Hi there, re raspberry pi - the image is so good these days that it brings folk back into the plug-and-play category. Raspberry pi s are excellent, i have two doing stuff for me at home most of the time, but you don't get to know about fixing issues on more powerful devices i.e. PC s and learning about computer busses and architecture etc I have recently downloaded a lot of distros including the suse 13.2 -, see this afternoon's talk by Terry, and on two PCs it is a pain and when I got it running on one of my favourites a Dell opti 745, and tried my favourite packages - it caused grief as the install was incomplete. My requirements for Linux these days înclude being able to run anjuta and oracle java and so far xubuntu does it. Mike On Friday, 19 December 2014, Karl Terauds <karl@cosmicparrot.com.au> wrote:
Hi
Would it not be cheaper to provide each attendee a raspberry pi and provide instruction in the basics of linux installation and operation?
Cheers Karl
-----Original Message----- From: luv-main [mailto:luv-main-bounces@luv.asn.au <javascript:;>] On Behalf Of Mike Sent: Friday, December 19, 2014 2:30 PM To: luv-main@luv.asn.au <javascript:;> Subject: Re: building PCs etc
Hi there, I just found this in my SPAM box - don't know why - sounds like a good idea to me - I have access to lots of PCs at the local mens shed where they get pulled apart for re-use.
I like the Lego comment. Mike I am in the process of draughting a note to ctte about re-starting a developers group for programmers etc.
On 10/12/14 13:49, Russell Coker wrote:
http://www.kidsunlimited.com.au/
This company is offering a course for kids to teach them to build a PC. It costs $1250 and they end up with a PC that's very similar to something that Dell sells for $800, so that makes it about $400 for a day of training (not bad for corporate training rates but not cheap either).
Maybe we should offer something vaguely similar at the LUV beginner's meetings. We could make it a BYO hardware event. We could offer free PCs of the P4 vintage (I could donate 2-3 PCs to the cause and I'm sure others could too). Then kids (and anyone else who wants to learn) can install Linux and set the PC up for doing things.
The assembling new hardware bit seems like a bad idea as it involves a significant amount of money and issues with getting paid in advance etc. But the amount of learning involved in assembling a PC isn't that great. It's 5-7 separate parts for a typical PC if you consider DIMMs to be 1 part and CPU+fan to be another. Assembling a PC nowadays has the complexity of a Lego kit aimed at 5yos.
Taking old PCs apart has some educational value as kids can break open packages and look inside them and they can touch pins on the CPUs etc. If we were going to do an educational PC disassembly event then I'd be happy to take the bits to e-waste and I could donate some broken PCs to the cause.
What do you think?
Lev, how does this fit in with what we can do at VPAC?
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