I've seen them heaps, but have struggled to get a good definition. I'd like to make a media center for my parents as well as update my dad's god awful speakers system with something more modern (Needs to use Spotify and such, connect to speakers).
Would also be interesting in your own Pi projects or other interesting ones you know of
I made a bitchbot that bitched at my isp's non-resistant Twitter account whenever my ping spiked stupidly high.
Type the thread title into Google and you will find shitloads of things you can do with a raspberry pi.
[editline]20th July 2016[/editline]
It will also tell you what a Raspberry Pi is.
A Raspberry Pi is an amazing device that can do everything yet absolutely nothing at the same time.
[QUOTE=TechnoSandwic;50744831]I've seen them heaps, but have struggled to get a good definition. I'd like to make a media center for my parents as well as update my dad's god awful speakers system with something more modern (Needs to use Spotify and such, connect to speakers).
Would also be interesting in your own Pi projects or other interesting ones you know of[/QUOTE]
It's just a mini PCB basically with everything needed to run an ARM compatible operating system and a ton of I/O ports/pins.
For a media center you could use Kodi but I'd recommend just getting something dedicated like an Amazon Fire Stick/Box instead which would probably end up cheaper after all the cables + SD card you need for it. You can sideload Kodi but then you also get first-party apps. I'm not sure what the situation is like in NZ though but in the UK there's quite a few services that support it. Great with Amazon Prime too.
Support for a speaker system is an interesting project though. Although once again something dedicated like a Chromecast Audio would probably work better and be cheaper.
[url]https://www.google.co.uk/chromecast/speakers/[/url]
It's basically a budget computer with an ARM chip (as opposed to x86 which you'll see in desktops and laptops) which means you can do most things you can do with a very low-end Linux PC. (Note that applications need to support ARM so you can't play Rocket League or use Photoshop not that they specs would support those anyway.)
I have a raspberry PI runnig OSMC. It is linux with the user interface on a smart tv. It even allows you to controle it using your tv remote if your tv supports HDMI CEC.
I used it out of novelty for a while but now went back to using my PC to play video on my TV and audio over my sound system. Its just too slow and prone to crashes. You also need a good USB charger with a good cable if you want to use the analog audio output on the PI or you will hear all the interference the charges gives it.
Next project is going to be an automatic fish feeder. But I might just use my Arduino for that,
I suggest the [URL="http://ameridroid.com/products/odroid-c2"]ODROID C2[/URL] over the Pi. Including the cost of a power adapter for either the Pi or ODROID, they both come out to about the same cost (plus a $5 wifi adapter for the C2) yet the C2 has a faster processor, twice the RAM, and a much more powerful GPU capable of supporting 4k resolutions. The CPU/GPU are also much more standard (a Mali-450 which is seen in tons of consumer ARM computers as opposed to an obscure VideoCore gpu which is practically exclusive to the Pi) which gives you more options in what software you can run well. On the Pi, if you want to use something that isn't officially supported (e.g. VLC), have fun trying to compile the program with an extension to try to make it compatible with the Pi's GPU.
The C2 can even run Android without ugly hacks if that's your taste. Also has an MMC port for fast SSD storage.
[QUOTE=Dr. Evilcop;50745756]I suggest the [URL="http://ameridroid.com/products/odroid-c2"]ODROID C2[/URL] over the Pi. Including the cost of a power adapter for either the Pi or ODROID, they both come out to about the same cost (plus a $5 wifi adapter for the C2) yet the C2 has a faster processor, twice the RAM, and a much more powerful GPU capable of supporting 4k resolutions. The CPU/GPU are also much more standard (a Mali-450 which is seen in tons of consumer ARM computers as opposed to an obscure VideoCore gpu which is practically exclusive to the Pi) which gives you more options in what software you can run well. On the Pi, if you want to use something that isn't officially supported (e.g. VLC), have fun trying to compile the program with an extension to try to make it compatible with the Pi's GPU.
The C2 can even run Android without ugly hacks if that's your taste. Also has an MMC port for fast SSD storage.[/QUOTE]
If you aren't going to go with the "it just werks" route with a chromecast/roku/whatever I'd certainly recommend this. I have a pi 3 which is a bit stronger than the previous ones, and while things like OSMC run great generally there's some performance issues here and there.
[QUOTE=Dr. Evilcop;50745756]I suggest the [URL="http://ameridroid.com/products/odroid-c2"]ODROID C2[/URL] over the Pi. Including the cost of a power adapter for either the Pi or ODROID, they both come out to about the same cost (plus a $5 wifi adapter for the C2) yet the C2 has a faster processor, twice the RAM, and a much more powerful GPU capable of supporting 4k resolutions. The CPU/GPU are also much more standard (a Mali-450 which is seen in tons of consumer ARM computers as opposed to an obscure VideoCore gpu which is practically exclusive to the Pi) which gives you more options in what software you can run well. On the Pi, if you want to use something that isn't officially supported (e.g. VLC), have fun trying to compile the program with an extension to try to make it compatible with the Pi's GPU.
The C2 can even run Android without ugly hacks if that's your taste. Also has an MMC port for fast SSD storage.[/QUOTE]
I feel like the Raspberry Pi may have a larger userbase which may make it preferable for some users. For example, the Raspberry Pi has the RetroPie project for making it an emulation station. It seems like turning the ODROID there into an emulation station would take considerably more work because you would wind up setting everything up yourself vs installing an image that handles the heavy lifting for you.
[QUOTE=SGTNAPALM;50752458]I feel like the Raspberry Pi may have a larger userbase which may make it preferable for some users. For example, the Raspberry Pi has the RetroPie project for making it an emulation station. It seems like turning the ODROID there into an emulation station would take considerably more work because you would wind up setting everything up yourself vs installing an image that handles the heavy lifting for you.[/QUOTE]
more like sudo apt-get install [insert emulator here] :v:
[QUOTE=Dr. Evilcop;50752789]more like sudo apt-get install [insert emulator here] :v:[/QUOTE]
Well, it's an image that already has all the gamepad drivers for ps3 and x360 and shit, and retroarch with all the cores, and emulationstation frontends, and shit like that all ready to go.
It's a convenience vs power sorta thing.
[QUOTE=Dr. Evilcop;50752789]more like sudo apt-get install [insert emulator here] :v:[/QUOTE]
Wouldn't it be better to install android on that and then install the emulator apks?
[QUOTE=Bitl;50752824]Wouldn't it be better to install android on that and then install the emulator apks?[/QUOTE]
I'd rather not have the machine bogged down by android vs a debian clone, something that should idle in the double digits of RAM usage.
[QUOTE=Bitl;50752824]Wouldn't it be better to install android on that and then install the emulator apks?[/QUOTE]
Retroarch has that all handled for both Android and standard Linux, and Retroarch has cores for some of the best emulators out there so it really doesn't matter. I'd rather have the desktop OS at that point.
The kind of things I run on my Pi:
* Lighttpd & PHP: I like do to a bit of light web development
* Privoxy: I use this as a LAN-wide blocklist of over 600,000 ad-serving and malware domains
* Squid: I use this to cache smaller files that are repeatedly accessed over multiple computers to save a bit on my monthly ISP quota
* SSH: I run a SSH tunnel to my US VPN, so I can click a button within my web browser to bypass geoblocking
* Shairport: Airplay for the RPi, connected up to a set of speakers over analogue
* Samba: I put my music & 1Password vaults on a network share, so it can be accessed from my gaming PC and laptop
CPU usage on my Pi 3B is very respectable, it usually sits around 10% unless Privoxy hits a very image heavy page. I'd also highly recommend using DietPi, as it makes configuring everything dead simple.
I have two Pi's performing vital roles in my house, one is a [url=https://flightaware.com/adsb/piaware/]PiAware[/url] client that tracks commercial airplanes in the Georgia Straight. The other receives and renders satellite imagery for the hell of it.
Heres a picture from space that I received from my house of North America, you can see from Vancouver Island to the Great Lakes and everything in between.
[t]http://va7eex.ca/wx-up/20160721-1412_NOAA-19_N36_HVCT.png[/t]
Can I do this with a normal desktop or laptop? Yes, but it would probably cost me a lot more and use much more power than 6W.
Oh and the green clouds is because its a false colour image formulated from IR and Visibile-light cameras.
Why are these vital? Just curious.
[QUOTE=SGTNAPALM;50753555]Why are these vital? Just curious.[/QUOTE]
Because I think they're cool.
I've deployed more then a couple of these at work - I do IT for my local courthouse and I usually set them up to autoplay videos with XBMC (or now OSMC) for kiosks and the daily juror setup. We used to re-purpose our older windows workstations for this kind of thing, but now I can just put a dedicated little box that doesn't bitch about updates or confuses the end users (I got a usb cable that has an on/off switch so all they have to do to play videos is 'switch it on' and let it boot/play).
Right now, one of my side projects is using one of our webcams and programming it as a security cam system for our DR site. I have one at home that acts as a no-touch web filter/adblocker for my parents' computers (pihole).
That's what's cool about these things. It's not like you can't do this with a laptop or desktop, but they're cheap enough to make dedicated single use machines. The real selling point is the community though - chances are, if you have an idea for how to use it, there's not just someone that thought of it but also wrote a step by step tutorial on how you can do it too.
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