How practical is it to use a raspberry pi for a POS system? I'm in a small country where bring in a large quantity of POS system will cost too much. Was wondering if i can replace the current motherboard system of the outdated POS with a Raspberry pi and install windows xp.
asked Jul 1, 2016 at 0:33
-
You may be able to get it to replace your existing system, but you can not install Windows XP, nor should you as it is no longer supported.– Steve RobillardCommented Jul 1, 2016 at 0:38
-
Can you add pictures of the current POS system (hard- and software) to imgur.com and add the link to your question?– ott--Commented Jul 31, 2016 at 19:41
Add a comment
|
4 Answers
By POS I assume you mean Point of Sale System. There's no reason that you can't use the Raspberry Pi as a point of sale system, but you'd probably need to write such system yourself.
While it is a full fledged computer, there are some fundamental differences between the RPi and a standard desktop computer. The primary difference that will cause you problems is the architecture type. I went into some more detail about that on our blog.
In summary, programs compiled for a standard desktop or server system won't work on the RPi. You'll need a binary specifically compiled for the it. If you can find an open source system that you can compile yourself, or there's one in the repositories already, you're golden.
You certainly can use the RPI as a POS, and there are projects like Odoo (an open source ERP system) that do exactly that.
With the 7'' touch screen that was designed for the RPI, you could even have a nice touch screen interface for your POS at the cost of ~USD 120/seat for the RPI with the screen.
However, if your POS software is Windows only, than you are unlikely to benefit from the RPI for this deployment.
Try IotPOS: https://github.com/hiramvillarreal/iotpos
I am the developer and have been using it more than 2 years at grocery stores and restaurants.
ViewTouch offers Point of Sale on the Raspberry Pi under the GPL, also known as the Free Software License. Visit http://www.viewtouch.com for all the details.
-
Welcome to Raspberry Pi! Please take the tour and visit the helpcenter to see how things work here. Note that your answer sounds heavily like an advert (while it does not try to sell something - it's free software. It would also be advisable to provide some information whether it runs on the Pi's ARM-based architecture. Also: full disclosure of your affiliation (if there is any) is required.– Ghanima ♦Commented Dec 1, 2016 at 12:34
-
Yes, ViewTouch runs on the Raspberry Pi. I had actually already said this. This is the GitHub link for ViewTouch. Disclosure: I am the person who holds the copyright on ViewTouch and who has been providing the financial resources for developing it from the day I first created it in 1978. There is a button on the ViewTouch touchscreen desktop which generates a new set of binary files from the sourcecode at GitHub. Commented Aug 10, 2018 at 8:24