linux

RHEL source code is freely available under the GPL (GNU General Public License) for those who want to compile it themselves, but the actual finished product costs money. Yes, there is CentOS, a free-to-download clone of RHEL compiled from the source code by CentOS developers. But Red Hat charges a premium for RHEL because it's (theoretically) guaranteed to work—Red Hat and third-party software vendors make sure that applications running on RHEL are not broken when the operating system is updated.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation announced this week that its $35 Linux computer has entered the manufacturing stage. The system, which is an open board with a 700MHz ARM11 CPU and 256MB of RAM, could be available for sale within a matter of weeks.

Raspberry Pi intends to offer two separate models with different hardware specifications. The initial manufacturing run is focused on the "B" model, which is the higher-end $35 configuration. They will follow it up with an "A" model for $25 that will have half as much memory and lack hardware features like an ethernet controller.