- What hardware documentation is available?

- I'm worried I have a fake Pi!

- How powerful is it?

- Can I use my Pi as a desktop replacement?

- Will it run the Windows 8 Arm edition?

- Will it run Android or Android Things?

- Will it run any old software?

- Can I share files from my Pi with my Windows machines?

- Why does cpuinfo report I have a bcm2835?

- Does it have an official programming language?

- Why is my Pi hot?

- I keep getting a lightning bolt symbol and messages about power...

- My SD card seems to have stopped working.

- I've imaged an SD card with Raspbian/NOOBS, but when I look at it with my Windows PC, it's not all there!

Don't worry, as far as we know, there are no fake Pis. The SoCs used on the Pi range are only available from one supplier, and only in large quantities, which together with the low price of the Pi means it's not cost-effective for clones to be made. There are a number of competitor products that use similar names, but not actual clones or fakes.

In general, you need to look to see whether the program you want can be compiled for the Armv6 (Pi 1/Zero/Zero W/CM), Armv7 (Pi 2) or Armv8 (Pi 3) architecture on Linux. In most cases, the answer will be yes. Specific programs are discussed on [our forums](https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/), so you might want to look there for an answer. Ultimately, nothing beats grabbing a Raspberry Pi and finding out the answer through direct testing!

Yes, there are a number of ways of doing this, and the most common is to use what are called Samba shares. We don't have any specific documentation on Samba shares in our official docs just yet, but [here](https://www.raspberrypi.org/magpi/samba-file-server/) is some from our magazine, [The MagPi](https://www.raspberrypi.org/magpi).

SD cards have a limited lifespan due to the way they work. Under most circumstances, they offer some years of use, but heavy file accessing, or using it as a swap drive, may reduce the SD card's lifespan considerably. Note that there are also fake capacity SD cards being sold that are likely to be unreliable.

This is to do with the capabilities of Windows to read Linux-formatted partitions. When you image the SD card, it is automatically split into multiple partitions. The first partition uses a format that Windows can read, but the other partitions use a Linux-specific file system, which Windows simply does not recognise. This means when you put an SD card in a Windows machine, it only displays the first partition, and may well say the other partitions are corrupted and need formatting - **do not format them**! Here's some information on what goes in that first [partition](./configuration/boot_folder.md). If you insert the SD card on a machine running Linux, it will display all the partitions correctly.