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If you bought 10 Raspberry Pi's, could they be linked together to work as one computer?

10 Raspberry Pi's, 2560 mb ram, $350

Or would it not work?

Usage: As a desktop PC. Not lab work etc.

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You'll have to be more specific. What task will they be performing? See Distributed Computing – styfle Jan 5 at 22:13
Look up cluster computing. :) – Tom Wijsman Jan 5 at 22:13
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It will not work the way you are hoping it will work. – Zoredache Jan 5 at 22:14
@Zoredache: Depends on what he wants to do with it. Interactive power will most likely be a problem, but for computational and storage purposes it could work well. Yet, people mostly build way more efficient custom solutions for what they explicitly want to do with the cluster when no software exists with the same purpose. It most likely doesn't make your browser or games run faster... :) – Tom Wijsman Jan 5 at 22:29
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@TomWijsman, I know, I was just giving the really short answer since I been asked and answered this many times... Most people asking this are asking if they can some how mash a bunch of systems together somehow and make it appear as a single system they can run the standard consumer operating systems and software on. – Zoredache Jan 5 at 22:58
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Yes & no. You can build "clusters" which can run on several independent devices to work together to solve 1 problem... but you can't simply chain them together and end up with a 10x more powerful computer.

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Indeed, there are still mutual condition, switching and communication overheads. – Tom Wijsman Jan 5 at 22:15
So called "close-coupled clusters", of which Beowolf was the earliest example do function as a single, multiple CPU computer. Certainly the usual overheads apply, but they are distinct from the more common loosely couple clusters. – dmckee Jan 5 at 22:15
CalcUA lists the software used for operating systems and for scheduling. It's a Beowulf-like system at our university which serves a lot of computation power, it's the most powerful super computer of Belgium and is in the top 500 world wide. They use the TORQUE Resource Manager, which seems to be open-source... – Tom Wijsman Jan 5 at 22:24
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