Introducing the Raspberry Pi 2, and a new resource

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If you're interested in open hardware, this one has been hard to miss: this week, the Raspberry Pi Foundation announced the release of the Raspberry Pi 2. This tiny open hardware project has grown so large that its new releases are now making headlines in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and on the BBC.

The Raspberry Pi 2 is a great upgrade, featuring a processor which is not only faster (being upgraded from 700Mhz to 900Mhz), but also sports four cores, meaning some applications are performing phenomenally faster than before. The Pi 2 also sports twice the memory, now up to a full gigabyte, which means that for simple use cases, it can actually serve as a full replacement for a desktop computer. The Raspberry Pi 2 is backwards compatible with older Raspberry Pi devices, meaning all of those great projects and tutorials you've seen around the Internet will still work with this newer version. What's amazing, though, is that despite these upgrades, the device has kept its dirt-cheap price: only $35 USD.

We're excited to get our hands on a Raspberry Pi 2 and try it out ourselves. In the mean time, here are three great videos we've been watching to learn more about what's new with this upgrade and what is means for the maker community.

First, take a look at this six minute video from The Raspberry Pi Guy, who summarizes the features of the Raspberry Pi 2, showing it side-by-side with the original device, and shows how smoothly it can run some basic applications (including Minecraft) as a desktop computer.

Next up is Eben Upton, founder of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, who gives a 12 minute deep dive into what's new in the Raspberry Pi 2.

Finally, a fun Vine snippet of the new devices being manufactured!

A new resource for Raspberry Pi

With all of the great stuff going on for the Raspberry Pi, we've decided to create our own resource page to answer some basic questions about the Raspberry Pi and collect some of the best articles about it on Opensource.com. We hope that you'll visit, read, share, and let us know what we can add to this resource to make it more valuable!

Read all about the Raspberry Pi.

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5 Comments

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zoobab | February 5, 2015
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Rpi is not open hardware. There are no schematics available.

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NerdUno | February 11, 2015
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And that's important why? You were planning to set up manufacturing and beat the $35 price?? The development platform is open. That's what matters to most folks.

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Jim (J.R.) | February 12, 2015
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Why is "open hardware" important?

Try credibility, for one. This article mentions - several times no less - that it's "open hardware".

"Open Hardware" means you are given **all** the resources to build your own - or compete with the original design - if you want.

This is not true here. In fact so much so that there is particular, interesting, and potentially valuable information about the original Broadcomm SOIC that they do **NOT** disclose - ergo you cannot utilize the maximum potential of their graphics environment - short of a non-disclosure agreement.

Do they give you **all** the relevant information for the **new** Broadcomm chip? Dunno, but my money's on it still being drop-dead top secret.

The Arduino is Open Hardware. The various items and boards available from SparkFun are Open Hardware. With Open Hardware you get the schematics, "eagle files" (if you want to cut your own PCB's), and everything else you need to see **exactly** what is under the hood. You can also adapt, improve, modify, mess-with and totally destroy if that's what you wish.

Translation: If YOU think that YOU can out-Arduino the Arduino, you are welcome to try. Go ahead! Here's the Bill of Materials, schematics, and even the PCB layout! You wanna try? Help yourself. . . . But don't come crying to us when you make an [donkey] of yourself.

Now, don't get me wrong - the Raspberry Pi, (all versions), is a heck of a product. I've even given it a glowing review, (http://tinyurl.com/nae9a7d) on my own blog - QA Tech-Tips (http://www.qatechtips.com), but it is not, and (AFAIK), has never been "Open Hardware"

What say ye?

Jim (JR)

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TheNjogu | March 4, 2015
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I totally agree with NerdUno. I do not understand the need for specification of "semantics", given that the basic components are clearly stated and it's functionality is proven. If that is not enough, you can easily find open source hardware like BoardX, but i doubt whether its functionality compared to price can match that of the Raspberry Pi 2. But If you were looking for an open source hardware that completely suits your specifications, why not get an arduino and build one yourself.

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Hellgha | February 6, 2015
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Incredibly, the Pi R 2 it is now possible to run x 86 applications with ExaGear Desktop.

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