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Re: Debian on RP 3





On Tue, Sep 20, 2016 at 11:27 PM, Jonas Smedegaard <dr@jones.dk> wrote:
Quoting Faheem Mitha (2016-09-20 18:30:48)
> On Tue, 20 Sep 2016, yogesh powar wrote:
> > Friend of mine and I would like to donate some of our
> > effort/money/time providing computers at a primary school in a
> > village in Goa.
>
> > We were thinking of having Raspberry Pi -3 with Input/Output
> > devices. But software/OS, we were thinking of having Gnu/Linux.
[...]
> Raspberry Pis are useless machines as computers. IMO their main
> advantage is that they are small. You'd be better off buying second
> hand computers, I think.

It would help if you could expand a bit what you have in mind with
"Input/Output devices".  If you mean hooking up multiple screens and
multiple keyboards/mice to a single computer then I agree you will
likely not get very far with tinker-grade ARM-based devices.
All right. Here is what I had in mind. A SBC with a small screen (15-16') mostly VGA
,as they bring down the setup cost, a single keyboard/mouse.

With SBC cost around 5k Rupees
Screen 4k R
Keyboar/Mouse/USB-stick 1k R
Misc (case/power adapters) 1k R

So Ideally to get a fully operational computer it would cost around 10-11k Rupees.

I think, it could be a good starting point for the kids who have never seen/used
computer in their lives.

From the links you shared, whatever I have gone through so far, I think
OLinuXino A20 MICRO seems like a good option. Most of the points
are already capture by you in so-many-email-links. From my need one major
good point is it has "VGA".

If you know any vendor in India who can get us this devices, say 5-10 of them,
then that would be great.

Thanks
Yogesh


...but be cautious also about how to involve second-hand computers: They
might be cheap to _acquire_, but depending on how you plan to _help_
others, the true price also includes maintenance cost - both money for
spare parts, time spent replacing parts, and time lost due to systems
being down while being fixed!

I certainly find it relevant to consider second-hand options -
sustainable computing has been my main interest for 10-15 years! - just
beware of that common trap of thinking that used = cheap.  There's more
to the equation than that, and since you wanna do it not for yourself
but for others, _they_ get bitten (not you) if you calculate wrong.

I wish you the best of luck - sounds like an exciting challenge!


 - Jonas

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 * Jonas Smedegaard - idealist & Internet-arkitekt
 * Tlf.: +45 40843136  Website: http://dr.jones.dk/

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