The holidays have been particularly jolly for the gang making Raspberry Pi, the tiny Linux-based PC that's going to cost just $25. If the reports coming from the site are to be believed, you could be able to buy one as early as next month.

Right before the holiday, the creators got a batch of circuit boards in for testing. The site says all the initial testing showed the boards to be performing "as solid as a rock," despite an issue with the power supply.

However, that problem was easily fixed via a red wire and a quick soldering job, and the team promises it won't appear in any future units. Once fixed, fired up and connected to a display, the prototype Pi appeared to effortlessly output a 1080p video through its HDMI port:

The final Raspberry Pi will come in two flavors: A $25 version with 128MB of RAM and no network connection and a $35 one with256MB and Ethernet. Both versions will have USB and HDMI ports as well as analog video and audio outputs. It's driven by a The 1080p video magic is driven by a 700MHz ARM processor, and the whole thing is powered by a 5-volt power supply.

The whole idea behind creating a small, decently powerful computer is to provide something cheap enough that anyone can afford — even kids in developing countries. The key is that it's also programmable, letting owners hack and modify the 1.4-ounce machine at will. Of course, if someone just wants to use it as cheap machine for everyday Web browsing and email, its ideally suited for that, too.

The site promises to auction off the recent crop of boards before Raspberry Pi goes on sale next month. Will you get one? What will you do with it? Let us know in the comments.

[via The Verge]