Re: Not surprised
"It's as strong as it needs to be for an educational/experimental system, and that's pretty strong."
This depends heavily on the goals you have in mind. If, as the original post suggests, it is meant to represent the power that Linux brings, there are several places where it really isn't there, especially for a nontechnical user. For example, put any nontechnical user in front of a Pi running a desktop environment and they'll quickly notice a few problems. For example, they might try to watch a video online using Firefox, something the cheapest of machines can do easily, and the Pi won't handle it. We as technical users familiar with the Pi understand that Firefox doesn't have hardware video acceleration support enabled by default, it doesn't work that well when turned on anyway, and that, if you want to use it, you have to use Chromium. The average user doesn't already know this and might well ask why that problem hasn't been fixed.
The Raspberry Pi is a great machine, and in comparison to the original comment's old processor, it is much more efficient. It must however be acknowledged that while what it does is more efficient, it also does less. Someone who used the resources of a desktop processor may find that the Pi's IoT-class SoC is not sufficient for their needs. Nobody expects to make an urgent cross-continent trip on a bicycle, and nobody expects to use a Pi for something processing-heavy.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
