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University of Cambridge Offers Free Online Raspberry Pi Course
Barence writes "The University of Cambridge has released a free 12-step online course on building a basic operating system for the Raspberry Pi. The course, Baking Pi — Operating Systems Development, was compiled by student Alex Chadwick during a summer interning in the school's computer lab, and has been put online to help this year's new recruits start work with the device. The university has already purchased a Raspberry Pi for every new Computer Science student starting in 2012."
Wish I had got a free computer when I went to university there. They should buy all their ex-compsci-students one as well, IMO.
Free PC + £100 of mouse/keyboard/SD/monitor is a lot cheaper than a full PC. However I suspect that most development will be done on a main PC cross-compiling to the device.
And this hardware will provide a baseline computing platform to teach upon.
When even the cheapest 100-quid-in-Tesco LCD TVs have a couple of HDMI ports and USB mice and keyboards cost less than a fiver each, it's not really an issue. That's sort of the whole point.
If you haven't got a TV, don't go to the pub this weekend and buy a TV instead for your Raspberry Pi.
When will it start this course?
And actually get it delivered to you? I ordered mine back in mid June, and I'm STILL waiting for it.
Latest ETA was late September.
I think it's a miniature course in elements of systems programming rather than a tutorial on writing an operating system in the modern sense.
It worries me that something as simple as a Raspberry Pi is offered to all Cambridge undergrads, though. This is supposed to be the best university in the country - why are there people being admitted to its courses who aren't already playing with stuff like this in their spare time as kids?
Seriously. Though, it might be more tolerable to hear it about it 30 times a day if it didn't have such an awful name.
I received my Raspberry Pi last week so I'm getting a kick out of your misery.
No sig today...
.... *(mouse, keyboard and large HDMI LCD panel for your room not included)
Also not included: electricity to run the LCD panel, a room to put it in, food and drink to nourish yourself while using the Pi, room heating, toilet paper, organic fair trade coffee with unlimited free refills, jumbo size jar of dill pickles, free haircut, health insurance, manicure, or personal trainer.
Seriously though, if you're being given a free thing, it's a little churlish to complain that you're not being given more free things. Anyone who doesn't want their RasPi can probably sell it to a fellow student who wants an extra one...
Yeah, a fine return on the £3000/term it's costing you to be there.
The Raspberry Pi was designed so it can be used with old CRT monitors which you can get for free in many places
Is money even a minor consideration when one can afford to go to Cambridge?
WTF, you spend 100 GBP at the pub in a *weekend*.
Dude, god help your liver...
Yep, you are the only one...on here.
Can you go over to that counter to your right and hand in your geek card please. And watch your step on the way out the door, there is a bit of a drop.
will buy you a carp low end dell for FREE** real cost is lumped into the all the fees we have and most people don't even want it as they have better ones.
The fees at UK universities, for domestic students at least, are all capped to the same level.
That cap just recently tripled, but until then it was a very reasonable £3000ish per year. Anyway, point is, Cambridge is no more expensive than anywhere else in the UK.
I went there, studied Computer Science, and apparently graduated just in time to not get a Raspberry Pi. That said, having seen the setup with the practical labs, I wouldn't be surprised at all if the CS department were in fact buying in RPi's for students to use for a term or two and then give back for the following year to use, rather than for students as a free gift. We had the same deal with some FPGAs.
Seconded -- I was there in 1998-2002 for a physics degree, and paid about £1000 per year, plus living expenses. As a EU citizen I paid the same as the locals, it was much higher for those outside EU.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Not really, as it does not have a VGA connector.
Today you can get an lcd with an hdmi input and speakers, a keyboard, and a mouse for $100 usd, so I'd say he's close enough. ;)
You're not being retro enough. It has a composite out! I had CRT monitors that worked with composite feeds.
He's probably from oop-norf. They have a different type of organ to the liver up there.
Yeah - it's worth at least 4 pints second hand!
Neckbeard territory here. It's terribly expensive. I got a grant and paid sod all back in the day for which I am very grateful. If we didn't piss 9.3x10^9 quid up the wall on the festival of running, jumping and getting missiles pointed at us, then quite a few more people would have an education in a few more years...
My only regret is that I should have done medicine instead of EE as I hate the software industry as a whole.
Finally, a 12 step program you might actually complete successfully.
Others said it's £9000/year (which the government loans at close to interest-free, that you don't pay back until you have an OK job, and doesn't appear on your credit rating).
Students from outside the EU would have to pay £24,800/year, plus spend approximately £8000/year on living expenses, to study at Cambridge.
Since (almost) all UK/EU students can get loans and/or grants from their governments, I think support from the university or its alumni is less common than in the USA -- but I don't really know, and could be very wrong.
This explains why I can't seem to get one. I have been waiting for my pi for months, and I was on the waiting list for months before that. I just got an email the other day that said they couldn't produce enough of the devices and my order would be delayed *again*. I bet I won't see one until 2013.
I think the course is great. After the initial excitement of getting my Pi up and running (to the point of doing a Google search) this little board has been sitting around on my desk for a few weeks gathering dust. Finding out that the little LED labelled "OK" on the Pi's PCB is hooked up to the GPIO and can be turned on/off with a few lines of assembly language is exciting news! Browsing through the pages of this online course... 10/10 to the author for an ace job at tutorial writing. You end up compiling to a new kernel.img that you copy over to the SD card. Plug it in, turn it on and it boots into your assembly. Somehow not as super-human feeling as directly controlling a 286 with Turbo Assembler back in the teenage years but certainly the most excited I've been in a long time. My only prayer is that those pimply faced youths appreciate just how awesome it is to be controlling a piece of sand to make some gallium arsenide pump out bursts of photons are regular intervals. The tutorial goes as far as describing and working with the message API to control the display driver. Gives a great overview of how the system works at a low level. Fantastic.
If only mate, there's probably more of us than they've made yet. Wouldn't mind one though...
Okay, you got me.
Don't go to the pub this *weeknight*.
Nahh it's just you lot Daarrnn Saaarrfff are all lightweights..
I like trains.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Some people in the pubs here can drink so much, I can't even drink that many soft drinks trying to keep up.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
I don't have a TV and I still get harassed over it.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
But we can afford spirits down here so that doesn't count.
I've ordered 3 from Farnell and had them delivered within 3 days of placing the order.
If you're waiting for an RS order, it can't hurt to buy from Farnell and cancel your RS order if it arrives first. If your RS order beats the farnell one, you have the right to return it within 7 days.
100 GBP at the pub is just a couple of glasses of good whisky! Expensive hobby, but worth it!
This is blinging
Folk keep harping on the price of the extra stuff like a laptop, keyboard, mouse, display.
For "Operating Systems Development" the RasPI is ideal. You cannot do OS development
on your own laptop. Some can be done under qemu but nothing is equal to real hardware.
OS development is like working on cars. You need a second car to go get parts
if you are doing anything other than a trivial repair. Microsoft and Apple do not give
out the keys to their walled garden so they exclude themselves. There are so many
other hardware platforms that no class could address all the N! permutations of devices
and stuff. Replace the head gasket on your car tonight if you want a lesson in auto mechanics that
makes this point.
The RasPI is small, inexpensive and ideal for education.
It can be connected to a laptop via an ethernet link and powered from that
same laptop or a wall wart. Reload the SD card as needed when something
is broken.
Homework... pickup and then hand in an SD memory card... All students are pointed to
the same base code image....
REMEMBER: OS design... like working on cars. You need a second car to go get parts
if you are doing anything other than a trivial repair.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.