Yesterday I ordered my first Raspberry Pi. I say my first because ever since I discovered this cute little invention I said I'd (and I intend to) buy two. But for the time being, and also with the idea in mind of running some tests to see how it works and how many things I can do with it, I just bought one.
It is going to be powered by debian. I read there is a debian derivative called Raspbian which was especially designed to work with the RasPi. So I'll have to give it a try. Besides it is the recommended operating system by the Raspberry Pi Foundation.
But to tell you the truth, even though Raspbian might be ok to begin with, I will replace it by a pure debian installation. I do not need the graphical interface provided by Raspbian. I just need a basic debian system with some servers installed.
I intend to use the little RasPi as a micro server of several things, gopher, http, an irc bouncer... but who knows? I still need to see how far one can get with such a tiny machine. To begin with its low power consumption makes it ideal to run 24/7.
The downside is that it costs a little bit more than expected (even though this should be expected) It costs 27€ but once you have paid for the case, the power supply and the expenses you need to spend 52€ (more than that if you have to buy some extra stuff like cables, memory card...) but well, I think it is worth it. The worst thing is having to wait for 13 weeks until the order is processed plus one more week (own estimation) to arrive home.
Note: I'll publish some pictures when I finally get it.