Recently I’ve discovered this project that has great ambitions:

arkOS is an open-source platform for securely self-hosting your online life.

Everything started from the founder Jacob Cook and the CitizenWeb Project he founded. It’s designed to run on a Raspberry Pi – a super-low-cost single board computer – and ultimately will let users, even of the non-technical variety, run from within their homes email, social networking, storage and other services that are increasingly getting shunted out into the cloud, and so under the control of big companies.

So in short arkOS is a lightweight Linux-based operating system that runs on a Raspberry Pi.

It allows you to easily host your own website, email, “cloud” and more, all within arm’s reach. It does this by interfacing with existing software and allowing the user to easily update and change settings with a graphical interface. No more need to depend on external cloud services, which can be insecure “walled gardens” that require you to give up control over your data.

arkOS will have several different components that come together to make a seamless self-hosting experience possible on your Raspberry Pi. Each of these components will work with each other out-of-the-box, allowing you to host your websites, email, social networking accounts, cloud services, and many other things from your arkOS node.

Not just an operating system.

arkOS is a lightweight Linux-based operating system that runs on a Raspberry Pi. But arkOS more than just an operating system — it is a full software stack managing your self-hosting experience in an intuitive and intelligent way. arkOS does the work for you.

A visual gateway to your self-hosted web.

Run websites, email accounts, social networking profiles and much more from a clean and easy-to-use graphical interface. With Genesis, even the most complex task becomes possible. No need to spend hours looking up command line functions — or learning to use Linux itself. Genesis gives you the power to manage your online life like it was meant to be done.

In keeping with the project’s core values, Genesis is intended to be easy to use and to feature an intuitive design. This is what sets it apart from most server managers out there. Most of them allow you to run your server graphically, true, but they don’t actually make the experience easier, using common language and visual styles across the board that enable non-system administrators to host their own services. Genesis changes this.

Genesis is the core of arkOS, and it needs a lot of work before it will be stable enough for everyone to use and rely on.

Your own private “cloud.”

With arkOS, you can easily run and maintain a variety of personal cloud services with the push of a button. Using solutions like ownCloud, you can store your calendar, contacts, files, music, photos and more at home, and manage all of these items. Share them only with the people you want to see them. No more “privacy creep” from services like Google or Facebook – with arkOS, you become the master of your own privacy controls.

Your data’s gateway to the Internet.

Don’t want the trouble of buying your own domain? Don’t worry. arkOS will allow you to connect your node to the Internet anyway, through a variety of services like dynamic DNS and port relays. Sometimes your Internet connection might prohibit you hosting your own data. In these circumstances, arkOS will provide ways to connect your node to the greater World Wide Web.

The Distribution

arkOS comes with a custom Linux distribution for the Raspberry Pi, based on Arch Linux. In layman’s terms, it is just like any other operating system that you might have on your home computer (like Windows or Mac OS X), that allows you to run server software. You don’t need to know anything about Linux to use arkOS, however, as most of its functions are managed via Genesis, the easy-to-use graphical management app.

arkOS focuses on barebones server performance on the Raspberry Pi. It aims to be as lightweight as possible, keeping the Pi’s precious resources for running server software, like it should be. It uses the Pacman package installation system and systemd management daemon. arkOS hosts its own package repositories, so that any updates or extra software can be easily found and downloaded from a reliable source. Its repository will include the best server software for use on the Pi, ones that prioritize lightweight performance for the most efficient operation possible. Its update cycle prioritizes stability and security over constant updates, which allows us to develop the other arkOS projects more easily in tandem with the OS.

Crowdfunding

arkOS is launching a crowdfunding campaign to support its continued development over the course of the next year. It has been a labour of love up to this point, relying on the developer’s income for all of its infrastructure and free time as a side project. As the project grows, it will require more resources if it is to be successful. In order to prioritize development and devote more attention to a stable and secure release, I am seeking to fund one year of full-time development, as well as investments in additional infrastructure and support for the project. Once the one year of full-time development is over, the project should be able to sustain itself through donations and the provision of services that help users with the self-hosting process.

The best way to ensure that arkOS succeeds is to give it the time and attention it needs in order to go from rough-around-the-edges alpha to solid and secure self-hosting solution. That is what this crowdfunding campaign is designed to do.

You might not have noticed that the $35 computer, Raspberry Pi has exceeded 1 million units shipped. Further, they have production volumes cranked up to the point where you can order more than one unit.

In early March this year Raspberry Pi signed a deal with Sony to move a large part of the manufacturing process to the United Kingdom. This decision was based on high demand in the UK and Europe for the unit and the relative technical expertise of UK production processes.

“In June we scheduled 204 units per week. By July that had climbed to 10,000 units per week – this month we will achieve 38,000 output per week, and this is just the beginning,” said Gerald Kelly, the General Manager of Sony’s Pencoed plant.

Since the production process moved to UK manufacturing the numbers produced in the UK alone have risen to 40,000. This means in quantifiable terms the UK now produces more than the Chinese facility – impressive stuff. As a result shipments have now exceeded the 500,000 mark but with production ramping up so quickly 1 million units shipped is a landmark expected to be achieved in July.

Source http://www.eteknix.com/

That a great news for this small hardware also if contrary to popular belief, the hardware does not fit in Altoid can.

However there are some very cool accessories which include some low-cost plastic cases. The organization is finishing up a standardized case for the educational market.

Adafruit Pi Box from adafruit.com

Also if you fancy to have a webcam or an hardware able to do video you could check the Raspberry Pi NoIR Camera Module

From adafruit.com

The Raspberry Pi NoIR Camera Module is a custom designed add-on for Raspberry Pi that does not have an ‘IR cut filter’ installed. Like the regular Pi camera, it attaches to Raspberry Pi by way of one of the two small sockets on the board upper surface. This interface uses the dedicated CSI interface, which was designed especially for interfacing to cameras and is capable of extremely high data rates, and it exclusively carries pixel data

I was looking at OS installation options and noticed they have created a boot loader that let you have more than one OS installed. One of the options include, XBMC which I only recently discovered as an amazingly diverse community supported multimedia galaxy. If not universe.

It’ll be interesting to see how quickly the latest Ubuntu is ported over to these SoC ‘s(System on Chip) is moved over for easy installation.

Did you notice the small ‘s’ after SoC? Yes there are plural systems out there. Even Intel is getting into the act with the MinnowBoard. This is an entire open platform based on the aging Atom CPU, however is married to a slightly stripped down version of the Ivy Bridge (third-generation iCore) chipset.

Intel’s entry is not geared for the hobbyist. The open source design of the hardware platform allows designing around the x86 hardware platform, effectively giving ARM a run for the money.

Manufacturers will be happy because the reference system is rated for industrial use. In human that translates to operating in temperatures neither you or I could, for upwards of 10 years.

Intel is not the only competitor that is shipping

The A13-OlinuXino-WiFi https://www.olimex.com/Products/OLinuXino/A13/A13-OLinuXino-WIFI/open-source-hardware is also shipping.

Think of it as a Raspberry Pi only with a more powerful CPU, built-in 802.11n Wi-Fi and a real-time clock. Yes it runs Android and supports an SD card for booting Linux images.

Also unlike Raspberry Pi, it supports VGA out in addition to HDMI, and the LCD signals are still available if you disable VGA or HDMI.

On November 1 the firm ships its version of the Arduino!
http://olimex.wordpress.com/2013/10/11/look-mom-i-shrink-the-arduino/

We love to play with Arduino and like it very much but one thing have always bothered us – it’s HUGE.
What you do when you want to make small data logger, RF/Zigbee baecon, sensor network, something wearable etc? use this BRICK? No way.

This is how the idea for OLIMEXINO-NANO came.

We made complete Arduino replacement with size of only 30x30x8 mm

Conclusions

The “open hardware” market it’s more live than ever and this is really a great news IMO, I still think on partial to a Raspberry Pi in my Christmas stocking.

And if this might not be for you there is a huge variety of SoC projects out there. Just take a look at wikipedia at the page: List of single-board computers

PS: Still searching for an hardware in an Altoid can ?

If in these days you take a look at the list of possible gifts/gadgets that will be hot in the next Christmas you’ll find almost for sure the Raspberry Pi.

This is a credit-card sized computer that plugs into your TV and a keyboard. It’s a capable little PC which can be used for many of the things that your desktop PC does, like spreadsheets, word-processing and games. It also able to play high-definition video and sending the output through an HDMI interface to a TV or a monitor and all of this at a starting price of around 25$.

The design is based around a Broadcom BCM2835 SoC, which includes an ARM1176JZF-S 700 MHz processor, VideoCore IV GPU, and 128 or 256 Megabytes of RAM, with two USB ports and a 10/100 Ethernet controller. The design does not include a built-in hard disk or solid-state drive, instead relying on an SD card for booting and long-term storage. The board is intended to run Linux kernel based operating systems and there is a lot of interest on the open source community with many small distro born to support this new hardware such as raspbian, a free operating system based on Debian optimized for the Raspberry Pi hardware.

Recently the Raspberry Pi Model B with 512MB RAM has been announced and put on the market.



So why this small piece of hardware has become so popular ?

Personally I think that there are at least 3 reasons for this :

1) The low cost, with this low price tag everyone can buy one and do some tests.

2) The potentials, in this small board you have everything you need to start a small project such a web radio or to automate the management of your garden/house.

3) The pioneer aspect, this is perhaps the most important aspect of this small device, it brings back the days when you could test your hardware, easily add peripherals or new things.

The point 3 is also one of the goals that you can read on the official website of this hardware device:

From a situation in the 1990s where most of the kids applying were coming to interview as experienced hobbyist programmers, the landscape in the 2000s was very different; a typical applicant might only have done a little web design.

Something had changed the way kids were interacting with computers. A number of problems were identified: the colonization of the ICT curriculum with lessons on using Word and Excel, or writing webpages; the end of the dot-com boom; and the rise of the home PC and games console to replace the Amigas, BBC Micros, Spectrum ZX and Commodore 64 machines that people of an earlier generation learned to program on.

And personally I think that this goal has been fully achieved, this device has brought back to a lot of people the desire to experiment, I know that it is used in some schools and universities as a development platform and is developing a real market of gadgets and components, ready to use that can be ordered on specialized websites such as Adafruit or Farnell to extend the functionality of our beloved Raspberry.

Potentiality of the Raspeberry PI

So what can you do in practice with this small board ?

You can do a lot of things, from a simple and low cost desktop to something really complex, these are some projects that you can find online and that perhaps can inspire you:

Multimedia Box
Just plug in the memory card with raspbmc OS and you can have a juicy multimedia experience. You can play high quality music, watch 1080p videos and view all your pictures.

Raspbmc is a minimal Linux distribution based on Debian that brings XBMC to your Raspberry Pi. This device has an excellent form factor and enough power to handle media playback, making it an ideal component in a low HTPC setup, yet delivering the same XBMC experience that can be enjoyed on much more costly platforms.

Home Automation
Home Automation is a cool subject – Its futurity, energy efficient, everything is everywhere under control and at least its a little bit nerdy/geeky. So concerning sizing, power and pricing the Raspberry Pi is qualified for an house-controller. The additional hard- and software requirements can be achieved by already existing hardware modules and open source software – the setup itself is no rocket science, more info at this link.

Internet radio

Raspberry Pi can be a perfect set up as a Wifi internet radio. SSH into to set up your playlist. Streams play on MPC and MPD so you have command line access. Hit up or down on the buttons and the player moves on to the next item in the playlist. You fill the Rpi up with streams that you like and save them and thats it, personalized internet radio player for $44.

The full write-up including links to all the important information (where to buy the Wifi, setup, Adafruit instructions, etc) are on this blog: http://contractorwolf.wordpress.com/raspberry-pi-radio/

Weather Station

The raspberry can be the perfect for a weather station, a nice project about this can be found on this Blog

These are just some ideas of what you can do with your raspberry, other people use it in their Car as entertainment box, to manage their garden or to build small ftp/web server or a NAS server for their home, like someone said, the limit is your imagination.

Bloggers Contest

This article participates at the #BloggersContest organized by @LinuxBird, if you like this topic you can read the articles of other bloggers and then decide which to vote.

The link for voting is:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/RMM9LB3

Quite a lot actually, because the Raspberry Pi has been designed to use with Linux operating systems. The people behind the development of this cheap but powerful device always wanted it to be as accessible to the masses as possible. They knew an open source operating system was the only way they could keep the costs down, but there was a bigger reason behind their support of Linux. Their ambition with Pi is to get kids interested in computer programming again.

The demise of new computer programmers

Back in 2006, a chap called Eben Upton, and his buddies Rob Mullins, Jack Lang, and Alan Mycroft, were working at the University of Cambridge’s Computer Laboratory when the idea hit them. Over a discussion about the decreasing number of students applying to study computer programming, they realised something was missing. During the 1990’s the students applying to study computer programming were often already programming as a hobby, but by the next decade applicants had often just dabbled with web design. The era of computers like the BBC Micro, Spectrum ZX, and Commodore 64 had been superseded by expensive Windows PC’s and games consoles. Children nowadays don’t have the opportunity to experiment with programming on these expensive devices, and the emphasis in education seems to be on using software rather than developing and improving it. With a computer that doesn’t cost the majority of their parent’s best saving account, maybe children would be allowed to play and experiment a little bit more.

The idea to make a computer that could be a catalyst for getting more children interested in computer science and programming was born. Soon the Raspberry Pi foundation was setup, and six years later the first complete single-board computer is ready to be released. Making the computer versatile, including a wide range of functionality, and minimal costs were all weighed against each other during development, and the result truly is something to admire.

New Linux distribution just for the Pi

So now the credit card sized computer is ready for people to buy and use, Linux developers are giving the Pi the attention it deserves. Now the Raspberry Pi Foundation has tested the new distribution developed for their creation, and it has become the ‘recommended’ operating system for people using the Pi. Named the ‘Raspberry Pi Fedora Remix’, the new Linux distribution was designed by Chris Tyler, and was officially released on March 8^th.

The entire operating system comes as an SD memory card image. The Raspberry Pi doesn’t have a hard drive, and instead uses an SD card to boot from. The operating system provides both text-mode and graphical interfaces, and a whole range of applications to get would-be programmers up and running. Open source applications for web browsing, word processing, spreadsheets, and image editing are all included, as well as programming editors like vim, a text mode editor, and gedit with a plugin for python console, a graphical mode editor.

How things could change

It’s not just the new Raspberry Pi Linux distribution that can be used with the device. Other GNU/Linux systems, like Debian, Fedora and Arch Linux can all be used. So the Raspberry Pi is ready to change the way children interact with computers, but are the children ready? It’s tough to know exactly what sort of effect this new Raspberry Pi will have on the next generation of computer programmers, but it surely won’t have a negative one. The initial response from buyers has been positive, and the first batch of 2,000 sold like hot cakes. The government of one Middle Eastern country has already shown interest in buying a device for every schoolgirl in their country. Only time will tell whether the next generation of computer programmers and users will advocate Linux enough be able to challenge the hegemony of Windows on the desktop.