Chromium browser beta announced for Raspberry Pi

Chromium OS developer Hexxeh has announced the beta version of the Chromium browser for Raspberry Pi. A post on Hexxeh.net announces, “Chromium binaries are now available for you to download and try out. These will ONLY work on Raspbian images, if you're running Squeeze or anything that isn't hardfp, don't even think about it. Whilst it's not required, using the 224MB memory split, overclocking your Pi and using a fast USB stick or SD card for your root filesystem will improve your browsing experience. I've had the RaspberryPi.org blog frontpage load in as little as 5 seconds by combining all three of these.”

Chromium browser for Raspberry Pi

Raspberry Pi is a miniature-sized computer made available for pre-order for Indian users through the Element14 website for Rs. 2350. The pre-order went live in the beginning of March and the website has been flocked by visitors since. Soon after the announcement, the company was reported to be selling 700 units per second. This single-board computer has earlier faced several roadblocks in the form of shipping delays, production glitches, etc.

Recently, the makers of Raspberry Pi also took off the initial restriction on the purchase of a Raspberry Pi which allowed just one Raspberry Pi per customer owing to the high demand. An official post on the Raspberry Pi site revealed that both of the company's manufacturing partners have been working towards increasing capacities to be able to lift the limit. The post further said that about 4,000 Raspberry Pis are being made every day, and that one can now buy as many Raspberry Pis as one wants from both RS Components and element14/ Premier Farnell. The move will be highly beneficial to those who had been considering using Raspberry Pis in schools and universities. The post also added, "... if you’ve been waiting for the Raspberry Pi to be in general delivery before you order, now’s the time to get your order in; it helps us to plan the supply chain efficiently if we have a bit of visibility of what’s down the road."

The Raspberry Pi is incredibly compact and packs in a whole bunch of features. It’s powered by an ARM processor on a Broadcom BCM2835 SoC. It has a 700 MHz processor, 256 MB of RAM and the Video 4 GPU allows the device to handle full HD video playback and even 40 Mbps Blu-ray streams with ease. One of the two models has an Ethernet port and two USB ports, which means you can connect external drives and get it on the web.