Fedora Remix Is the Official Linux Distro of Raspberry Pi

Recently, we've been covering the diminutive $25/$35 Raspberry Pi computer, and how the initial batch of 10,000 ARM-based devices sold out in seconds. The Raspberry Pi devices should spark the interest of any fan of Linux and if you're also interested in how low prices can go for a reasonably high-powered computer, you're probably already following the Raspberry Pi story. As we've reported, developers and tinkerers are putting numerous Linux distros on the devices, including Fedora, Debian and Arch Linux. Now, the Raspberry Pi team has confirmed that its official recommended Linux distro for the Raspberry Pi is Fedora Remix, and you can get the download and explanatory links here.

According to the Raspberry Pi announcement:

"The Remix is a distribution comprised of software packages from the Fedora ARM project, plus a small number of additional packages that are modified from the Fedora versions or which cannot be included in Fedora due to licensing issues – in particular, the libraries for accessing the VideoCore GPU on the Raspberry Pi. The SD card image for the Remix includes a little over 640 packages, providing both text-mode and graphical interfaces (LXDE/XFCE) with an assortment of programming languages, applications, system tools, and services for both environments."

The Raspberry Pi team has also broken out some of the applications you get with Fedora Remix:

• Programming languages: python, perl, ruby, bash
• Version control: git
• System administration tools (command line and/or graphical) for configuring various aspects of the system including the network, date/time, users, and printers
• Command-line and graphical tools for installing/removing/updating software
• ssh (secure remote login) and printer services
• Graphical applications: word processing (AbiWord), spreadsheets (Gnumeric), image editing (GIMP), and web browsing (Firefox)
• Editors for programming: vim (text mode) and gedit with plugins for file management, terminal, and python console (graphical mode)

It's quite clear that the Raspberry Pi with Fedora Remix won't simply be an underpowered, lacking device. It runs state-of-the-art applications. A standard Raspberry Pi device comes with a 700MHz ARM11, 256 MB RAM, SD card slot, Ethernet port, 2 USB ports, and an an HDMI connector. Video has already appeared online of it running advanced games and working smoothly with video.

Among other uses for it, some have speculated that Raspberry Pi may fill the gap that One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) couldn't quite fill, bringing computing to parts of the world where it has traditionally been unaffordable. It may fill that role because despite the fact that the OLPC team initially promised devices that would arrive for under $100, the prices ended up significantly higher.  This type of scenario hasn't been discussed much by the Raspberry Pi team, but the device has already drawn interest from educational system and technology industry leaders.

You can follow the news about the devices on Twitter and at the main web site.