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Raspberry Pi Hits the 2 Million Mark
The Raspberry Pi project that we've been fans of for quite a while now has hit a new milestone: Today, they announced that as of the last week in October, the project has sold more than two million boards. Raspberry Pi is anything but alone in the tiny, hackable computer world (all kinds of other options, from Arduino to the x86-based Minnowboard, are out there, and all have their selling points), but the low price, open-source emphasis, and focus on education have all helped the Pi catch on. If yours is one of these 2 million, what are you using it for? (And if you favor some other small system for your own experiments, what factors matter?)
Tell us about it. What do you cook up with Arduino kits, and how do you use them?
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
Then you may want to take a look at BeagleBone Black. Costs $10 more but uses a much more modern and powerful chip.
First Raspberry Pi is powers an Asterisk VOIP system
Second Raspberry Pi, is a low end NAS device for system backups
Third Raspberry Pi is running RaspFi as a squeeze slave
Fourth Raspberry Pi is running a Squeezebox server
My father gave me one, I put RaspBMC on it because it seemed like the easiest way to get Debian on it.
That said, I've never really been a big fan of XBMC even running on decent hardware, and it's kinda hard to think of much else to do with a Raspberry Pi that doesn't involve sinking a lot of money for an LCD screen and USB wifi, at which point you're better off with a cheap tablet/smartphone. So I kinda just carry it around so I could put the BSOD screensaver on random LCD TVs that I find in public.
Frankly, I had more fun with the $25 Arduino UNO he sent me. I used it to control one of those cheap Lutron color LED strips:
https://plus.google.com/109464377854747809155/videos
So if I was a little more motivated, my workstation's mood lighting could correspond to the weather or Nagios or something.
Wow... iPhone vs Rpi, this ought to be good. Fight!
I've built an older iPhone into a wall to serve as a control panel for my home automation system. Works great and a bargain at the 2nd hand price I paid, but I've picked up a Pi as well as an Arduino to try and create more of these wall mounted controllers. The reason to switch to these platforms? More control over the form factor, easier to program, easier to interface with other hardware (like dimmers), ability to use tactile keys rather than a touchscreen, etc. I haven't decided yet between Arduino and the Pi.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
My RPi is loaded with RaspBMC and I use it to watch videos I have stored on my main machine.
It is hooked up directly to the USB port of my TV so it powers up when I turn the TV on, and turns off when I'm done.
It is powerful enough to stream 1080p over SMB/CIFS, and I got a 10EUR IR remote that needed exactly zero configuration (plugged in the USB receiver, counted up to 10, it was ready to go).
Sure, it's not the fastest machine on earth, but for what I use it it's miles better than DLNA or similar crap.
I wanted to build a fun little project over the summer to scare cats out of the garden.
The RPi was a great platform to work with for a casual project like this. Having the GPIO was a real winner here.
I wrote it all up for others to peruse and have offered enough information that anyone could build it for themselves.
http://norris.org.au/cattack/
There are *quirks* to this hardware, but it is not a commercial device, it is for education use. I was telling my teacher-in-training friend that I don't know if I'd want to use the RPi in class with 30 students all finding the quirks at different times: it would be chaos! But for a single enthusiastic student working through these problems will give them a fantastic introduction to troubleshooting and the real life pain that comes with getting something to work.
I made a photo booth which was installed inside of an old phone booth in a local cafe for a new-media art festival this past summer. I used a Raspberry Pi, a usb webcam, a big red button connected via GPIO, a coin slot connected via GPIO, and an ethernet cable running to the router in the back room. People would insert their dime or two nickles and the button would light up. Pressing the button would take a photo. The Pi then uploaded the photos to a website which looped through all of the photos taken during the festival. People could visit the website on their own devices, but there were also a few screens set up around the town in shop windows displaying the photos. The program to do all this was a simple python script with a loop.
You can still see the photos taken here: http://donttakemypicture.org/
The site uses javascript to keep checking for new photos and to change the photo displayed for you every few seconds.
I like Raspbian, but it would be nice to have the Ubuntu packages built for the Pi.
Bit of the back story on the project page explaining why the Pi didn't have Ubuntu from the start.
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/a-raspberry-pi-build-cluster-for-ubuntu/x/5206923
There are other hardware RNGs available, but none as inexpensive as a PI. Also because the PI has an RJ45 connection, it can be plugged into my router where it can serve random numbers for all computers on my lan.