In message <[email protected]>, Norman Dunbar
<[email protected]> writes
Morning Malcolm,
I thought that you would one the first 'Rpi" owners ... :-)
No, I'm afraid not. There are 10,000 lucky owners but I'm not one of
them. I need my sleep too much to be setting alarms to get up at 05:45!
I have now registered with both Farnell and RS, which was all very easy
to do. The former are offering a 'free' special edition Rpi T-Shirt, too
... :-)
I have not heard of Fedora Linux ... though I guess it not a hat?
Close, very close. Red Hat is, if you like, the parent company, They
produce Red Hat Enterprise Linux but used to produce a community
version called Red Hat Linux. They stick to RHEL these days and are (or
are about to be) the first open source company to break the $1 billion
income mark. They charge for support and give the product away for free.
Fedora is the community version - Red Hat Linux as was. New stuff
usually hits Fedora first before it rolls out in RHEL.
Both are, indeed, hat related!
Of course, it you ned or want an enterprise level Linux for free, you
simply get Centos or Scientific Linux which are RHEL with the Red Hat
badges removed. It's all legal under the terms of the license.
OK ... with Linux it all seems an endless series of 'flavours' of Linux.
Development tools ... yes, but what actual software or 'apps' are
already around to make it immediately usable?
Too much to mention. When you install a Linux "distro" you get tens of
thousands of apps thrown in for free and there are many more that may
not be included in the distro, but are available elsewhere.
CAD tools, compilers for just about every language under the sun,
development environments, games, science stuff, astronomy, games,
deocumentation tools, DVD players, CD players, MP3, Video editing,
sound recording & editing, text editors, whole office suites, -
everything.
OK ... you get some 'basic' stuff, and then post-install a lot of other
potentially more useful stuff.
Compare with Windows and Minsweeper or Solitare! ;-)
I specialised in control and electronics and all the 'new technology'
stuff, so was always being creative.
I put together a 555 timer in astable mode this weekend on a breadboard
looking for a square wave generator. I wanted to use it to switch on
another circuit, then off again at regular intervals. How hard could it
be? I got an always on LED! Sigh! It's far simpler with Arduino!
Ah ... yes ... fault tracing in electronics is like de-bugging in
software ... a potential long and tortuous road.
Schools have mirrored and followed almost exactly all of the previous
mistakes that industry first followed.
Have they mirrored or have they been pushed in that direction by
politicians and other do-gooders with an agenda?
Umm ... you may say that a lot of hardware and software has been sold to
Schools ... :-) ... but then, we are not cynical; are we?
--
Malcolm Cadman
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