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Raspberry pi

Started by wooders1978, August 18, 2015, 08:53:00 AM

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wooders1978

Anyone got one? Seems like a decent alternative to a laptop, with the current gen boasting some decent memory
Between us girls, I basically only want a downloading tool for movies (I pay for sky and always buy blu rays of films I love, so don't judge to harshly)
Now I want to torrent and use private internet access - but it appears to very complex
Also, can you just use a wireless keyboard and mouse?

BlodwynPig

you can have mine if you forward me your PO Box - its sitting gathering dust but comes with everything

wooders1978

I don't have a po box - would my address do?

I take it that it was not a roaring success? Either way, thanks, a very generous offer

BlodwynPig

Quote from: wooders1978 on August 18, 2015, 09:51:06 AM
I don't have a po box - would my address do?

I take it that it was not a roaring success? Either way, thanks, a very generous offer

Aye...

Just didn't have the time to tinker after marriage.

Blumf

If you want to play about installing different OS's and/or running apps away from your main system; use a virtual machine:
https://www.virtualbox.org/
http://www.vmware.com/uk/products/player/
etc...

If you want to play around with electronics; use an Arduino:
https://www.arduino.cc/
(the rPi's interface doesn't have protection for overloads and other fuckery liable to fry the board. Arduino does and is much easier to hook up to stuff)

If you want an actual, physical, computer; once you've added the cost of the rPi, power supply, keyboard, USB hub, monitor, etc. etc. you could just get a cheap laptop/desktop for similar money and much more functionality.

That's the problem I have with the Raspberry Pi, in just about every scenario there are better options available. Even in situations where it should be okay, such as a simple media player, it's still flaky (not quiet powerful enough, no remote power control, buggy drivers (inexcusable for what was supposed to be an open system)). It wouldn't be so bad if they'd built a more modular system so that you could mix and match components for specific tasks (the slow, under-spec'd USB ports are worthless for anything beyond keyboard/mouse). They could have taken a cue from early home computers like the Altair and had the Pi support a flexible system bus for example. It would have made the Pi the foundation of a new breed of computer systems, easily expandable and actually useful. Instead we got just another ARM based system board, there's load of them about, the Pi offers nothing unique or special.

You could connect a hard drive to it (full of tunes) and turn it into an OwnCloud music server that can be accessed from anywhere with your mobile phone. At least, that's what I thought. You're a better man than me if you can get the bastard working with the mobile app. I think it's a problem with the mobile app being incompatible with my port forwarding/NAT setup.

You could follow various guides on the web to turn it into a home access point for TOR traffic, splashing out extra along the way for a more compatible Edimax WiFi adaptor, only to fail miserably and with some frustration. I think it's a discreet change in the newer versions of Raspbian/minibian not handling the adaptor in the same manner as the older guides suggest.

You could put it in a drawer.

mook


MojoJojo

I had it control my watering system using Node-RED, until the dishwasher water valve I used to turn stuff off and on got wet and stopped working, and I replaced it with a £20 timer designed for it.

It is quite good for home automation type things - but unfortunately home automation is mostly a load of useless toss.

wooders1978

Yeah I really only want it as a torrenting tool - sounds like it will be more hassle than it's worth tho

Famous Mortimer

Raspberry Pi Zero, at the low low cost of £4, has just been released. If there was any need in my life for another computer, I'd probably get one. I might still, just for the hell of it.

biggytitbo

Quote from: Famous Mortimer on November 26, 2015, 07:53:58 AM
Raspberry Pi Zero, at the low low cost of £4, has just been released. If there was any need in my life for another computer, I'd probably get one. I might still, just for the hell of it.


'Free' on the front of a magazine! A magazine that presumably costs at least £4 though...

billtheburger

Use it as a media hub and for mining bitcoin.

Still Not George

Bethan has one. It mainly gets used as a Minecraft server though.

billtheburger

I think they are essential if you have kids who you want to understand programming beyond tapping an icon.

I recently got mine back out of dust gathering duties and I'll echo what billtheburger says. They are good for experimenting setting up SSH and learning the Linux terminal beyond just updating packages. I was playing around with my router settings the other week and realised that DD-WRT allows you to specify a host on your home network as a "de-militarized zone" so any NAT/firewalling by the router that normally adds protection to the rest of your devices on your home network can be turned off for a specified IP address, leaving it exposed to the internet. I've got the Pi running in such a way and it's useful for learning how to set up a host securely using just the command line. If it all craps up and someone from Japan gains root access to it I can just reflash the memory card and start again. I installed Apache on it until I realised that I've got fuck all I'd like to share as a web page. It's currently running a crypto node that can be accessed at neawanna.co.uk but it's for browsing accounts only, as it's a very bad idea to send your passphrase over the internet if there are tokens in the account.

biggytitbo

If it has no wifi or ethernet how do you get it online?

Consignia

With a wifi USB device.

Sorry, I was on about the standard RasPi that's been sat unused for a while, not this new one.

biggytitbo

Quote from: Consignia on November 26, 2015, 09:57:03 AM
With a wifi USB device.


You'll end up with a powered usb hub hanging out of it 5 times bigger than the computer.


How much would it have added to the cost to add wifi and make it 100 times more useful?

mook

the sort of people who are going to buy it will have the relevent bits & bobs knocking about anyway.

Consignia

If you're going to use it anything other than headless, you're going to need a powered USB hub anyway. It's only got one USB port, and it doesn't give enough power for more than one thing on that. I think most people get them in kits anyway, and the hubs are roughly the same size as pi in a case, so it's not much more of a foot print.

Yeah, it would've been nice for them to add some kind of connectivity but I think WiFi is quite power hungry if you think about the distance from one room in your house to another. I bought this Edimax one a while ago because it's supposed to be one of the more compatible ones when fucking around with the Pi. I was using a crappy phone charger to power the whole lot up and ended up having to buy a higher rated one when I was having WiFi trouble. My preferred method is Ethernet, of course, if you're going to have it running 24/7. They should have included built in Ethernet at least. Does a mini-Ethernet connection exist? The SoC is nicely specced though: better CPU and RAM than the original Pi.

biggytitbo

Excuses excuses. Wifi can't be that power hungry since you can get those tiny android sticks or a chromecast with wifi that can be powered purely by the USB slot in your TV.

Consignia

They're cut to the bone to be as cheap as possible. Not every application of the pi needs internet access, so they don't put it on. Their prime market isn't media centres, it's just one hobbiest application. Some of their other applications require loads of things hanging off them, so if wifi is needed, it can be plugged in.

biggytitbo

Quote from: Consignia on November 26, 2015, 11:26:55 AM
They're cut to the bone to be as cheap as possible.


That doesn't make sense though. It's £4 and it has a cpu, gpu, memory and and hdmi port...how much more expensive than those things is a wifi chip? Instead of £4 it becomes, what £6? Does the £2 make much odds for something that becomes many times more useful?

mook

#27
the $5 cost was very important to them. can't you see the attraction in that? i mean, a computer for the price of a pint of beer!? fucking incredible really.


Blumf

Quote from: biggytitbo on November 26, 2015, 10:09:13 AM
You'll end up with a powered usb hub hanging out of it 5 times bigger than the computer.

How much would it have added to the cost to add wifi and make it 100 times more useful?

That's my problem with it:

RPi-0 : 4 quid - woo!

But you need to add:
SD card ~10 quid
A decent power supply (most mobile chargers aren't up to it, might even fry the RPi) ~10
Powered USB hub ~20
Keyboard/mouse ~10
HDMI monitor ~70 (in a world full of old VGA monitors going to waste[nb]yeah yeah, HDMI2VGA adapters exist, but they aren't free either, and yet another point of failure in this spiders web of flaky connectors[/nb])
WiFi and/or Ethernet adapter ~20
Various dongles to connect the mini/micro versions of the ports on the RPi to the normal sized plugs on the various devices listed above ~10

So, about 150 quid in all, for a tangled mess of likely fail points. Or you could just get a brand new laptop for the same money and more features. Or, even cheaper, just dig out an old desktop.

mook

Quote from: Blumf on November 26, 2015, 12:15:20 PM
That's my problem with it:

RPi-0 : 4 quid - woo!

But you need to add:
SD card ~10 quid
A decent power supply (most mobile chargers aren't up to it, might even fry the RPi) ~10
Powered USB hub ~20
Keyboard/mouse ~10
HDMI monitor ~70 (in a world full of old VGA monitors going to waste[nb]yeah yeah, HDMI2VGA adapters exist, but they aren't free either, and yet another point of failure in this spiders web of flaky connectors[/nb])
WiFi and/or Ethernet adapter ~20
Various dongles to connect the mini/micro versions of the ports on the RPi to the normal sized plugs on the various devices listed above ~10

So, about 150 quid in all, for a tangled mess of likely fail points. Or you could just get a brand new laptop for the same money and more features. Or, even cheaper, just dig out an old desktop.

but how many of those things do you already own?

i'm not a techy person at all, but i've got all of that stuff (apart from the wifi adaptor thing) lurking about.