01-13-2013, 11:05 PM
I've had some fun these past couple weeks playing around with my $35 Raspberry Pi mini-computer. The foundation reported that they've sold over 1 million boards already!
It's fun, there's now an app store that includes Libre Office (something like 25 whole apps!), a new Pi Car project has been released (with a software programming guide in the Store), and a fast, hardware-accelerated Android 4.0 build has been reported and should be available in the near future.
I thought I'd pass along a few things:
1) Most of the software is really in the Developer stage. Don't count on anything superslick right now.
2) The lapdock option is fun. Get the 11.6 inch screen Bionic, not the 10 inch Lapdock 100 if you shop.
3) XBMC runs really well. I'm having trouble getting the remote to work, but once that's fixed, I'll be using one Pi board to attach to my living room TV. I hope to get Amazon Prime streaming to work (having tried the latest software on this, but I bet this will be stock Pi xbmc in the next 6 months).
4) Chrome browser is not hardware accelerated yet. That project has been announced - once that happens, this would be a terrific Chrome machine.
5) This hardware has already forced my son and I to do more programming using Terminal, and looking more deeply into hardware, than ALL of our other computer projects combined. That was the point of the RPi project.
6) In the end, the easiest software to use to install different OS software onto an SD card for the RPi runs best on windows. I just fired up an older windows machine to do that since my bootcamp installer was not working right on my older home Intel Mac. Again, that's ok - we end up using Mac OS X, Linus AND Windows for this project. Terrific learning all around.
25 fun RPi projects link:
http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/desktops/25-fu...-50009851/
There's even a crazy project using a RPi to let Siri open your garage door. I'll leave that up to you to find.
In full disclosure, you need more than $35 to get up and running - a cell phone charger, SD card, keyboard, mouse and monitor. But most of the members on this board have this lying around.
If anyone has any questions, PM me. Sometime next month, I'll post a set of my most useful links.
It's fun, there's now an app store that includes Libre Office (something like 25 whole apps!), a new Pi Car project has been released (with a software programming guide in the Store), and a fast, hardware-accelerated Android 4.0 build has been reported and should be available in the near future.
I thought I'd pass along a few things:
1) Most of the software is really in the Developer stage. Don't count on anything superslick right now.
2) The lapdock option is fun. Get the 11.6 inch screen Bionic, not the 10 inch Lapdock 100 if you shop.
3) XBMC runs really well. I'm having trouble getting the remote to work, but once that's fixed, I'll be using one Pi board to attach to my living room TV. I hope to get Amazon Prime streaming to work (having tried the latest software on this, but I bet this will be stock Pi xbmc in the next 6 months).
4) Chrome browser is not hardware accelerated yet. That project has been announced - once that happens, this would be a terrific Chrome machine.
5) This hardware has already forced my son and I to do more programming using Terminal, and looking more deeply into hardware, than ALL of our other computer projects combined. That was the point of the RPi project.
6) In the end, the easiest software to use to install different OS software onto an SD card for the RPi runs best on windows. I just fired up an older windows machine to do that since my bootcamp installer was not working right on my older home Intel Mac. Again, that's ok - we end up using Mac OS X, Linus AND Windows for this project. Terrific learning all around.
25 fun RPi projects link:
http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/desktops/25-fu...-50009851/
There's even a crazy project using a RPi to let Siri open your garage door. I'll leave that up to you to find.
In full disclosure, you need more than $35 to get up and running - a cell phone charger, SD card, keyboard, mouse and monitor. But most of the members on this board have this lying around.
If anyone has any questions, PM me. Sometime next month, I'll post a set of my most useful links.