commodity routers that have VPNs built-in are problematic, at best. Slow, flakey, and often reuiring numerous re-configurations. You'd be surprised at how cranky a customer can get after being presented with yet-another bill for re-configuring the VPN that was just re-configured 3 months ago.

 

Then I recalled RV's post about the Raspberry Pi V2 which is capable of being loaded with both Ubuntu and Windows 10. This client, like practically all of them, uses Windows 7 on all its desktops despite my best efforts to move them to Linux (and reduce my income to poverty levels... I may have to re-think this). Every time they replace a dozen computers they buy Dell desktops at about $500 each. What if they could do the same thing with an Rpi at $54 each? And save a crapload of power, at the same time? It's a few months away, of course, but the germ of the idea has been set...

 

Meanwhile I also thought about the router issue. Most off-the-shelf routers are commodities and you'd be surprised at how little computing power (and memory) they have. I want configurable VLANs, VPN for multiple sites, 1gb network connections, stateful packet inspection and effective port forwarding along with fast network address translation and DNS. You don't really get all this at any real level until you approach $10 routers.

 

But the V 2.0 Raspberry Pi looks like it might come pretty close to what I want. At $53 bucks along with one of the open source router OSes (open wrt, etc) I could get pretty darn close to what I want (no gb ethernet though... but their uplink is nothing close to that anyway).

 

So I'm ordering a V2 Rpi today and going to experiement with it.

 

Thanks, Derek. Nice catch.

 

WDR

[skp51443]

Just don't take flash pictures of it until you apply the "camera Shy" modification from the Pi blog. Yep, you take a flash photo of a PI2 and it crashes. The Pi bolg does such a great explanation I'll leave it to them to explain.

 

http://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/

 

The Pi isn't really much at networking as the Ethernet port is on the USB bus, plenty fast enough for internal use but as a NAS, router or busy media server it can bog you down. The pfSense firewall folks have been kicking it around as an idea and enthusiasm is limited.

 

https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=87983.0

 

For a small cheap and pretty amazing router look at the $100, three port Ubiquity REdge Router Lite that offers what I think you are looking for. Also it has a minimal web GUI with most serious work needing the command line (Vyatta clone) to get it done. That won't hurt your billable hours a bit and as long as you keep good notes on the bits you use it isn't rocket science.

 

Page - http://www.ubnt.com/edgemax/edgerouter-lite/

 

PDF - http://dl.ubnt.com/datasheets/edgemax/EdgeRouter_DS.pdf

 

 

I have a new Pi on my wish list too, I'm planning on turning my old one into a GPS based NTP server with the new GPS backpack option.

[wa_desert_rat]

Another post from me zipped into that great bit-bucket in the sky.

 

Thanks for the tip on how the Rpi does its network connection. That takes it out of the running as a router, of course. I bought one today anyway just to experiment; the client is paying for it and we may be able to speed up the VPN by using the V2.

 

We are going to install a Netgear gigabit WAN/LAN device for now and see how that works. It seems to have everything we need at a reasonable price. I also have to be mindful that I won't be around forever to configure or administrate these networks.

 

WDR