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Milestone: The Millionth UK-Made Raspberry Pi
judgecorp writes "The millionth Raspberry Pi microcomputer has been made in the Foundation's Welsh factory. Total sales so far are 1.75 million, including the initial stock made in China." (Do you have one? If so, what are you using it for?)
The first one is used as a media player with the openelec distribution (it's the best one, with a very active community), and the second one is used as a secondary computer, with the raspbian distribution and an amazon kindle used as a display :-)
I have done nothing useful with them. They are collecting dust
Unfortunately, they made these little computers a bit *too* cheaply. In my experience, their poor power regulation makes them just flaky enough to be totally unsuitable for use as anything other than as a nerd toy.
Which is really too bad - I wanted them to pull it off, and they do make a neat nerd toy, but in any kind of actual production use where random failures are a Bad Thing, and failure to boot is damn near guaranteed to happen occasionally, they are unsuitable.
On the other hand, I hear that the beaglebones have solved this problem, though I've never laid hands on one myself.
And on the gripping hand, Arduino has been, for me, open source and cheap done properly. Love that kit.
UK... Sinclair ZX-81, Amstrad CPC-6128 (my own favorite), and some other great stuff - greetings from Greece... i know how it feels to be a fallen empire of the past!
Congrats on the milestone!
Our business uses them as Linux Terminal Server Project thin clients. We were able to cut our new hardware costs to 1/5th of what they were before.
People thought it would never get it off the ground. Then people thought it would never ship. Then that it would be plagued by problems and die. Then that it would never hold interest long enough to get to the point where you could get one without waiting 6 months.
There are still lots of haters, talking about how there are better “alternatives” out there (alternatives usually being 3 or 4 times the cost, impossible to get, or apples to oranges).
That said, I can order a perfectly functional unit, for the promised price, and have it here (in Canada) in about 4 days. I’ve got 5 of them now. I’d call that a huge success.
You brought something awesome into the world, and I thank you :)
...I do have another, better ARM SoC, that provides me with more than twice the amount of RAM, almost twice the clock frequency, two processor cores and about three times the GPU power. My device is actually a good desktop solution, unlike the Raspberry Pi. Here's a big hurrah, not to the Raspberry, but to ARM SoCs and the ARM revolution!
I'm using it to learn about ARM, and write baremetal code for it. Maybe it'll morph into a little OS. It's lots of fun. Anyone else doing this?
I use mine for php/python development platform, very nice, very easy to move with me if needed. Just little sad broadcom is not exactly opensource and those chips are locked down pretty tight even on datasheet side.
Note that Adafruit has the BeagleBone for 45$:
http://www.adafruit.com/products/1278
It has 512MB, onboard flash, HDMI etc.
And it seems there are plenty of connectors for hackers...
I have not checked the parent's claims about this card being more open but this beaglebone looks very interesting.
i agree fully. it's an overhyped device, by any measure. $40-$50 gives you a tinier arm soc with dual usb ports, wifi, bluetooth, dual cores, faste cpu, faster gpu, 1gb of memory etc. etc. which you can actually use for a lot of stuff instead of just, after 5 minutes of booting, showing the raspbian desktop and consuming power without being able to offer much in return for it.
i find the denial of the raspberry pi fanboys striking, in how they refuse to accept the shortcomings of the pi, and refuse to accept the other soc devices on the market.
I like to build robots and drones, and I've found it a nice mainboard. A tad on the big side (bigger than Gumstix) but much cheaper. OK for most purposes.
Yes the BBB has more IO capability on paper - e.g. 6 (8?) PWM channels, and yes the BBB is very fully documented.
In practice, only 3 of the PWM channels are usable at any one time due to driver bugs, and community support generally boils down to "read the (4,500 page) technical reference manual" and "try writing your own device tree overlay".
Where the BBB does score is in raw MIPs - *if* you can get e.g. WiFi working on one of the floating point distros.
Overall the BBB is like the Affordable Care Act: they had to build it to find out what was in it (the AM355x).
Hobbyists should wait for the Arduino Tre ("BeagleBoneBlue").
ive never cared for the Pi for a few reasons, call me a hater but ive reasons..
Beagle board over the Pi? To each their own I guess. I like cheap myself....
This software/electrical engineer own two Pi's and I see why they are popular. They are CHEAP and reasonably well supported. They are also easy to setup and use in most suitable applications and they are CHEAP. I do not complain about lack of horse power or about the Pi's other limitations because it is CHEAP. My only complaint about the Pi is the card slot is way too easy to break, but you can replace the slot or just replace the Pi because it is CHEAP. Even being CHEAP, the Pi can be used to stream HD media, browse the web and a whole host of things you can imagine, just remember that it really can only do ONE thing at a time, but it's CHEAP too!
The Pi was designed around one major goal, to be CHEAP. That is where the Pi shines and the secret to it's success, it is inexpensive to get started and CHEAP to replace when it breaks.
Finally, unlike other projects running 2-3 times the price (Of which there are many and the Bebalboard is an example), the Pi is CHEAPer..
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
I have four RPi boards. One monitors my UPSs, cleanly suspending my server when the power goes out and sending wake-on-LAN massages to it when the power comes back up so that the UPS only needs to drive my switch and AP, one has a camera board and does motion detection to spot people coming into my office, one is currently operating as a Bluetooth LE beacon for testing the new iOS iBeacon stuff and one is just for tinkering. Most of these have a few other services running on them too (two have I2C thermometers on them).
I see a lot of negative comments about the Pi being underpowered. Perhaps if what you want to do is run FPS games or you are trying to run Big Data analytics then this is true but it's plenty powerful enough for a whole host of service tasks. It's not that many years ago that the Pi's level of power would have been considered a high-end desktop configuration. The purpose of the device is to give kids a low-cost entry into programming and it does just that. On top, at $25 for a Model A its fine to put in 'dangerous' places where something bad might happen to it (like outdoors, driving the sensors and servos for my Halloween decorations). No, I don't have my MongoDB server on a Raspberry Pi, but for many many projects they are just about perfect.
If intelligent life is too complex to evolve on its own, who designed God?
I'm using it as a home router. It connects to my cable modem and two wireless access points. One access point is a guest network for all the randos who come visit and want to get on wifi, and the other one is for my family's use. I have dhcp handing out IPs, and iptables rules preventing communication between the networks and haxors from the cable modem side. So far, it has worked great, and if an access point ever dies (which seems to be an increasingly common occurrence), I just have to swap in a new one with minimal reconfiguration.
I'm just getting it to tinker with. After I get bored with it I might throw it out there as a Minecraft server. It seems to have the guts to be able to handle a 4-5 slot server. That's more than what I need. I'd be interested to hear from others who have used it for Minecraft and some of the ups and downs they had.
Currently using it with XBMC to watch BBC iPlayer - it's bridging the gap in the living room while I decide which 'proper' media box to buy (a Roku maybe). Once that's done I'll either re-purpose it into a print server to get the printer off the desk it's currently on or just have a play with Python with my 13 year old son. Once you've got one hanging around it'll fill any number of niches.
This may sound a bit old school.. All my linux servers are headless and use a NULL-Modem (RS232) to access their console. My Raspberry PI (with raspbian) uses a 4 port USB-Serial adapter to connect to all my servers. I connect to the RasPi over the internet using SSH (No Passwords - Certs!) and then use conserver (www.conserver.com) to manage the machines.
I use the A modles to run composite video loops in a bar, and the B as a ethernet->WiFi router (and video too).
I use one of mine in my Linux class to show another flavor of Linux and to demonstrate networking. I have used the other one, with a webcam and speakers, to facilitate a scary halloween display.
Using it to display photo's on a public display panel. Also looking at using one as a wireless router
Choose your allies carefully, it is highly unlikely you will be held accountable for the actions of your enemies
First as media center (Raspbmc), second as home automation (openhab).
I've got three
Using one in the garage for a remote camera with motion sensing on it (wireless dongle for network)
Hooked to the TV in the spare bedroom so any guests can check their mail and do some surfing
Was using one for messing around with for electronics but my media centre died and I'm using the PI for that, bit underpowered for the job but it works ok.
Probably going to order a couple more for other things I want to do.
There are three kinds of falsehood: the first is a 'fib,' the second is a downright lie, and the third is statistics.
The problem with the pi is;
A) there are no open drivers for the graphics, that part is apparently ultra closed. /real/ Ethernet port, it's hung on the USB.
B) It uses an ass backward old version of the ARM architecture which nobody else uses anymore.
C) It doesn't have any
D) There is only ONE Ethernet port. (Ok, it's not all that necessary, but it would be really useful.)
I can't imagine any of that would have been particularly difficult to think of from the start, or would have made the device significantly more expensive.
I am using my Pi to provide video for a costume I'm making. It's for a character who has a television for a head, and being the electronics nerd that I am, I decided to make my costume version with a functioning TV. I got a cheap old LCD TV from eBay, and put some content on a loop on the Pi, and got some batteries to power it all. Very simple, and the connection is straightforward since the Pi has an RCA composite video out.
:/ But for reference, the character is Prince Robot IV.
Of course, it's going to be a crappy costume unless I can figure out a way to make a nice shell to cover it all. So far my attempts at using fiberglass have been....mixed.
I use mine as a pulseaudio sink. I also have several other SD cards for other purposes, such as XMBC and router development.
Eventually I want to do some hardware with it - I am going to build a Wi-Fi model rocket launch system. The Pi will sit (protected of course, silly) under the launch pad with a lead-acid battery and a little bit of circuitry. The idea is to use a laptop/tablet/smart phone from 20m away to ignite the motor. The systems in the local hobby shops are all wired, leading to trip hazards and possibility of damage to equipment.
I agree that it isn't a high powered workhorse, but there are *so* many applications that really don't need that much power.
Anyone have a link or two to a suite of USB connected sensors (temperature, salinity, nitrates, nitrites, etc) for aquarium monitoring? (Think: graphing these with Cacti...)
Proof positive that manufacturing can still be done in the West affordably.
A "knowledge-based" economy can only go so far, "products" based on an artificial concept (fiat currency) are only worthwhile if everyone agrees the currency has value.
I applaud the Raspberry Pi team for making the UK manufacturing a priority.
One Million Pi's sold, with a slashvertisment each...
irssi, bitlbee, fetchmail, mutt
:)
also, it's my (inbound) ssh gateway
what could possibly go wrong, right?
CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
My pi is wired up as a Gameshow controller. I bought two 4 inch buttons from Adafruit, they're wired up as a 2 player controller, with sound and light.
Survey Says?
Buzz
Player 1 your answer?
it was a huge hit for a large crowd
I always thought of Creationism as the Raving Right's version of the Loony Left's Anthropogenic Global Warming-brightmal
I used mine to port my game to the platform.
The GPU is really fast and can do 1920x1080@30fps for moderately complex scenes.
http://store.raspberrypi.com/projects/littlecrane
Bram Stolk http://stolk.org/tlctc/
I use the Pi as the processor/display generator for a RasPlex system. While IMHO it isn't really fast enough for all 1080 video, it's plenty good enough for 720. That makes it a cheap alternative for things like our bedrood system. Although the RasPlex software is still in development, it works well enough for the purpose at hand, and better than some supposedly mature software. It's downloadable at http://rasplex.com/ The Pi is a nice little building block when you need a small, relatively inexpensive building block. It's been criticised for requiring an extermal power supply, keyboard, etc etc. But that seems to me to be a part of the building block idea. I wouldn't really want something that committed me to too many details! And, as someone has pointed out, you don't really need a permanent display, keyboard, or mouse, since it can be controlled over the network. I think it would make a nice router, if you wanted to really customize things.
My first one is currently hosting a Mumble server for myself and a few friends who use it to talk to one another while we play some game or just chat while we're on our PCs.
Second one is hooked up to my UPS via USB that shuts down my FreeNAS boxes, and restarts them once power is back up.
Third is under my salt water aquarium, hooked up to a thermometer and digital salinity/ph meter. Sends out an email if things get out of tolerance.
Its the perfect little device for those who have the time and freedom to tinker, can code, and have imagination.
You emphasize "CHEAP" so many times in your post, yet the Pi is $40 and the BBB is $45 at adafruit. Is $5 seriously the line between cheap and not cheap? Not to mention the hardware is better in just about every way. Your problem is you're too much of a Pi fanboy to see that the "other projects running 2-3 times the price" are either before the dawn of the cheap SBC market or well out of it's scope. Not to mention the GP you refer to even mentioned this $5 difference. You're so caught up in your Pi delusions that you can't see what's right in front of you.
> 2. its encumbered, so enjoy one more $45 product that kicks FLOSS to the curb.. Beaglebone isnt encumbered...but beagleboard isnt the word for god on the lips and hearts of every blogosphere hipster.
The beagleboard uses PowerVR GPU, which requires a closed driver for acceleration.
I use mine to create raspian packages for some software I make, so others can use it more easily. Boring, but much easier than cross compiling!
http://mosquitto.org/
Do you have any better hostages?
The begalbone in your link lists for $89 MSRP. It has less memory and is a whole lot less popular than the Pi. So it's more expensive and has additional limitations. But if you like them, by all means, buy them and have fun.
But my point is that the Pi is supposed to be what it is. It is cheap, inexpensive, low cost, educational computing device that is as CHEAP as possible so it can be used by as many folks as possible......
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Can you recommend a board with a GPU that has acceleration with an opensource driver. The current state of opensource ARM seems a bit basic http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTQ3MTM . Even intels minowboard uses one of the powervr GPUs that tainted half the netbooks back in the day.
The old CPU is a shame, but its been fast enough for me so far. For my MPD server I replaced a Beagleboard with RaspberryPI, which is plenty fast for streaming playing FLACs and MP3s.
First one has been running for well over a year now connected to the Weather Station, uploading to various locations including twitter. The Register even picked up on this one as part of a 20 things to do with a pi.
The second is an NTP server using GPS as the time source.
The third is a pure experimental/dev PI.
I've got one more model B & two A's just waiting for a project.
Been meaning to setup a PI Cam on one to complement the weather station so that I get a sky camera (cloud cover by day, long exposure at night for meteor's etc.
Java gaming nut - http://www.retep.org/ or for the rail http://uktra.in/
No Hardware video decoding is the answer you are looking for... For low cost HTPC Pi still the best.
I live in the U.S., and most people believe that cable/satellite TV is as much of a necessity as power and water. I cut my cable a year and a half ago, and haven't looked back. I have a Linux distribution that finds TV shows and stores them on a network share (semi-autonomous), then the family can use raspbmc to watch what they want using an Android as a remote. I was concerned that my family wouldn't be able to use it, but then my son turned it on and watched Pokémon by himself. It's been chugging along by itself for quite some time now; I am quite pleased.
Dr P Linux :D OpenGL on Arch ; Bluetooth Apple keyboard support ; various connectivity ; visualisation generator ; cloud platform
Spent All My Mod Points
We had a web power strip at work (8 outlets, control via web interface) go stupid. Rather than toss it, I brought it home and used 8 GPIO pins on the Pi to control the relays. It has a new web interface with direct control, control by time of day and control by offset from sunrise/sunset. My fireplace mantle lights turn on at 40 and 39 minutes before sunset. One turns off at 11 PM and the other turns off 30 minutes after sunrise. Currently at 275 days runtime. Sweet!
The boss bought one at work for a special project. Our janitors always block open the door to a room containing network switches and patch panels. Boss has tried for 12 years to get them to keep it closed. One Pi plus a pair of USB powered (analog input) speakers and mpg123, plus one GPIO pin connected to a magnetic reed switch on the door. Leave the door open for more than 60 seconds and one of two dozen prerecorded voices ask politely but loudly that you shut the door. Another message gets played every 15 seconds until the door is shut. Had some fun working on an algorithm that isn't quite random, so it prevents replay of a message until at least 1/3rd of the other messages have been played. Problem solved, the door is always shut now. 90 days uptime on that Pi.
Love em!
I have a Pi and have been pleased with how it has performed. They're not super powerful and they're not made for mission-critical applications, but they're a great toy to tinker with and a great way to learn and experiment. That was their goal, and in that, they have succeeded. Congrats on the success!
/* No Comment */
I have two RPi's. One is used as an IVI and the other acts as a BT audio sink for the sound system in my workout room.
The Pi Model A is $25; I'd say "a little more than half the price" counts as "cheap", especially if you don't need network connectivity. On the other hand, the BBB is probably preferable to the Pi Model B in just about every case except video (IIRC the BBB doesn't do 1080p). And most uses of video on the Pi are media centres that would be better served by one of the numerous Android dongles they make these days.
(Also, you're about the third or fourth person to comment that the BBB is "$45 at adafruit". Given that the only time I've seen it for more than $45 anywhere is as part of a kit, is it really necessary to say "at adafruit"? They're not hiring Slashdot shills now, are they? :-) )
I have got two units (model B), one with a camera. So far, I've only experimented with them (using as an info screen, motion-activated camera, making some analog measurements using gertboard's ADC, etc).
Planning to make a small mail/webserver to cut electricity bill (I have a spare SATA SDD drive and USB/SATA adapter), maybe "remote control" for our summer place.
The main value in RPi is that it is compact/cheap enough to still make complex to happen (much more power than Arduino/AVRs). Ideas are coming all the time and it usually takes an evening to try out one or two (given knowledge of Linux).
The newer beaglebone, the beaglebone 'black', is $45 everywhere. This is the best thing raspberry pi has done, I think... make beaglebones cheaper.
It's got:
1GHz arm of some sort,
512MB RAM, 2GB flash storage onboard, more through SD slot.
Ethernet that isn't a hackjob attached to USB
USB (host and device)
HDMI
an asston of i/o compared to pi.
mounting holes aren't a fucking afterthought. Jesus christ, talk about amateur night.
has two microcontrollery type peripherals (on die) for delegating low level IO stuff to. I haven't played with that, but it sounds like it could be pretty useful.
In addition, there's actual mechanical drawings of the bloody thing! wow!
Months ago I was working on a 'shield' for a pi, and mech drawings do not exist. I was completely dumbfounded at the oversight. Such a joke of an outfit, everything is so half-assed.
Sent from my PDP-11
I bought mine as a toy, and that's what I use it as, for the most part. I've got other hardware that's better-suited to use as a media center. I've gotten my $35 of enjoyment out of playing around with it, though.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
The RPi makes an excellent home automation controller, mine's running Domoticz (www.domoticz.com) and controls some lighting and reads wireless temperature sensors around the house. It's small and cheap and fast enough for this but I wouldn't run anything more advanced like a full LAMP stack or as a full time user desktop.
It has plenty of practical uses. Im running a webserver off mine, almost 300 days uptime. Its just several static pages, but it saves me paying for hosting every year. I use another as a temp/humidity sensor recorder in my office. I have another one setup the same in my media closet to kick on the fans if it gets too hot.
Good-bye
I broke my SD slot too. I ended up super-gluing a SD to MicroSd adapter in the socket. Works great.
Good-bye
Point taken, but remember you are not their target audience over there at the Pi Foundation. This thing is not about interfacing it to other things, albeit it still can, it's about being a cheap way to introduce folks to programming. Others may be matching their price now, but when they came out, they where the leader in cost/performance for a learning platform. I'm personally miffed that they can't get some of the processor chip fully utilized because of NDA's but they are/where cheap....
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
These ate not for general computing in my mind but dedicated operations.
I use two to drive digital signage in my store. They are light enough to be powered by the TVs USB port.
One is a fine 10 extension asterisk server.
One will soon be hooked to a large spare USB drive and will be a backup server.
Not everything needs tons of power.
Lots of things a $35 controller is a wonderful thing.
I have two, the first one displays system monitoring data. The diagrams are produced by Graphite on a real server, RPi displays them in a browser. That was not easy at first, because both Chromium and Midori are plagued with memory leaks which does not work well with Javascipt running in 24*7. My son wrote a script which reloads the tabs every hour, since that it works without issues. It only stops when there is a power outage.
I use the other one as a certificate authority, it is not connected to the internet.
1GHz arm of some sort,
Specifically a cortex A8.
512MB RAM, 2GB flash storage onboard, more through SD slot.
Correct
Ethernet that isn't a hackjob attached to USB
Though there were some teething problems with the driver when I tried it, not sure if they have been sorted yet.
USB (host and device)
Indeed and unlike the original white beaglebone there isn't a stupid hub sitting between the device port on the IC and the connector.
HDMI
It does but the capabilities of that port are somewhat limited compared to the one on the Pi, some discussion at https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/beagleboard/4vge3Zs8dYE
an asston of i/o compared to pi.
Much of which conflicts with either the EMMC (the onboard flash you talk about) or the HDMI framer.
mounting holes aren't a fucking afterthought.
Indeed
has two microcontrollery type peripherals (on die) for delegating low level IO stuff to. I haven't played with that, but it sounds like it could be pretty useful.
Indeed though when I did a quick search it seems you have to program them in their own assembler :/
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Mine is idling at the moment; I couldn't get an acceptable audio setup. I wanted it to pair up with one of my synths (Novation X-Station) which has an audio interface, so I could use it for playing long samples, backing tracks etc. Wouldn't have minded if it had just turned out to be too slow or unstable, but I think the problem is a mixture of not enough USB power and general poor linux audio. Ah well, back to my netbook for that application, and it was cheap enough that I don't mind having it kicking around for a rainy day project. Home/SSH file server, perhaps?
I hardwired my Pi into a box with a 4port USB hub which has a suitable powersupply. Since my home server (based on Centos 5) does not handle my new 3Tb USB disk drive, I set up the Pi with the disk and used RSync to back it up. Of course it was slow, but once I got the 1.5Tb of data synced, it can run every night and backup daily changes (which are not much). Works for me, and I tried the XBMC concept, but went with an Android box for that - cost a bit more but does a bit more, too.
I've set mine up on an old r/c 4wd chassis, gpio pins running motor controller chips and webcam so I can see where it's going, all runs off a 6v gel cell battery. bored with it now so it's just collecting dust, need to find something interesting to do with it again.
Mine got fried after a thunderstorm. Do you want ketchup with yours??
P.S. used it as a weather station server. Got the same problem as many posters above: usb stack fucked up, ethernet flakey and broadcasting carriers every 30 kHz from HF to UHF (yes, amateur radio operator here). Bottom of the bin it went, in with an Atom N270 server.
I replaced a pentium 4 I was using as a desktop with a Pi running berryterminal (LTSP) running applications on my home server. Works reasonably well - sometimes I get repeating or missed keys from the keyboard which is my main beef with it. Haven't been able to solve that. I like the power savings however and compared with my pentium 4 this setup isn't much worse performance wise!
I use many RPi and they are integrated in artistic projects shown there :-)
like a rotating video screen (like a windmill that displays pictures) and a 24sqm screen installed in a famous french art museum
So far I have bought 8 of these things. 2 are my personal development units which are often reconfigured. The rest: Wifi router shop radio/media player Snort Intrusion Prevention system Khan Academy server blog server, basic LAMP setup dedicated fileserver/target for an in-house network security class Other projects in work include a completely solar powered portable unit using a Gechic 1301 USB powered monitor.. the whole setup pulls about 10w. A couple of weeks ago mine were used at #Paiwand, the social Media Summit in Kabul, Afghanistan to stream twitter updates via hootfeed, and help me monitor the performance of the satellite uplink for our livestream.
I found it works well with Raspbian rather than the RaspBMC it shipped to me with. Next I would like to get an I/O board and make my webcam steerable.
The first one is being used for this: http://things-linux.blogspot.com/2013/07/delicious-raspberry-pi.html
The second one for this: http://things-linux.blogspot.com/2013/07/a-second-helping-of-pi.html
The third is for experimentation.