The Raspberry Pi is back on track to start shipping, after the $40 (£22) ARM-based Linux computer completed all its certification tests.

"Good news! We just received confirmation that the Raspberry Pi has passed EMC [electromagnetic certification] testing without requiring any hardware modifications," the Raspberry Pi Foundation's spokeswoman Liz Upton wrote in a blog post on Friday.

At the end of March, it emerged that distributors RS Components and Element14/Premier Farnell were holding off selling the device until it had received the Conformité Européenne (CE) mark. Products sold on the mass market must carry the CE mark, to show their electromagnetic emissions are safe for ordinary users.

While the tests have been finished, the distributors must give their OK to them before the Raspberry Pi can go on sale.

"There is still a mountain of paperwork for us to sign, and that then has to be looked over by RS Components and Element14/Premier Farnell," Upton said. This should happen next week, the Raspberry Pi team said on Twitter.

The hand-sized computers, intended to get kids interested in programming, finished a week of testing in a Panasonic chamber in South Wales on Good Friday, according to Upton.

"We've used the time to make sure that alongside the CE requirements, the Raspberry Pi also complies with FCC regulations (USA) as well as CTick (Australia) and what we've been calling 'that Canadian thing'", Upton said.

One worry was that the certification would call for changes in the Raspberry Pi's hardware. Because of this, the factories making the Linux computers did not use the delay to build more devices, according to the foundation. Instead, they have "stockpiled components", it said on Twitter.

This story was originally published on ZDNetUK.