Raspberry PI

[Perpetual Man]

Sorry if this has been mentioned elsewhere, but I had a quick scan of the threads...

I've just treated myself to one of these mini computers, The Raspberry PI.

I've only had a little play with it so far, but have been quite impressed with what I have seen.

Has anyone else got one?

Any thoughts?

 

[jastius]

I wanted to get one but the website was very confusing as to what you require for it and so on..

 

[Perpetual Man]

All I have is the actual board - the Raspberry PI itself - I got a box to put it in, but that is a bonus, a HDMI cable, a USB wired keyboard and a mouse. The system comes with two USB ports, so a small USB hub might be useful, and a power connector.

I had the keyboard, the mouse and a kindle or standard android cellphone connects to the power socket, and a hub and technically I had a HDMI cable, but bought a new one because I could not be bothered to unplug the existing ones from the television!

It can be plugged into anything that has an HDMI socket and seems happy working like that.

It is also recommended that to begin with you use a wired internet connection, but due to the horrendous broadband in our area I would have done that anyway.

 

[Moonbat]

I have a raspberry pi, right now it is connected to my TV downstairs and is being used as a media centre through XBMC.

I've had it since March and I love it. I built myself a case out of (guess what!) Lego

I spent a few weeks trying it out upstairs, connected to a monitor and writing a few python programs on it. Also I had to learn to use Linux, but it wasn't too bad (not that I've learned much)

It really is an amazing bit of kit for about £30, a Computer on a chip. I have had trouble getting the wireless to work so I've now wired it in downstairs (I had to get another switch - Sonia didn't like cables everywhere) it works well and I can surf on it and watch youtube vids and stuff. I'll try and spend more time exploring the XBMC to see if I can get better stuff, but generally I just love it.

I might, if time and money permit, try and get into the robotics side of things, but at the moment I have enough hobbies.

 

[Lenny]

I'd love to have one (or even just an Arduino board). I don't, though, because I don't know what I'd with it. There are plenty of articles on sites like Lifehacker, with tutorials and ideas, but none of them really interest me.

Let us know what you do with it, Perp!

---

EDIT: Moonbat's post reminds me of a friend who connected a robotic arm to his Pi: http://mattdyson.org/projects/robotarm/

 

[Perpetual Man]

That's pretty cool, don't think I'll be doing anything like that though!

I have been challenged to see if I can download stuff from newsgroups so I'm trying to do that - although being able to spend only a few minutes a night on it at the moment is annoying!

 

[J Riff]

Cant help but notice that the U of Southhampton has a superRaspberry, 64 of 'em linked up - inside a lovely Lego case.

 

[PTeppic]

Cant help but notice that the U of Southhampton has a superRaspberry, 64 of 'em linked up - inside a lovely Lego case.

Wonder if they're going to call this multi-core device the "punnet".

 

[Glitch]

I picked one up a few months ago. Got the XBMC media centre working along with wi-fi, bluetooth and a pi face. Even installed Minecraft for my nephew to play with. Must admit it's now sat under the TV doing nothing.

I wanted to get one but the website was very confusing as to what you require for it and so on..

Maplin have a starter kit containing all the bits - Raspberry Pi Board and Starter Kit : Raspberry Pi : Maplin Electronics

Here's a list of what I think you need.

• Raspberry Pi (Ideally the Model B)
• A power supply (Depending on your mobile, the charger might work)
• SD Card (Min 2GB, rec 4GB+)
• HDMI cable
• USB Keyboard
• Network cable
• TV or Monitor with HDMI input

Here's the optional list

• Case
• USB Mouse
• Powered USB Hub (If you want more than two devices, esp if the take power from USB)
• USB Wi-fi dongle
• USB Hard drive for mass storage

 

[Perpetual Man]

I thought I'd report in on this.

It has taken a little longer than I hoped, what with personal life getting in the way of things I just pushed the Raspberry aside and continued using the PC.

But I've spent the last few days playing with it again, and now have it working quite happily. (I am, in fact, typing this post on the PI at the moment).

As it stands the Raspberry is connected to the spare television in the dining room (this is where my PC normally is, so it's not much different.)

I've connected a USB hub, increasing the number of ports by three, although you more none powered stuff you have plugged in the slower the PI slows.

I have a Microsoft USB Digital Media Pro keyboard, which seem to be happy enough, but of course none of the extra media keys work (yet).

I'm using a Logitech wireless mouse. This was not my first choice as I would have preferred something wired, but it was the only thing I had at hand at the time (all my old mice were not USB) but it seems to be working quite happily.

I've also got connected a powered USB hardrive (about 30GB)

It is running on the Raspbian O/s which is based on Debian , the desktop is easy enough to use.

To access the internet it is connected by cable as opposed to wireless - it just seemed more reliable, especially with my pathetic internet speed.

I'm using Chromium to access the web, it basically Chrome for the Pi.

IceDove is my mail client - this is just Thunderbird again for Linux/Pi

And in order to do any writing I've installed Libre Office which is a free Office suite, which like a few others can access and work with various document types, including Microsoft .doc, but steals a march by being able to open and save .docx files and .pub files

As mentioned above I was challenged to download material from the newsgroups and I have succeeded. None of the programs I was familiar with worked, but I have learned about SABnzbd+ which runs quite nicely, and in some ways more efficiently than some other programs. By using a standard search for nzb files the SABnzbd+ program keeps an eye on the download folder, within 20 seconds of a new file being downloaded it opens it, stores it onto the external hard disk and downloads all associated files, then puts them together, then stores the completed article in a separate folder.

So pretty much a success.

As it stands I have a PI that could, according to theory do most of what I need it to on a basic level.

I can indirectly access my skydrive account, so I have access to documents without storing them on the memory card should I need them.

It is a bit slower than the PC, but then I'm not expecting much else, typing this though has been no different to being on the PC, any errors are down to my typing

I think I'm going to try and follow in MB's example and look into using it as a media centre...

 

[Moonbat]

Wow Perp, I'm impressed. To be honest mine is now hanging in its Lego Case upstairs in my office. I bought a WD Live Media player so that I could get Netflix, and that is now downstairs. The Pi was just too slow for my fast paced (read impatient) lifestyle.

I'm hoping that in the future I can use it to host a family cloud server, although I might use an old PC as it'd probably be quicker, but it is still a cool piece of kit and who knows what use for it I'll find in the future.

 

[bomerr]

Honestly I think it's great for hardcore techies but I don't see it really hitting the mainstream. What can you do on it that you can't do on a hacked xbox or playstation?

 

[Perpetual Man]

Honestly I think it's great for hardcore techies but I don't see it really hitting the mainstream. What can you do on it that you can't do on a hacked xbox or playstation?

This is a good point (putting aside the legality of hacking anything). The thing is it can be done and they probably run faster.

The one thing I have noticed is that the PI is incredibly slow, although not in comparison to my first PC - although I can't remember how slow it was now.

I've overclocked the PI slightly and there is an improvement, and will probably up the speed again soon. Of course there is the problem of overheating then.

The principle use is to teach programming and they are being a massive success in schools across the UK. Strangely there was a feature on the News last week where they showed the kids in action on them.

It was rather weird to see a ten year old explaining what she had done, and me thinking... what?

 

[Perpetual Man]

I am typing this post on the Pi...

I've found and uploaded a music player for the Raspberry Pi and in conjunction with a large external HD I'm able to play my entire music collection. Yay!

But on a more practical front, although it is great to have music on as I work, it seems to be stretching the limits of what the little computer is capable of. There is not consistence to the music, with constant hangings and the interface drops out after a while - although the music still plays.

This is something that happens, especially when you have another application running, be it something like the web browser or something more memory consuming like a word processor.

The music player, it also needs to be said can only opened through the Pi store, so this may also influence the way it works., so I might have to find a version that can be opened directly from the desktop, but even then it does not cover the incursion upon memory.

I've overclocked by another degree, so I've got to be careful of overheating, and there is the chance that part of the problem might be the low amount of RAM.

Still progress...

 

[Lenny]

My sister got me a Pi as a Christmas/Birthday present, and I was playing with it whilst I listened to the football earlier.

Because I'm a masochist, and because I have embarrassingly little Linux experience (for a computer scientist, at least), I decided I'd use ArchLinux as the OS, and try setting it up from scratch, with a view to use the Pi, initially, as an always-on device I can access over the Internet to send the Wake-on-LAN magic packet to my computer (so I can then remote in from work).

There was a slight hiccup when I first plugged everything in -- the Pi seemingly wouldn't recognise the HDMI output -- but that was quickly sorted with a change to the config file. I had a fun hour playing around with the wired connection, and when I got it to a stage I was happy with, I wiped the SD card and started again.

As it currently is, my Pi (with the much more affectionate hostname lennispi) is running a fully updated version of ArchLinux, has a new user for when I want to not be root, and connects automatically to WiFi using an external dongle when I turn it on.

Next, I want to attempt SSH'ing into it from my Windows machine so I can take back the monitor it's hooked up to, and put the second keyboard away. I'm still undecided if I want to install a GUI; I'm rather enjoying the terminal.

 

[jonsey80]

I did but a launch model to try push myself towards learning Linux....but I never get the time so it sits in the pending pile atm