Raspberry Pi

[old_dog]

I am aware that this a digression.....
Anybody out there got a Rasperry Pi.
I am retired and thinking of getting one to play with when the winter comes.
The plan to get me out of the wife's way! or the management as I call her.

Any comments or observations will be received with interest.

[Smilax]

i got one,

nice little play thing.

[rtalcott]

Seems like a good idea...I'm thinking of doing the same thing...

rt

[sandyd]

Got one too - use it as a server monitor.

[CharlesA]

I am still waiting for mine.. got about another month to go until it is shipped. :|

[viperdvman]

I've thought about playing with a Hackberry A10 myself... has more of everything than the Raspberry Pi. More powerful ARM Cortex-A8 CPU, Mali 400 GPU, More RAM, more Flash memory, etc.

Thought about building a nice fancy woodwork box to place it in and use it as a sort mini HTPC... likely with an ARM build of Ubuntu, Bodhi, Debian, Arch, etc. As long as I have a music app and VLC, or XBMC, then I can play anything from a big 32GB SD card :D

[nikonian]

I prefer cheesecake; it's far better looking, and tastes better :p

[spjackson]

I've had my Raspberry Pi for 3 months; it is something that I tinker with, but I haven't yet decided on anything useful I want to do with it. If it's something you are considering, then here are some resources that may be of interest.

http://www.raspberrypi.org/ Blogs of announcements and information about the sort of stuff people are doing with it.

http://www.themagpi.com/ Monthly online magazine.

http://raspberryjam.org.uk/ Local gatherings of people with a wide range of experience and abilities, some of whom don't yet have a Pi.

[hakermania]

I have 2, and other 4 will come in a couple of weeks :)

Awesome thingies :D

[black veils]

I have 2, and other 4 will come in a couple of weeks :)

Awesome thingies :D

what do you use it (them) for?

[mrreality13]

I been toyin with idea getting 1 my self and dug this up so i figured id share it w/ you guys;)

"The ARM platform is exploding like a mad wet cat out of the bath. Here are four good distros cram-full of ARM fun.

Linux has had ARM support since forever, but it's been bumpy. There are hundreds of vendors of ARM devices (see Tiny Pluggable Linux ARM Computers Are Red-Hot for a sampling), all shoving their own personal hacked code out the door as fast as possible. This made Linux support complicated and unwieldy, to the point that Linus Torvalds threatened to stop accepting ARM changes in the mainline Linux kernel.

So, in classic Linux fashion, vendors and developers banded together and coordinated and consolidated their efforts, formed the Linaro non-profit engineering organization, and performed a sizable cleanup of redundant and bad code. Jonathan Corbet, editor of Linux Weekly News, predicts that "ARM will take its place as one of the primary Linux architectures" in 2012. This seems a safe prediction as ARM-based mobile devices are going to continue to sell like ice water in hell."


http://www.linux.com/learn/tutorials/598228-4-fine-linux-arm-distros-

[ssam]

Its a great hackable computer. just worth noting that its not quite up to the task of being an everyday desktop. (there are some larger, more expensive arm dev boards if you are interested in that. see http://www.futurechips.org/thoughts-for-researchers/comparison-small-pcs-rasberry-pi.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+FutureChips+%28Future+Chips%2 9 http://www.raymii.org/cms/p_Small_Linux_PCs_overview)

[Jakin]

I have been thinking of messing with such a board as well, i would use it as a "net desktop" net apps- link that bugger to my HDTV.. yadda yadda- not a workhorse device. Sorta the idea of Ubuntu TV if at all possible

Right now i am torn between the idea of Raspberry PI or Gooseberry board.

[Linux_junkie]

The whole idea of the Raspberry PI is to get children interested in programming. It was never designed to be used as an everyday multi-function computer.

It is to stop your little "KIDDIES" from using your state of the art desktop / laptop as a play thing.

[nikonian]

If you want to teach people how to hack computers, you can buy an old PC for £10 and hack that (and there's NO stock dry up). Raspberry Pi just seems like another created "solution", looking for an application... seems a bit pointless to me, and it doesn't even do USB *OR* PXE boot.

Meh, less than luke warm here.

[Balthazar54]

I have two on order. Been thinking of using one for a low power server for my old printer, and have been playing around with the idea of using an old monitor to display a photo album with a motion detector to see if anyone is in the room.

[rtalcott]

Nice Digital PBX for the rasberry:
http://nerdvittles.com/?p=1784

rt

[aspergerian]

New article:

'We thought we'd sell 1,000': The inside story of the Raspberry Pi

http://www.zdnet.com/we-thought-wed-sell-1000-the-inside-story-of-the-raspberry-pi-7000009718/

[Thee]

I got one. I use it in combination with OpenELEC and NAS server as a Media Center for movies and series.

[mastablasta]

I got one. I use it in combination with OpenELEC and NAS server as a Media Center for movies and series.

a questions here....

i assume you added external USB drives to it? If so how do you handle power supply for the USB drives? I mean can the Pi handle 2 USB drives on it? as i know newer external USB hard drives don't have separate power supply. or am i wrong?

[Thee]

a questions here....

i assume you added external USB drives to it? If so how do you handle power supply for the USB drives? I mean can the Pi handle 2 USB drives on it? as i know newer external USB hard drives don't have separate power supply. or am i wrong?

No, I don't use USB hard drive, I use a network drive.
But if you want a USB drive, there are those who got external power supply and they, as far as I know, work with Raspberry Pi without problems. Only the drives that get power from USB wont work because it's too much for the Pi.

For me a network drive is better, because I plan to get 1 more Raspberry Pi for the bedroom, so I can access my media over the network from both Raspberries.

[mastablasta]

network drive implies having a sever somewhere, right?

[CharlesA]

network drive implies having a sever somewhere, right?

Yes.

File server, NAS, whatever.

[Thee]

network drive implies having a sever somewhere, right?

Yes, you can build a NAS server yourself if you have an old computer and HDDs laying around, but if you want something more compact, efficient, without hassle and also quiet, like I'm using, then you need to buy these:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1/184-6279787-0005342?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=NAS+server

Those act as a (NAS) server for your files.

[montag dp]

What about buying a bunch of them and using them to run some large numerical simulations in parallel? Probably not actually the cheapest or most effective way to do that, but it would still be cool.

[layers]

No. you get it, then put it on the usb behind your tv, install xbmc with navi/fusion and watch every movie or tv series you know

[linuxcoffeelover]

I have one its a great low powered pc. I'll save some problems get the usb power supply at adafruit it's rated at 5.25 volts and 1amp it will keep the pi at a constant 5 volts. the one before the one I bought from adafruit couldn’t power pi.

[rtalcott]

Been pleased with my Pi as a command line server...and I have a cubie board coming which I think may be more capable.
http://cubieboard.org/

[lz1dsb]

Raspberry Pi looks pretty amazing... But this Cubieboard is nice too, but a bit more expensive. I liked the enclosures of Cubieboard.

[3rdalbum]

If you want to teach people how to hack computers, you can buy an old PC for £10 and hack that (and there's NO stock dry up). Raspberry Pi just seems like another created "solution", looking for an application... seems a bit pointless to me, and it doesn't even do USB *OR* PXE boot.

Meh, less than luke warm here.

This is what I find interesting about the Raspberry Pi:

1. Portability
2. Low-power use - can be run entirely from USB power
3. GPIO pins
4. Can use USB devices
5. Can be programmed in anything, including Python or Bash
6. Is not severely resource-constrained like the Arduino

What do you do with an ultra-portable computer that can be hooked up to any USB device, any basic input/output such as sensors or motors, and can be powered from one of those mobile phone backup batteries? Autonomous robots springs to my mind immediately. So do wearable computers. Others have had cooler ideas. Many more have had more mundane ideas such as "tiny noiseless home server" or "kids can learn programming with GPIO with a machine they can bring to school" but that's still cool.

If you just want a computer to write programs on, or use for web browsing and Facebook, you could pick up a second-hand machine for $35 the lot. Add $20 for a GPIO interface that plugs in via USB if you want to get into that.

Raspberry Pi, however, has a killer combination of features that makes it so much more flexible than your big, power-hungry dumpster PC.

[rtalcott]

I agree...the GPIO is nice and it's easier to use than a microcontroller...and once I get my cubie I'll dedicate the Pi to playing with the GPIO...

[rtalcott]

Cubie arrived today....boots up Android and runs well...next task is to get an Ubuntu image to boot.

[aspergerian]

recent article:

A Tiny Computer Attracts a Million Tinkerers
By JOHN BIGGS

Raspberry Pi may sound like the name of a math-based dessert. But it is actually one of the hottest and cheapest little computers in the world right now. Almost one million of these $35 machines have shipped since last February, capturing the imaginations of educators, hobbyists and tinkerers around the world....

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/31/technology/personaltech/raspberry-pi-a-computer-tinkerers-dream.html

[rnerwein]

a questions here....

i assume you added external USB drives to it? If so how do you handle power supply for the USB drives? I mean can the Pi handle 2 USB drives on it? as i know newer external USB hard drives don't have separate power supply. or am i wrong?
hi
for me is a SD-Card with 32 GB ok. but i'll try to connect an external usb-disk. give me some time. i start with that "beautiful" toy 4 days ago.
have a nice day
cheers

[rtalcott]

Ubuntu running on the cubie...it's a nice low power gui for light tasks...much more responsive than the pi...