Im still a little lost...

[Josh]

On your blog you said something about parts list, then you posted an edit.
Now I\'m all confused.

When we buy the first 10k, will we need to put them together, or will they be pre-built boards with no OSes on them?!

[liz]

Prebuilt boards. You can either buy an SD card from us with an OS on, or make your own SD card for free by downloading a torrent from us.

[AdRiley]

[quote]Quote from liz on November 2, 2011, 20:56
make your own SD card[/quote]

So I\'ll be able to assemble my own SD card? Do I need any special tools?

I\'m sorry I couldn\'t resist...

Liz - You are doing a great job of dealing with the confusion. You have more patience than I would have.

[Josh]

Oh goody!
So, will these boards still be sold on the November/December date?

[johnbeetem]

[quote]Quote from AdRiley on November 2, 2011, 21:01
So I\'ll be able to assemble my own SD card? Do I need any special tools?
I\'m sorry I couldn\'t resist... [/quote]

Actually, I think I saw an article in Elektor a while back on turning an ordinary toaster oven into an SMT solder reflow oven. With a lot of practice and about 1,000 RasPi boards for testing, you might even be able to get double-digit yields

Fine-pitch BGAs like the RasPi POP are very hard to get right, and you normally need a very expensive reflow oven and a lot of know-how and practice to get the temperature profile right. Generally you need specialists who use words like \"eutectic\" and know how to read an X-ray to see if the solder balls have reflowed correctly.

OTOH, I\'ve heard of people bringing dead BGA-based game machine boards back to life by hitting the BGA with a heat gun to reflow the solder. Game machines thermal cycle a lot and the BGA solder balls don\'t like that -- solder balls crack instead of bending like gull wing pins. Of course, you only try this with a board that is \"mostly dead\" since you are likely to make it \"dead dead\".

[TLA Guide: SMT = Surface Mount Technology, BGA = Ball Grid Array, POP = Package On Package, TLA = Three-Letter Acronym]

[raffy]

I am lost, too, trying to find (for download) the GPU binary used for booting the RaspberryPi.

[Skygod]

[quote]Quote from johnbeetem on November 2, 2011, 22:12
Actually, I think I saw an article in Elektor a while back on turning an ordinary toaster oven into an SMT solder reflow oven.
[/quote]

This article?

http://www.instructables.com/id/Toaster ... /?ALLSTEPS
[img]http://www.raspberrypi.org/wp-content/u ... timer1.jpg[/img]

I like the instruction on this one though

[img]http://www.embedds.com/wp-content/uploa ... roller.jpg[/img]

[Michael]

[quote]Quote from raffy on November 6, 2011, 00:18
I am lost, too, trying to find (for download) the GPU binary used for booting the RaspberryPi.[/quote]

Well the Raspberry Pi board isn\'t launched yet so the software distributions aren\'t generally available yet. However, you\'ll find instructions for downloading the Debian default distribution for the Alpha boards, instructions for getting the Meego Mer work in progress up and running, and instructions for building the stock kernel here:

http://wiki.meego.com/User:Vgrade#Raspberry_Pi

There are details of other distributions, including some slightly out-of-date information about RISC OS and Fedora on this wiki page:

http://elinux.org/RaspberryPiBoardDistributions

[jamesh]

[quote]Quote from raffy on November 6, 2011, 00:18
I am lost, too, trying to find (for download) the GPU binary used for booting the RaspberryPi.[/quote]

Not sure what you are trying to do. If you have a Raspi prototype you should already have all you need to run it. If you don\'t then you have no need for the GPU binary.

So what do you need the binary for?

[raffy]

[quote]So what do you need the binary for?[/quote]
Just trying to gather information about the essential software for the R-Pi for distro development. But if that binary is embedded in hardware, then you\'re right, no need to keep looking.

[jamesh]

Just assume it\'s a pretty standard Arm distro release. Can\'t go far wrong. Couple of files to add and a kernel boot line to configure once its all finalised.