Raspberry Pi?

[PapaScout]

I just ordered a couple to play with. I know there are Linux people here - who has one and what amazing things have you done with them?

 

[1911ly]

I bought a few to do software defined radio but I haven't had much of a chance to tinker. If you haven't check out adafruit.com give them a look. They have a lot of RPi stuff!

 

[hoosierdoc]

it's a very cool concept but I'm too far out of my technology phase to know what to do with them.

 

[1911ly]

They run a stripped down version of Linux. They are fun. Pretty much plug and play out of the box if you get a SD card pre-loaded with the OS. Just not a lot of horse power. Really meant for the beginner. It has some deveploment tools in the OS to learn simple programming.

 

[PapaScout]

That's kind of condescending don't you think? These are "stick anywhere" computers with controller capabilities.

 

[1911ly]

That's kind of condescending don't you think? These are "stick anywhere" computers with controller capabilities.

Condescending? Really? The original goal was to bring a basic computer to 3rd world countries. Low cost and simple. It not a condescending remark at all. I have followed it's progress since the beginning of the project. I bought one of the first few. Look up the history. See what it was originally designed for.

Raspberry Pi

 

[LANShark42]

I've always wanted one. Never know what I would do with it...

 

[1911ly]

Learn how to used Linux if you haven't tried it. ther are all kinds of specially programs for uses ranging from remote controls& monitoring. There are emulators to turn it in to your favorite gaming console from the 80's. There are media control center stuff. Used your imagination! :-)

 

[Lebowski]

I just ordered a couple to play with. I know there are Linux people here - who has one and what amazing things have you done with them?

I just use mine as a local webserver for dev projects. I run a large forum for the hosting industry, and I've got an (outdated) copy of the forum running on my Pi that I use for dev work. (I'll make changes to that before I push them live). Since the DB is too large, I have that stored on my workstation (that I am posting from now).

I actually have (2X) 1U servers with L5420s, 24GB RAM, and I do believe drives shipped with them coming my way next month that are being replaced at the datacenter with some newer hardware from one of my advertisers. He said just to pay shipping and they're mine! Even though I don't host anything at home (bad idea for production sites) I do indeed have some local copies of stuff stored of my own projects for dev work. I'll probably use my Raspberry Pi for something more fun then, since I can just use the actual server servers for dev work and tinkering with virtualization technologies (OpenVZ, Xen, KVM).


There was a good thread on my forum about Raspberry Pi's and what people use theirs for. I try to separate work and play, so won't link to it directly but I'll just copy some comments from members there to give you some fun ideas:

2x raspi+USB DAC -> pulseaudio remote speaker endpoints, because I can't be bothered to run both speaker and ethernet wire. Another one resets the power on my flaky DSL modem after 10-20 minutes of no internet accessibility.

I've got two Pi's running RaspBMC streaming video and audio from my NAS. Not terribly exciting I know, but a hell of a lot cheaper than buying 2 network media players.



Once I pick up another one, I'm either going to use it for a mini-mame cabinet, or mount it onto the back of an X-Arcade tankstick for (semi)portable 2-player arcade shenanigans. Again, not terribly exciting, but what can I say, I like playing arcade games and being able to watch my anime in every room.

Going to setup an FM Transmitter and drive around tomorrow and watch peoples reactions as I interrupt their station they're listening to:P jk


I hear the FM Transmitter can actually be pretty powerful, I'm about to find out .

I am making one of them into a gaming console, the other runs my home automation system.

At work I have installed a Raspberry pi with attached Dallas temperature sensors near the top of each rack. Each Raspberry run a script that sample the temperature every 2 minutes and store it on a local Mysql database. Data is replicated to a central database. A web application (on a regular VPS) read the database to create a zoomable graph. It also send email alerts if the temperature is outside boundaries or if data cannot be read from the Raspberry; the issue is recorded for statystical analysis.. Temperature resolution is 0.1 degree and the graph is pretty accurate. This whole setup is less costly than the cheapest commercial temperature monitor, has more features, and the Raspberry pi temselves are generic network servers that will be used for further monitoring efforts.

Not sure if this counts, but I've just set an old MicroSD card up with Raspbian, cross compiled the Armory Bitcoin client for ARM and am using it as a cold storage Bitcoin wallet. Just an idea, if anyone was thinking about anything similar. The Raspberry is great for this purpose because you don't need to dedicate it to the task and can instead just swap the MicroSD cards when needed.

https://bitcoinarmory.com/
https://gist.github....Sottile/3646033
https://bitcointalk....1384#msg1691384

I use one for XBMC and another I use to run an HID authentication system to start my car

Etc, etc, etc.



Now I feel incomplete only using mine for a local nginx server! I'll probably do something audio related with it soon.

 

[sleepey7]

im thinking about getting one to build a car computer out of it

 

[CathyInBlue]

I'm waiting for the HummingBoard to come out before I glom onto a HackRF One to do portable SDR. The RasPi doesn't really have the horsepower to do the kind of on the fly analytics of SDR that I want to do.

 

[1911ly]

I'm waiting for the HummingBoard to come out before I glom onto a HackRF One to do portable SDR. The RasPi doesn't really have the horsepower to do the kind of on the fly analytics of SDR that I want to do.

Not to jack a thread but I will for a sec, Have you heard of the Odroid X board? I picked one up when they first came out. It's not in the price range of the RPi though. It's already out date. The market is evolving so fast. I have/had hopes of doing SDR with it. I have been working with a fairly new SDR project based around the stm32 micro. It's called the STM32-SDR. It's really promising. I have a couple stations build up around the board.

Enough thread jack, sorry.

 

[draketungsten]

I've thought about buying a couple of them for the kids' rooms since they will just largely need to web surf but I've never gotten around to it.

I've seen people cluster 64 of them and use Legos as the racks. Pretty nifty little things.

 

[Psode27]

1911ly, I didnt know you were a linux guy too! I'm struggling through learning Mint 16 right now... stupid little differences are a PITA but its kinda fun.

sorry to get off topic... Many people use the Pi's to do stuff like stream movies to their tv's, or one of my favs was just an old school video game emulator they had tucked into their car. I liked that idea because the power supply can be run from a USB like your cell phone charger.
While not the most powerful computers, they support wifi dongles and seem to do simple tasks pretty well.

Note- I dont personally have one. reading up on them prompted me to attempt to learn the basics of linux to justify the purchase of a pi. I'll buy one someday to fool around with, I just suck at linux too much currently to attempt one...

 

[1911ly]

1911ly, I didnt know you were a linux guy too! I'm struggling through learning Mint 16 right now... stupid little differences are a PITA but its kinda fun.

sorry to get off topic... Many people use the Pi's to do stuff like stream movies to their tv's, or one of my favs was just an old school video game emulator they had tucked into their car. I liked that idea because the power supply can be run from a USB like your cell phone charger.
While not the most powerful computers, they support wifi dongles and seem to do simple tasks pretty well.

Note- I dont personally have one. reading up on them prompted me to attempt to learn the basics of linux to justify the purchase of a pi. I'll buy one someday to fool around with, I just suck at linux too much currently to attempt one...

I am far from being a Linux guy lol! I have enough knowledge to just keep out of trouble. I have a couple buddy's that are software developers that save my but when I get over my head. I might have a extra one. If I do I'll give you one when I see you. Tinkering with them will keep you busy. It's a great linux learning tool for sure. It's easy to start over when you hose the OS

 

[CathyInBlue]

For those that have no idea what a Software Defined Radio (SDR) is, I'll just leave these here:
Roundup of Software Defined Radios - rtl-sdr.com
Great Scott Gadgets - Software Defined Radio with HackRF

And for those who really want their minds blown with the plethora of Linux Single Board Computers (SBC), I'll just leave this here:
LinuxGizmos:  embedded Linux news & devices

What I'm really looking to craft is a sandwich which would consist of A) A nice, beefy lithium battery pack and charger, B) an SDR board, C) an SBC running Linux/Android, and D) a capacitive touchscreen with lots of hardware buttons around the periphery, each about the same size, whether it's a RasPi class thing with a 4" screen and a MyriadRF or a BeagleBone class thing with a HackRF One and a 7" screen, or a Mini-ITX class thing with a BladeRF and a 10" screen.

I'm also intrigued with the new MIPS board that's come out. pure RISC >> CISC + RISCy features.

 

[T.Lex]

Oh vey. I like the Arduino, but that seems like building a Lego airplane compared to building an ultralight next to what you guys are doing!

 

[FatalDeveloper]

I have a couple. I use RasPlex on them to stream movies and shows to the TVs. The server does all of the transcoding so the Raspberry Pi is a perfect option.

 

[Mr Evilwrench]

I ordered one recently without specific plans, just to blow the dust off my brain some before I try anything interesting. So far, I've amazingly set it on the table in the living room. Have some messes to clean up before I play much.

 

[hoosierdoc]

My patients do NOT need this.

Robot couch can drive you to the fridge and back - CNET