[Live-demo] Teaching Spatial Programming - Raspberry Pi

[Cameron Shorter]

Jim,
I'm unfamiliar with ARM, and what impact it will have on us as software 
developers. Anything we need to know about?

On 1/06/2012 8:47 AM, Jim Klassen wrote:
> The other key spec to the Raspberry Pi is that it is ARM rather than x86 based.
>
> On May 31, 2012, at 16:12, Cameron Shorter<cameron.shorter at gmail.com>  wrote:
>
>> Hello all,
>> I've been asked whether OSGeo-Live would run on Raspberry Pi, to be used as a teaching device a.
>> Raspberry Pi is a $25 credit card size computer. It runs Debian and only has 256 Meg of RAM. http://www.raspberrypi.org
>>
>> I've CCed the OSGeo-Live email list, as I expect there will be many on the list with an interest, and probably a few opinions too.
>>
>> The challenge will be the size of RAM. Up to version 5.0, we ran OSGeo-Live with 512 Meg of RAM, but with version 5.5 we discovered that some of the Java applications required more RAM, and we recommend at least 768 Meg RAM, and preferably 1 Gig.
>> The problem will be all the java based applications, which are RAM intensive.
>>
>> You could potentially run OSGeo-Live, without invoking the java based applications and there are a C based applications for most, if not all the tasks you would likely to be teaching.
>> You could test this be running OSGeo-Live in a Virtual Machine, and limiting the size of the RAM in the Virtual Machine to 256 Meg of RAM.
>> You can see approximate RAM usage, and core language for many of our applications in the following spreadsheet:
>> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Al9zh8DjmU_RdGIzd0VLLTBpQVJuNVlHMlBWSDhKLXc#gid=13
>>
>> OSGeo-Live is based upon Xubuntu (which is a small version of Ubuntu), and I note from the faq that Ubuntu is not supported by Ubuntu. That might be a problem.
>> What you may need to do is start with a Debian Squeeze distribution, then execute the OSGeo-Live build process, probably with a few tweaks, to build a custom OSGeo-Live. In this process, you might also only select applications which will run within the 256 Meg limit.
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>> -- 
>> Cameron Shorter
>> Geospatial Solutions Manager
>> Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
>> Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254
>>
>> Think Globally, Fix Locally
>> Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source
>> http://www.lisasoft.com
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Live-demo mailing list
>> Live-demo at lists.osgeo.org
>> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/live-demo
>> http://live.osgeo.org
>> http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Live_GIS_Disc


-- 
Cameron Shorter
Geospatial Solutions Manager
Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254

Think Globally, Fix Locally
Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source
http://www.lisasoft.com