The Raspberry Pi

The Raspberry Pi is a tiny full HDMI computer that runs Debian Linux and costs $35!





It's honestly, so tiny that the connections are almost bigger than it is. I ordered mine in April and it arrived in July and I had to wait until now until I could get a monitor. I was trying for a small HDMI monitor (cause I want this to be our kitchen computer), but I had to give up on that and I went with an HDMI to VGA adapter instead.



It's quite easy to get up and running, simply plug it in and it boots immediately. Want to shut it off? unplug it. Simple.

Now, getting it configured is taking a bit longer. It comes with some basic apps pre-installed, such as the Midori and Dillo Web browsers, but I've installed Chromium instead.

I'm getting familiar with the command line interface, and can switch between the root account and the user account, change/delete/add users and passwords, reboot the Pi, and install programs, and more importantly, uninstall programs!

I've installed Samba and our network can see the Pi, now I just need to get the Pi to see the network! Our music is centrally stored on a Windows Home Server and I want the Pi to be able to stream music from the server or the net from it's place in the kitchen.

 

This is cool beyond words. Me. Want.

Also, we have the same keyboard.

 

That's my standby hack keyboard, from my wife's old computer. We are both rocking wireless Logitech keyboards now

 

I never cared for my wireless Logitech. It never quite lived up to the hype and in some ways was outright defective. Maybe it's because I never really felt the need for a wireless keyboard.

Though my keyboard too, is from my wife's old computer.

 

I saw these things when they were first going on sale, really freaking cool. They would be nifty for various "terminal" style operations around the house (music, non-HD video), but I'd like to get one and make a "Go board". Hotels have them now, where it's a huge touch screen LCD that has a front page that shows news, maps, calendar of events. I'd like one that is in my kitchen that shows my calendar, email, and news articles.

Also, I have the shittiest keyboard in the house, I could care less for wireless anything. Just something else to buy batteries for. I'd buy one for the living room but not for my pc.

 

Hmmm, could cobble together a computer for the car with this thing... Well, not for the driver. I've seen that these have already been used to build a supercomputer. Can't remember where

 

I've got one of the early ones. I've been running XBMC on it and its been doing pretty good. Working on some more advanced projects but it could be a while...

 

im2smrt4u how does it handle video?

 

I've been trying to get it to stream music from our Windows server, but it's an uphill battle. I can get it to see the server, but it keeps stumbling on actually playing anything.

 

Pretty well actually. Even 1080p video is smooth, but oddly the XBMC interface is kind of laggy.