PI Raspberry, Banana or Orange & more

A real computer based on the same technologies that powers your phones or tablets. With one of the PI boards you can run a Linux server or desktop operating systems and that's a game change.

Their power comes from a tiny size and less than 10 watts consumed.

One can run a WEB server for SOHO needs, still have a better speed than a lot of today shared infrastructure hosting solutions.

Wheel can be used with a graphical desktop interface, their speed does not match any expectation unless you run an Android OS.

The best option for one PI is to be used as a server for whatever service you may want. For usual demands it will do the right job at a fraction of the standard infrastructure PC's cost. Do not forget that any service can scale using more devices at once. A four core ARM A7 at 1.2 GHz can do a lot, believe me.

Many  to chose from, some are open source. Raspberry announced 5M boards sold till last year.

Prices vary with producer and delivered power. Starting from ~ 12USD up to 100USD depending on features and specialisation.

For almost the same configuration the Raspberry PI board has almost double price than Orange PI, on the other side if you will need to use the board GPIO with some sensors the Raspberry comes with better technical support, generally all these development boards offer GPIO pins.

The biggest: I have liked the R1 board from Banana PI just because it can be used as a Linux WiFi router. The R1 can fit a 2.5 hard-drive. You can buy one with all accessories for around 80USD from aliexpres.com.

The tiniest found model is Nano Pi Neo from FRIENDLYARM, cost only 10USD for a quad core and 512Mb RAM (you will need a power adapter and a TTL to RS232 display adapter to start using it)

While all these boards can be used with sensors to build automation for your house or offices, first I would like to show you how to set-up some basic services for your home or small offices with benefits from greenest
available technology (remember max 10 watts per server device).

Next post will talk about a WEB SERVER optimized for Pi boards.