[squarefoot]

Too little, too late, too expensive. With the RP2040 they showed the world that they can still make very interesting products that fill the low footprint and low cost niche, but the battle for cheap and powerful Linux boards in my opinion is lost; the competition already won in that field and today is years ahead.

[galangalalgol]

Mosern microcontrollers are extremely capable, I agree. But they aren't running a recognizable OS yet. It seems like the only thing holding them back is the ram size generally. The processors on these things obliterate my first linux machine. Is there a reason we have the offerings we do? A kiosk could absolutely be run on a rp2040 if it had more memory.

[idkyall]

Probably from the RPI perspective it's just due to product segmentation. The Pi Zero 2 W is ~$15, has 512mb ram, and runs full linux with wireless compatibility, video output, etc. Easier to up-sell you on that rather than try to bridge the gap with a $10 product between the two.

I think the Pico/RP2040 works great for most basic electronics projects, and honestly you can get surprisingly far with its processor, up to even basic 3d graphics.[1]

[1] https://sites.google.com/site/tedrossin/home/electronics/ras...

[ianburrell]

The RP2040 doesn't have an MMU so it can't run full OS. The RP2040 is also really slow, 133MHz. The RP2040 doesn't have a display connector.

If you want to run kiosk, Pi Zero is a much better choice. It already has all that stuff. It is $10 vs $4. It runs normal OS.