Faster Raspberry Pi looks set to gain wider appeal

THE Raspberry Pi Foundation says its second-generation credit-card size computer Pi is six times faster than the original model.

The second generation Raspberry Pi computer.

THE Raspberry Pi Foundation says its second-generation Pi is six times faster than Pi mark 1. The Pi is a credit-card sized computer costing about $45 that is amazingly versatile.

The Raspberry Pi 2 B has a faster quad core processor, a 10/100 ethernet socket, and four USB 2.0 ports instead of two.

It not only runs the standard Raspbian operating system (a special version of Debian Linux) but also a developer version of Canonical’s Snappy Ubuntu Core. It will soon run a cut-down Windows 10 OS codenamed Athens — which has generated considerable excitement.

For this test I booted the Pi 1 and Pi 2 using the same Raspbian SD card, going straight to the graphical user interface. The Pi 2 took 29-31 seconds to boot, the original up to 51 seconds. I then fired up LibreOffice Writer from the GUI. It took 14-20 seconds to load on the old Pi, but just 4-7.5 seconds on Pi 2.

As you can see, I didn’t generally get nearly six times the speed. You’ll need software optimised for 4 cores for that. But it delivered a performance boost that’s enough to make common everyday use more comfortable.

On the old Pi, the web browser choked when loading heavily ­Java-scripted web pages. On the new Pi they loaded a lot faster — not as fast as on a PC, but quick enough for web surfing to be ­viable.

I used the standard Gmail interface without problems and Word in the cloud to write some documents in Office 365. It was like using a Chromebook.

It will be interesting to see how quickly Pi 2 runs with Windows 10 and Ubuntu. That will enhance its appeal to the general public.

In Raspbian, some basic configuration can be a pain. I initially booted having chosen British ­English and had to change to US English to get keyboard keys mapped correctly. It wasn’t immediately obvious how to do this. Likewise I had to alter a text configuration file to get 1080p screen resolution.

The OS needs to be easy to use to capture wide public appeal.

The Raspberry Pi is really designed to teach kids programming, and to help them build robots and other gadgetry, but with this power bump, Pi 2 looks destined for wider appeal.

Price: $45
Rating: 8.5/10