The Raspberry Pi

[ross549]

For those using it, Raspbmc has reached 1.0 stable. :-)

[abarbarian]

For those using it, Raspbmc has reached 1.0 stable. :-)

 

Time for me to update. Ta.

[abarbarian]

Mojang has released a free version of its Minecraft game for the tiny, low-cost Raspberry Pi, letting players build virtual worlds on the cheap.

 

http://www.tgdaily.com/games-and-entertainment-brief/69432-minecraft-released-for-raspberry-pi-for-free

 

The aim of the free edition is to support the Raspberry Pi Foundation's efforts to boost the learning of programming skills.

The Raspberry Pi costs from $35 in the US - although it's currently sold out.

 

[abarbarian]

http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Raspbmc-turns-the-Raspberry-Pi-into-a-media-centre-1802678.html

 

The open source Raspbmc media centre distribution has been released in its first stable version. Version 1.0 of the XBMC 12 based distribution transforms the $35 Raspberry Pi mini computer into an HD capable entertainment centre. According to the development team, Raspbmc can be easily installed to a USB stick or an SD card, even without prior Linux experience.

 

Now that is interesting but of even greater interest is the fact that you can for a few £/$'s add a GPIO IR reciever to the Pi. You do not even have to do any soldering.Now that is neat.

 

http://forum.stmlabs.com/showthread.php?tid=5549

 

A little how-to setup GPIO IR receiver with Raspberry Pi. Thanks to Sam, s7mx1, Dilligaf, monkey13, sabresfan03 and others.

 

[ross549]

That sounds like a fun project for a weekend.

[abarbarian]

That sounds like a fun project for a weekend.

 

I'm going to get a IR unit and the camera add-on when it becomes available.

[abarbarian]

Raspberry Pi Case competition gallery

 

http://www.bit-tech.net/modding/2013/02/22/raspberry-pi-case-competition-update/2

 

There are some totally fab looking entries for this.

[ross549]

Am I part of a very small minority that thinks most PC case aesthetics are awful?

 

I've always appreciated a sleek, minimalist look to my hardware. In fact, when I had a Shuttle XPC, I found the power and HD activity LEDS to be extremely annoying. It got to the point where I wired a couple switches on the back of the case to simply turn them off.

 

Adam

[Guest LilBambi]

I have electrical tape and/or thick paper covering nearly all lights on my PCs and printers! They drive me nuts. They are so bright, it lights up the whole half the room!

[Corrine]

Thought this would be of interest to anyone with a Raspberry Pi: How to Turn a Raspberry Pi into a Low-Power Network Storage Device

[lewmur]

Thought this would be of interest to anyone with a Raspberry Pi: How to Turn a Raspberry Pi into a Low-Power Network Storage Device

I have mine set up as both a Samba and FTP server. Samba while I'm at home and FTP for when I'm "on the go".

[ross549]

I am surprised the article recommends plugging a portable USB drive to the Pi. The little ones that do not have their own power cord consume a LOT of power. The Pi will have difficulty keeping up.

 

Adam

[zlim]

I have electrical tape and/or thick paper covering nearly all lights on my PCs and printers! They drive me nuts.

I also tape cardboard over the lights on the router and electrical tape over the green and red lights on my surge suppressor and the two grounded outlets I installed in the spare bedroom/computer room. My mom used to sleep here when she visited and I knew all those lights would be distracting.

 

I hid the modem behind a monitor so those lights were not visible.

[Guest LilBambi]

I love flashing lights too, but not where I sleep LOL! And that's where my 'puters are.

[abarbarian]

https://hylobatidae.org/?action=articleinfo&id=52

 

 

Timezones. It's live radio, but all the timing is wrong. Namely, the written-in-stone Radio 4 schedule must not, under any circumstances, be allowed to become misaligned from the rising and the setting of the sun. How could anything (or anyone) remotely British even think of operating normally if the Friday evening comedy gets broadcast on Friday morning, or if the Book at Bedtime arrives early in the evening? Or heaven forbid, if Woman's Hour escapes from its usual 10am ghetto?

 

Cue the Radio-4-Matic.

 

 

http://www.everydaylinuxuser.com/2013/02/using-your-raspberry-pi-to-rip-music.html

 

 

In the 1980s a good number of teenagers and children obtained their music by playing the charts on Radio 1 through a portable stereo.

 

With a 90 minute TDK cassette at the ready we would sit and wait for each song to come on from 40 down to 1 and every time a song we liked came on we would hit the play and record button.

 

Great care was taken to make sure we hit pause before the DJ ruined it all by speaking over the top and a pen was at the ready to write down the artist and song on the tiny lines made available on the inlay card.

 

If you were lucky enough your stereo had a counter which would tell you where in the tape each song started and finished so that you could fast forward and rewind to the songs you liked the best.

 

If you are lucky enough to have a Raspberry PI then this guide will show you how to do the modern day version of recording off the radio. Now though you don't have to worry about the adverts because the software is clever enough to strip the adverts and the voice of the DJ.

 

 

Several things to do when you win the contest Pi.

[ross549]

I do not know the legality of downloading music this way and it is up to each individual to check that ripping music does not violate any copyright laws.

 

Good advice.

[ross549]

Ripping your own CD is a completely different matter than ripping an Internet radio stream.

 

Though I suppose ripping a stream is equivalent to recording a radio broadcast. The bitrate is lower, after all.

 

Adam

[ichase]

I plan on turning it into a simple ncurses-based chat box running debian or whatever with weechat.

 

Adam

Was boored so I decided to read through this thread.

@Adam,

You hit the nail on the head as to what I have used mine for. Also, with using gnu-screen hitting F-7 I have access to multiple screens. Running weechat-curses, MC on both my server and R-Pi, glances for both. Love it!!!!!

[abarbarian]

 

Create a VPN with the Raspberry Pi

 

The Raspberry Pi is cheap enough to leave on a network you’d like to connect to remotely, so let’s learn how to set it up to do just that…

 

http://www.linuxuser.co.uk/news/create-a-vpn-with-the-raspberry-pi

 

I am constantly amazed by the uses the Pi can be configured for.

[abarbarian]

 

NetBSD on RPi: Minimizing Disk Writes

 

I recently installed NetBSD on my RaspberryPi. Although not all the hardware is fully supported, enough is there to make it a usable system. It's nice to have my RPi provide the same system experience (configuration, organization, etc.) as other NetBSD machines I maintain. A big "Thank you!" to the developers that made this possible.

 

http://rich-tbp.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/netbsd-on-rpi-minimizing-disk-writes.html

 

Neat article on speeding up a Pi and increasing the longevity of the sd card by limiting writes to the Pi.

I wondered if it would work with Raspbian etc ? The guide is for NetBSD which I know nothing about.

[sunrat]

Using noatime and mounting browser cache in tmpfs goes a long way to reducing writes. Most of the tweaks for SSDs will work, but not TRIM.

siduction wiki - Optimizing SSD-based System Performance (scroll half way down the page)

Arch wiki - Tips for Minimizing SSD Read/Writes

[Guest LilBambi]

Just was reading about using the Raspberry Pi for a DOS emulator and running Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, Jill of the Jungle, etc.

 

Sounds like fun!

[abarbarian]

I recon the Pi is the buy of the century Buck and Bang wise.

[abarbarian]

This is pretty neat

 

It got me wondering if there existed a laptop that was designed for hacking in direct sunlight... something that had a ridiculously long battery life and was still readable in high brightness situations. Instead I stumbled upon a more awesome solution: the kindleberry, a combination of the Raspberry Pi and the Amazon Kindle.

 

http://maxogden.com/kindleberry-wireless.html

 

 

http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/3621

 

Will that be coffee and pi to go sir,

[Guest LilBambi]

A hikin' we will go, a hikin' we will go... hi, ho, the derry o, a hikin' we will go.

 

Great stuff!

[abarbarian]

Looks like Pi's are popular in the states.

 

http://linuxgizmos.com/raspberry-pi-model-a-arrives/

 

 

The Raspberry Pi’s $25 “Model A” made a brief appearance this week on the website of Allied Electronics, its U.S. distributor. Compared to its $35 sibling, the lower end Linux-fired SBC (single board computer) sports half the RAM, one USB port instead of two, and lacks an Ethernet spigot.

 

It’s unclear when (or whether) additional low-end models will become available, based on a statement on Allied’s website, saying: “Due to limited supply of the Raspberry Pi Model A, we are not offering preorders or backorders on the product at this time. The Raspberry Pi Model A will only be available for purchase when we have inventory on hand to fill the order.”

Although Allied also shows the $35 Model B as being out of stock, the distributor is currently accepting preorders for that model, with the caveat that “delivery times will vary and may exceed 6 weeks.”

 

Must be the first time in a hundred years or so that we (UK) have something that you (USA) want and find difficulty getting your hands on

[Guest LilBambi]

I've got my Raspberry Pi here in the States.

[lewmur]

I've got my Raspberry Pi here in the States.

I ordered my first one on day one and waited four months for it. But I ordered a second one from Element 14 in South Carolina and got it in about a week. I'm pretty sure the ones shipped from there are made in the Sony plant in the U.K.

[abarbarian]

Yeah you folks have the " B " version. These were the " A " version which were making a first appearance in the USA> Seems like you americans just love Pi

[abarbarian]

http://www.linuxandl...-raspberry.html

 

Now you definitely need to get a Pi for a couple of these projects for the home.

 

 

2 - A bartending robot

 

Bartendro is a precision cocktail dispensing robot! It makes tasty drinks quickly and repeatably without the mess. The combination of BrewPi and Bartendro will create an everlasting party for everybody.

 

 

 

1 - Make beer

 

BrewPi, created by a German guy who loves drinking beer, is an open source fermentation controller that runs on an Arduino and a Raspberry Pi. The Arduino board gathers data from sensors, adjusts temperature controls on the refrigerator, and runs an OLED display. There’s also a web-based interface for viewing and controlling temperatures. This runs on a web server loaded onto the RaspberryPi, which also runs Python scripts for communicating with the Arduino.

 

 

 

3 - A beer keyboard</strong></span>

 

Seems Raspberry Pi goes so well with alcohol and parties, thats why the third project in this list relates to beer as well. This is a keyboard made of beer cans instead of keys. It is controlled by a Raspberry Pi connecting to large plasma TV.

 

Cheers folks

Edited April 7, 2013 by abarbarian