So I finally thought to look up what the heck these odd little devices were about. It didn’t take me long to go get hold of a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B and start fiddling around. After several false starts and my usual rapid fire slam together instruction reading, I finally have it up and running.
Not just up and running, but I have one now set with Ubuntu Mate and one with Raspbian. Unfortunately, I really would like to work with Ubuntu Snappy, but it is still not ready for the Pi 3 yet. Of course I tried half a dozen times before I actually looked it up and found out that was the case.
It’s really fun, and I’m fascinated with the potential the little device has. Firewalls? Sure thing. Basic workstations, sure. Kiosks, Time Clocks, Cash Registers – anything really. Heck, I got a copy of MySQL server running on the Raspbian. I can’t imagine performance will be great, BUT there are so many computer tasks out there that don’t require power. The Pi may offer a very inexpensive device that could provide some interesting functions and features for many different tasks.
I’m just getting started.