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A Least Half a Million Raspberry Pis Sold
hypnosec writes "The Raspberry Pi Foundation has announced that it could have sold over a million units of its credit-card-sized computer, the Raspberry Pi. Announcing the achievement, the foundation wrote that one of its distributors, Element14, has sold over half a million units of the Raspberry Pi, and even though the foundation doesn't have up-to-date figures from its other distributor, RS Components, it is expecting to have sold its millionth unit of the computer."
You know Jobs must have left detailed plans for it.
I'll admit I haven't done this yet (can't get my hands on one!) but I plan to use two as a cheap drivers for my 5'th and 6'th monitor. Currently I'm using an old (AMD sempton 7something) box to do this, but a Raspberry Pi should do nicely (all I really need is an X server as I just forward the apps to the display currently..)
They aren't a killer app type of product, they are something that a hobbyist can play around with. At $25 or $35 they are almost disposable and can be the basis for all sorts of projects. They are small, portable, and don't require much power, and cheap. I want to see if I can create a RTK like setup (it won't be realtime) but need to first find some USB GPS receivers that will dump the raw data instead of already processed data.
Time to offend someone
Adafruit has a great series of lessons on how to get it setup and examples of some interesting uses. They also have a ton of useful accessories, cases, etc.
I've done a few Arduino-like experiments using their Pi Cobbler breakout board. I got mine to output status information (date/time, IP Address, network stats) and/or a twitter feed on a cheap 16x2 LCD display. With a cheap wifi dongle and one of those USB emergency cellphone chargers for power, it's completely independent of wires, so I'm thinking about adding some motors and maybe a few IR sensors to create a basic rover. Once you get the distro setup to auto-login and install TightVNC server and enable SSH, you just need to give it a network connection to control it remotely from a PC. I only hooked mine up to an HDMI TV once on first boot to get those things running. Now I just turn it on and wait for the IP to appear on the LCD display and SSH or VNC into it.
I agree that initially it was tough to come up with useful things to do with it, but the Adafruit tutorials went a long way toward inspiring me and walking me through the more mundane details of taking care of the basics (SSH, VNC, WiFi, etc.) so that you can focus on actually doing something cool with it. You can also search around for BeagleBone or Arduino + Ethernet Shield projects for ideas since the Pi can do most of what those can at a fraction of the price. Good luck!
So many uses so little time. I love my Pi, and am planning on buying one or two more.
It has programmable pins !!! which can be used to switch relay s and control electronics, no weird usb breakout box needed. If you end up frying it, your only out $35 or $25.
It is an amazing video player, pushes 1080p H264&MPEG2, with Dolby digital without a sweat (mpeg2 license cost about $2). Run XMBC on it and you can control it with the TVs remote, The best support of CEC I have ever seen. I am in the process of using mine as a dvr.
It takes only 2 watts to power!! Perfect server for a low traffic website. Cheap to keep running 24/7. Plus its completely solid state so no fan issues, no noise.
True there are other options out there for all of this, but none of them have the wealth of documentation, or community support that the Pi has.
Can you post the URL of your F-I-L's website?
It runs Linux. It can do anything Linux can do, as long as you can live with somewhat limited RAM and CPU speed.
I added a USB hard drive to mine, grabbed a SqueezePlug SD card image, and I'm using it as the MP3 server for my Squeezebox audio players. SqueezePlug started as a bundle of Debian + Logitech Media Server built for PogoPlugs, then also various NAS devices. The Raspberry Pi turned out to be such perfect hardware for the purpose, that the developer has dropped support for other devices.
Prior to that, I left my Mac Mini up 24/7 running Logitech Media Server. It would leak memory and leave the OSX desktop unusable. The Pi uses less power, it's easier to admin, and it's silent.
I do feel I should experiment with other uses -- mine has never had a mouse, keyboard or monitor connected. Just a USB hard disk and ethernet.
I'm using my 512 Pi for XBMC (via Raspbmc) and it has come a long way. Booting from SD but running the OS from a USB drive really improves the speed and navigation of menus, so that there is little to no lag now. I really enjoy using XBMC now (CEC passthrough and I don't even need a separate remote). For $35 and effectively using a device that was never designed to do what I'm using it for, I have zero complaints.
No, you can mount a lot of USB storage devices to an RPi ( http://raspi.tv/2012/how-to-mount-and-use-a-usb-hard-disk-with-the-raspberry-pi), not so with an AppleTV ( https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4054508?start=0&tstart=0).
Depends on what you consider to be a "killer app" I suppose. I have mine running Debian as a very cheap, very low power-draw "always on" computer for my home network, to mastermind a few background tasks, run a few low intensity "server" applications, and to act as an SSH-able gateway to my home network. You wouldn't be able to find much better for that sort of task for $35.
I've also used mine to run RISC OS 5, which runs beautifully on it. For anyone nostalgic for that old system, there is no better way to put together a fully functioning replica of your old Acorn boxes using modern hardware.
Really though, it's not about "killer apps". As sibling posters have said, it's about having computers so cheap that you can use them in any old hobby project, regardless of how idle the project or how likely it is to accidentally destroy the hardware. If that doesn't appeal to you, it probably isn't worth buying one.
Don't use USB. Use the integrated I2C bus, and this thing. It's cheaper, doesn't suck power through the already limited USB on the RPi, and gives you 10 location updates per second in exactly the form you're looking for.
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