Live Chat Recap with $99 Linux Supercomputer’s Andreas Olofsson

Adapteva plans to release the first batch of its $99 Parallella boards on April 15. That means the company is less than two weeks away from fulfilling its promise of making parallel computing affordable and accessible for everyone. And along with the credit-card-sized computer, CEO Andreas Olofsson hopes to see the creation of an abundance of parallel software applications.

This is the message Andreas (@adapteva) brought to the Linux community in his recent live Twitter chat with The Linux Foundation. Below are some of the highlights from the chat. Have a question he doesn’t answer here? He’ll be on hand at Collaboration Summit April 15-17 where he’ll give a keynote talk on the impact of open hardware platforms and to show off the first Parallella boards coming off the assembly line. 

Here, he calls parallel computing “the only practical path to scaling”; explains why his project uses Linux; presents some common use cases for the Parallella; and describes how the Linux community can get involved.

@linuxfoundation Serial processing has hit a brick wall and the onlypractical path to scaling is through parallel processing. #LiveLinuxQA

— Andreas Olofsson (@adapteva) March 28, 2013

.@linuxfoundation Simply because Linux rocks! For a startup company like Adapteva there is really no other practical choice. #LiveLinuxQA

— Andreas Olofsson (@adapteva) March 28, 2013

@linuxfoundation We run Linux (Ubuntu 12.04 desktop version) on the dual core ARM A9 processor on the Parallella board. #LiveLinuxQA

— Andreas Olofsson (@adapteva) March 28, 2013

@linuxfoundation Most common Parallella apps include machine vision, robotics, drones, software defined radio, rendering,.. #LiveLinuxQA

— Andreas Olofsson (@adapteva) March 28, 2013

@linuxfoundation ..also media centers, BOINC, SETI, neural networks, bit-coin mining. #LiveLinuxQA

— Andreas Olofsson (@adapteva) March 28, 2013

@linuxfoundation Some folks want to send the Parallella into space on a CubeSat which we think is pretty cool.#LiveLinuxQA

— Andreas Olofsson (@adapteva) March 28, 2013

@adapteva A Linux supercomputer in space, neat! So how can the #Linux & #OpenSource communities help the Parallella project? #LiveLinuxQA

— The Linux Foundation (@linuxfoundation) March 28, 2013

@linuxfoundation We hope the #OpenSource community will create great applications for the Parallella and passing it forward. #LiveLinuxQA

— Andreas Olofsson (@adapteva) March 28, 2013