Raspberry Pi Catch-All

So much weird stuff has been happening these past days (not just RPi).
This all sounds great though!
Except having everything under the usb 2 bus, that's just bleh.

Except having everything under the usb 2 bus, that's just bleh.

Yeah, that's always kind of sucked, but the additional RAM should improve things a bunch for desktop-style usage. Loading software will still be pretty slow, but once it's loaded, it should run quite well.

Honestly, that little $35 box will be very comparable with desktop machines I used full-time in the 2000-2002 timeframe. The disks will be slower, but not crushingly so, while the CPU and video will be a lot faster.

By the way, if you're looking for a credit-card sized computer that's full-featured, check out the Minnowboard Max; it's about the same size as the Pi, and has a similar set of GPIO pins, but it also has a 1.33GHz dual-core Atom processor, 2 gigs of RAM, decent onboard Intel graphics, true SATA, a USB 3 and a USB 2 port, and gigabit Ethernet, for $139.

That is quite a kickass tiny system.

Malor wrote:

That is quite a kickass tiny system.

Indeed!

LiquidMantis wrote:
Malor wrote:

That is quite a kickass tiny system.

Indeed!

I wonder, if you wanted to set up a streaming Steambox.... How much mini computer would you actually need...

Citizen86 wrote:
LiquidMantis wrote:
Malor wrote:

That is quite a kickass tiny system.

Indeed!

I wonder, if you wanted to set up a streaming Steambox.... How much mini computer would you actually need...

Something with decent hardware based video decoding and a gigabit ethernet port for the most part I would think.

That would probably work just fine, I would imagine. It'll run Windows, and I'm pretty sure it has hardware decode acceleration in the video chip, so it ought to both play movies and stream video games very nicely. And it's got a real gigabit Ethernet port, so it'll have the bandwidth to do it.

And it's, like, five watts, maybe ten.

A camera flash will make the Raspberry Pi 2 freeze and reboot

Heh -- if you use a Xenon flash to take a picture of a Raspberry Pi 2, it will crash. One of the power supply chips is photo-sensitive.

Yes, the Pi 2 is camera-shy.

Now this is just getting ridiculous.

Raspberry Pi Zero - a computer for $5

Hello Raspberrians!

I'm hoping to get some advice on whether a Raspberry Pi is capable of being a home streaming service.

To explain in more detail. My wife and I moved to the US from the UK and are missing our home television channels. Cable seems so expensive here and we watch so little of it that we are pondering cancelling it and trying to setup a micro computer with a UK proxy connection to allow us to watch on demand television from the UK.

Is this something the Pi is capable of?

I've read in the past people have used it this way.

Turning the Raspberry Pi 2 into a $35 streaming PC

Good luck!

I use two pi's under my TV, A Pi 1 with a USB drive attached which acts as a home server and a Pi 2 running OpenELEC which we use for media streaming (mostly from our home network but also from online sources).

The Pi 2 has proven more than capable of running everything we have thrown at it (1080p mkv files would probably be the highest bitrate thing we have tried) but I find the user interface/expirence of OpenELEC leaves a lot to be desired compared to something like an appleTV

So the Pi 3 is double the speed and has built in WIFI and bluetooth. I kinda want one even though I have no idea what I would do with it.

EvilDead wrote:

So the Pi 3 is double the speed and has built in WIFI and bluetooth. I kinda want one even though I have no idea what I would do with it.

+1

Makes me wish I could think of something to try out.

EvilDead wrote:

So the Pi 3 is double the speed and has built in WIFI and bluetooth. I kinda want one even though I have no idea what I would do with it.

Me too!

I am considering getting one. Might make a good little emulation box that I can hook up to my TV since I can't hook my Mac up to my new Visio.

EvilDead wrote:

So the Pi 3 is double the speed and has built in WIFI and bluetooth. I kinda want one even though I have no idea what I would do with it.

If you have a spare hard drive, you can make yourself a cloud storage/sync solution with ownCloud, especially as Let's Encrypt get more widely accepted.

Emulation boxes, cloud severs, whatever. They make a great HTPC when you use something like OSMC with it. I have an original Pi running that and it plays movies, TV shows, music, YouTube. Think you can hook up an external Bluray player to it via USB too. I'm perfectly happy with mine, but am really tempted to get a new one just because.

rPi3 with a NAS and good to go

I already have a Synology NAS that supports cloud so I need to think of something else. Emulation sounds intriguing. How much of a project is that? Not sure I have the time to go real deep into the rabbit hole.

EvilDead wrote:

I already have a Synology NAS that supports cloud so I need to think of something else. Emulation sounds intriguing. How much of a project is that? Not sure I have the time to go real deep into the rabbit hole.

Download a preconfigured OS, install it to the SD card, load some ROMs, and hook it all up. Not too involved at all.

Oh, wow. Way easier than I thought. I'm going to keep my eye on when these pop back up in stock.

Are there particular stores that anyone recommend I keep an eye on? I know about element14 and RS Components since they mention them on the RP site, but are there any others that are good options? I checked Amazon but only see reseller bundles that seem to offer a questionable value for the money.

MCMelectronics is the sister to Element14 and is a pretty decent place to purchase from, and they are out of southern Ohio.

Thanks trueheart! I like the number of options they have around starter kits, accessories, etc. I am interested in putting together a RetroPie setup, so I'll probably do a bit of research to determine what components to pick up, then see if a kit would help at all.

Random question... anyone know how to source a 4:3 LCD monitor? I'm thinking Craigslist is probably going to be my best bet for finding something for a low cost.

I found a good retro-pie guide complete with full scale blue prints and cut-outs.

I am looking forward to building one in a few months if I get the chance.

http://www.instructables.com/id/2-Pl...

GoldenDog wrote:

I found a good retro-pie guide complete with full scale blue prints and cut-outs.

I am looking forward to building one in a few months if I get the chance.

http://www.instructables.com/id/2-Pl...

That is pretty cool. I would probably just hook it up to my TV and be done with it. I wonder if my USB Super RetroPort works with it.

EvilDead wrote:

So the Pi 3 is double the speed and has built in WIFI and bluetooth. I kinda want one even though I have no idea what I would do with it.

I'm thinking portable Minecraft server I can run 24-7 and take with me on vacation. It could show its own Overviewer map on a tv, and back itself up to Dripbox.

Mixolyde wrote:
EvilDead wrote:

So the Pi 3 is double the speed and has built in WIFI and bluetooth. I kinda want one even though I have no idea what I would do with it.

I'm thinking portable Minecraft server I can run 24-7 and take with me on vacation. It could show its own Overviewer map on a tv, and back itself up to Dripbox.

That sounds like a pretty neat idea and made me think. I wonder if this would be powerful enough to run a Ventrilo (or other voice chat) server?

So this video enabled me past the point of no return:

Ordered a Pi 3 with power adapter, case, a 32 gig Micro SD card, and USB adapter for the SD card. Mainly interested in the 8-bit and 16-bit systems but the fact that it runs N64 and PSone pretty well pushed me over the edge.