Eric, I'm writing this from the Raspberry Pi on our TV via HDMI. Boy that makes a big monitor! I'm used to a laptop and this is a 32" screen. Resolution is amazing via HDMI. Not quite the same league as the old TRS-80 days when you hooked up to your TV via an RF converter and got a fuzzy 16 x 64 characters! Yet this thing is the size of a pack of playing cards, and cost about $30.
I'm running Raspbian, a version of Debian Linux specifically tailored for the Raspberry Pi (mine is a B+ model). There aren't many applications that come bundled with it, and I have some favorites so I first installed Synaptic (an application program downloader that works with the Debian repositories), and with that installed Iceape (Seamonkey/Mozilla browser suite), Libre Office Suite, MtPaint, GIMP, and Libre CAD. I also added NoScript to Seamonkey to block web script junk, and deleted Google as the search engine and replaced it with Ixquick.
For getting started with these little boards, you need a fast SD card (micro for the B+ model) of 8 gigs or more ( I bought a 10x speed 16 gig -- $13) and this is actually essential, since the OS goes here, and must be downloaded separately (used my laptop) or the board won't boot.
You also need a video cable, a USB keyboard and mouse (can be IR with a dongle -- mine is). I happened to have an old USB wireless dongle also, and that worked out of the box to connect to my network. There's also an ethernet port on the board for a hard wired network connection. I had all the stuff I needed on hand already, except for the video cable and SD card, so it was all pretty easy. Oh yes, a 5V USB type power supply of 1 amp or greater capacity to help power the USB ports as well as the board ( I have a 2A supply).
Unfortuntately, from my reading, WINE won't work on the Raspberry Pi to run Windows programs on a linux platform, as it will on my notebook computer. This is beacuse the RPi has an ARM v6 processor, which has a different instruction set than the typical Intel x86 Windows machine. So both WINE and the applications would have to be re-compiled (or run on an emulated processor) -- neither of those are mean feats, and the performance hit would be substantial, probably. Thus I can't run Sketchup (CAD) -- the only reason I have to run a Windows program. But a very important one for me in a work computer.
But of course this isn't a work computer, really, and for everything else I can think of re. productivity or entertainment it would actually be fine! Which is remarkable for a $30 device. The screen is really beautiful -- easy on the eyes with a big monitor at high resolution. With 4 USB ports on board you could add a portable terrabyte drive, or a bluray drive or both. If you hook a powered USB hub, it would supply power to both the board and additional USB ports -- if you needed them.
I think this might just end up being a family computer in the living room! Well if it doesn't end up in a dedicated CNC box!. Heck, we could get another one for $30 and do both!
Well I am very impressed -- it's a lot better than I expected -- everything just worked great on installation, and the graphics are excellent. This is designed as an educational computer, but it isn't just for kids. It's a pretty decent desktop computer, to be honest.
Okay, back to the CNC topic:
Probably I'll next download a VNC server. This will allow another computer to view the RPi's desktop and run mouse and keyboard. In other words, allow it to run headless. This is what the setup referenced in the first post uses. The RPi thus doesn't need a keyboard, mouse, or screen -- it is operated by a remote computer (or tablet) running a VNC client, over the network.
So the next stage would be testing the VNC capability. I don't anticipate problems, since I've done this before.