# What do you use your Raspberry Pi for?



## MannDude

Well, I've been putting it off for too long and had to jump on the Raspberry Pi after this Reddit article resparked my interest in it: http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1f607z/owners_of_a_raspberry_pi_what_do_you_use_it_for/ Some really awesome examples of just what this tiny device can be used for.

Twenty minutes and a few clicks later, I should have my Pi here tomorrow. Thanks Amazon Prime!

Curious what everyone here uses their Raspberry Pi for.


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## Nick

Just started to reinstall mine.

Going to setup an FM Transmitter and drive around tomorrow and watch peoples reactions as I interrupt their station they're listening to  jk

I hear the FM Transmitter can actually be pretty powerful, I'm about to find out


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## Alto

I've got two Pi's running RaspBMC streaming video and audio from my NAS. Not terribly exciting I know, but a hell of a lot cheaper than buying 2 network media players.

Once I pick up another one, I'm either going to use it for a mini-mame cabinet, or mount it onto the back of an X-Arcade tankstick for (semi)portable 2-player arcade shenanigans. Again, not terribly exciting, but what can I say, I like playing arcade games and being able to watch my anime in every room.


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## MartinD

One of mine is running RaspBMC and sits under the telly connected to the NAS.


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## acd

2x raspi+USB DAC -> pulseaudio remote speaker endpoints, because I can't be bothered to run both speaker and ethernet wire. Another one resets the power on my flaky DSL modem after 10-20 minutes of no internet accessibility.


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## wlanboy

First Raspberry Pi:

Installed Raspbian (http://www.raspbian.org) on it. Afterwards lighttpd + Ruby. My photo blog is running on it. Uses ssh for local port forwarding. I use one of my little ServerDragon vps as "proxy".

Second Raspberry Pi:

Mame + Xbox 360 controller + HDMI cable = arcade machine.


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## MannDude

Yay, mine will be here tomorrow. Still not 100% sure what I will do with it just yet, but will certainly find something. Anyhow, it will be an excuse to go buy some Legos so I can build a case for it...


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## netnub

I am making one of them into a gamign console, the other runs my home automation system.


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## HalfEatenPie

Mine's just being used for XBMC.  Streams videos onto it and such.






Yep, awesome.


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## ChrisM

Paper Weight.. I bought mine when they first came on sale (took months to get) never got around to really doing anything with it.


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## HalfEatenPie

Awww...  Is that the Model A or Model B?  I have the 512mb one.


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## ChrisM

HalfEatenPie said:


> Awww...  Is that the Model A or Model B?  I have the 512mb one.


512 I believe. I got a free upgrade since I waited forever.


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## acd

Model A has no ethernet phy. B rev1 is 256MB. B rev2 is 512MB and has mounting holes (which you can see in the picture).


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## pcan

At work I have installed a Raspberry pi with attached Dallas temperature sensors near the top of each rack. Each Raspberry run a script that sample the temperature every 2 minutes and store it on a local Mysql database. Data is replicated to a central database. A web application (on a regular VPS) read the database to create a zoomable graph. It also send email alerts if the temperature is outside boundaries or if data cannot be read from the Raspberry; the issue is recorded for statystical analysis.. Temperature resolution is 0.1 degree and the graph is pretty accurate. This whole setup is less costly than the cheapest commercial temperature monitor, has more features, and the Raspberry pi temselves are generic network servers that will be used for further monitoring efforts.


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## HalfEatenPie

pcan said:


> At work I have installed a Raspberry pi with attached Dallas temperature sensors near the top of each rack. Each Raspberry run a script that sample the temperature every 2 minutes and store it on a local Mysql database. Data is replicated to a central database. A web application (on a regular VPS) read the database to create a zoomable graph. It also send email alerts if the temperature is outside boundaries or if data cannot be read from the Raspberry; the issue is recorded for statystical analysis.. Temperature resolution is 0.1 degree and the graph is pretty accurate. This whole setup is less costly than the cheapest commercial temperature monitor, has more features, and the Raspberry pi temselves are generic network servers that will be used for further monitoring efforts.


 

You win.  I'm done.  Haha.  You win.

That's amazing.  If you have atleast a picture or something that'd be fantastic.  If you want to give more detail I'd appreciate that too.  Just.  Woah. 



acd said:


> Model A has no ethernet phy. B rev1 is 256MB. B rev2 is 512MB and has mounting holes (which you can see in the picture).


 

Thanks for clearing that up.  Yeah totally blanked that they went through three versions.


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## pcan

This sensor is measuring the rack internal temperature. Picture is not very clear because I made it in a hurry; the sensor is the red part at the end of the white wire, attached to the rail with the black zip tie.



This is a (small) part of the custom monitoring dashboard, with a temperature graph (celsius degrees).



For instance, this is the temperature of the cold air output of one HVAC unit in a tandem configuration (two units that alternate every 10 hours). You can clearly see the compressor constantly starting and stopping; at the end of the shift you see the ambient temperature. Each Raspberry Pi can support dozens of cheap temperature sensors on a 1-wire bus.

[edit]: This is the web page that explains how to attach the cheap Dallas sensor to the Raspberry Pi header. I used a 2k4 resistor, it makes the reading more stable. http://blog.a-netz.de/2013/02/measuring-temperature-with-the-raspberry-pi/


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## Chronic

I set mine up with XBMC and I'm considering grabbing another one to run a poor man's home server.


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## Kalam

Running OpenELEC (XBMC) behind the TV. Have a 2TB external plugged into the USB port of my router that it pulls content from.


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## WebSearchingPro

http://www.technobuffalo.com/2013/05/13/google-io-2013-sensors-data-collection/

If I had the money I would probably attempt to do something like that, I think it would be extremely interesting to see what kind of data our house would put out it it were monitoring various environmental features constantly. 

Otherwise it would be either a miniVPN or just used to learn linux!


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## MartinD

Not sure how many of you read through that reddit post... but one guy is using his as a Raspberry Pibrator for his wife... 

In fact, here it is: http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1f607z/owners_of_a_raspberry_pi_what_do_you_use_it_for/ca7an5w


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## MannDude

MartinD said:


> Not sure how many of you read through that reddit post... but one guy is using his as a Raspberry Pibrator for his wife...


Yeah, I saw that... Interesting read really. Elaborate setup by the sounds of it. Who said geeks don't get any? Well, actually, I guess his pi getting some. But he gets to watch and fine tune it, haha.


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## MannDude

Haven't had much time to do much with it yet. Tonight I will certainly fuss around with it a bit more. It's here!


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## matt[scrdspd]

HalfEatenPie said:


> Mine's just being used for XBMC.  Streams videos onto it and such.
> 
> Yep, awesome.


Have you run into any issues with it? Plays 1080p x264 videos smoothly? Anything to be aware of/limitations? 

I have a custom built HTPC (running XBMC) for my main TV but was considering getting 1 or 2 RP's for other TV's in the house (media is stored on a central file server).


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## Nick

Use USB3 and you'll notice a large increase in performance


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## acd

matt_securedspeed said:


> Have you run into any issues with it? Plays 1080p x264 videos smoothly? Anything to be aware of/limitations?


rasbmc can be flakey, at least the version I tried. If you are running a 256MB board, don't even bother with it, it will lock up on you while trying to navigate menus and playback video at the same time (which is what it is designed to do, you can't avoid this); you really need a 512MB (rev2) board to make it work. Occasionally, I'll get video stutter on some high bitrate files (really high 5+mbit burst) when streaming from samba/nfs but I'm not sure if this is a network problem or a raspi problem (raspi seems to be capped at around 80mbps effective bw). It has hardware assisted decoding for mpeg4 and h264, so as long as you're not trying to stream your DVD images (mpeg2), it's pretty durn quick and seamless, even at 1080p24&p30 (I don't have any p60s, or I'd try it). Decoding is based on ffmpeg as far as I can tell, so it's very compatible and accurate demuxing & decoding. I use stereo out because I'm sending to a monitor (hdmi->dvi converter) instead of to a TV so I can't speak on the hdmi audio output, but I'm sure proper futzing with pulseaudio will get it working. The plugins for TV show metadata in xbmc suck, even with configured "properly" and have a hard time recognizing folders & subfolders, but it plays back the files just fine from the browser.

tl;dr version, if you're already running XBMC and like how it handles, pick up a raspi model B rev2. A fully kitted out rpi w/ case, psu, and storage will probably run you 70-80$ and if it isn't suitable for your media playback needs, you can always repurpose it as a seriously overpowered garage door opener.


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## WebSearchingPro

*@**MannDude*, How are amazon basics products, any good? Ive not gotten around to buying anything from them since monoprice gets the job done...


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## MartinD

I'm running raspbmc on a 256 model with no problems what so ever. There are tweaks you can do to minimize the menu glitching.


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## KuJoe

Ordering one now for this: http://rpitc.blogspot.com/

I threw out my desktop and home servers in place of my netbook that I just RDP into a Windows 7 VM on a dedicated server with a 1Gbps port, this should remove the need for my netbook now. 

Out of curiosity, did anybody buy a case for theirs? I was looking at some of the cases online and they look pretty cool but I also found some nice instructions for building cases out of LEGOs which are fun and cheap.


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## MannDude

KuJoe said:


> .
> 
> .
> 
> .
> 
> Out of curiosity, did anybody buy a case for theirs? I was looking at some of the cases online and they look pretty cool but I also found some nice instructions for building cases out of LEGOs which are fun and cheap.


I thought about ordering one, then I thought it'd be much more fun to build one. Probably go the lego route as well.

Right now it just stays on my desk, though I still haven't do anything with it yet.


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## KuJoe

MannDude said:


> I thought about ordering one, then I thought it'd be much more fun to build one. Probably go the lego route as well.
> 
> Right now it just stays on my desk, though I still haven't do anything with it yet.


Who did you buy from? I see Amazon has dozens of sellers all for the same price.


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## MannDude

KuJoe said:


> Who did you buy from? I see Amazon has dozens of sellers all for the same price.


http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009SQQF9C/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Not the cheapest, but I got it in less than 48 hours.


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## KuJoe

I ordered from MemoryWhiz. $48.94 for next day shipping (I could have gotten in Saturday for free but I sleep during the day so I opted to pay the $3.99 for it to arrive tomorrow instead).


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## pcan

KuJoe said:


> Ordering one now for this: http://rpitc.blogspot.com/


I already tried that. A well refined distribution, but despite the accelerated x driver, scrolling performance on the Windows desktop is horrible and a simple flash animation will grind to a halt the browser window in the RDP session. According to qualified posters on Raspberry official forum, the Raspberry GPU is unsuited to drive a X-based desktop. The Raspberry Pi foundation sponsored solution will be a Wayland porting. This will hopefully be more suited to the peculiar SOC architecture of the Raspberry Pi.

For the time being, I use my Raspberrys for headless tasks only. I found a further trivial but useful use as FTP/TFTP server to store device firmware updates. Some updates must be made at off-peak hours; previous solution was to leave a old laptop in the rack, the Raspberry is easier to carry.


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## acd

MartinD said:


> There are tweaks you can do to minimize the menu glitching.


 Care to elaborate? I tried disabling RSS and a bit of OC (1GHz stable) but neither fixed my problem. Not like you can still get a model B w/ 256MB of ram, but I'm curious to know how I could have fixed it.

Not that anyone asked, but I recommend the case I picked up, http://amzn.com/B008TCUXLW . At 14$, it's nearly cheaper than the lego solution--those damn blocks are pricy!


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## titanicsaled

Kujoe, how does connecting to a windows 7 VM on a dedi work for you? Is that dedi on your local network or in a DC somewhere? I've always been interested in thin client computing but never really got round to it myself. If big companies could make it mainstream and integrate it with products devices could get even smaller and cheaper and consume a lot less power.


At the moment ive just reimaged my pi for use as a monitoring and status device. I have a 4x20 LCD which I shallbe using to display information collected from my servers.


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## KuJoe

titanicsaled said:


> Kujoe, how does connecting to a windows 7 VM on a dedi work for you? Is that dedi on your local network or in a DC somewhere? I've always been interested in thin client computing but never really got round to it myself. If big companies could make it mainstream and integrate it with products devices could get even smaller and cheaper and consume a lot less power.
> 
> 
> At the moment ive just reimaged my pi for use as a monitoring and status device. I have a 4x20 LCD which I shallbe using to display information collected from my servers.


It's been great. I only use my netbook OS for audio and video. I've got my primary drive synced between my netbook, NAS, and Windows 7 VM so no matter where I am I have all of the data I need. I have 2 dedicated servers in 2 different data centers, one is about 40ms latency and the other is about 70ms so I keep my Windows 7 and Server 2008 VMs in the closer data center while keeping my linux distros in the other.

After reading pcan's reply, I don't know how well it will work for me, but worst case it can still make a great media player since my NAS doesn't support transcoding and my TV only supports a few codecs.


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## drmike

Nick said:


> Going to setup an FM Transmitter and drive around tomorrow and watch peoples reactions as I interrupt their station they're listening to  jk
> 
> I hear the FM Transmitter can actually be pretty powerful, I'm about to find out


Which FM transmitter?

FCC regulations and similar international regulations pretty much limit FM transmitters to 50mw or less.  FCC regulations  are way more complicated than that though.  It is a field strength test done for a distance.

All legal FM transmitters (unmodified) are limited to 50ft or less.  At maximum, maybe 200 feet in open space.   AM broadcasting, well that gives you more power and range, but still small range normally.


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## drmike

MannDude said:


> I thought about ordering one, then I thought it'd be much more fun to build one. Probably go the lego route as well.
> 
> Right now it just stays on my desk, though I still haven't do anything with it yet.


You can do what I did with mini itx for eons.

They sell these threaded pieces of steel at hardware stores (big box ones)  Like a big headless screw--- various lengths - 6in, 1ft, etc.

I take 4 of these and place them in normal corner/mount holes.  Then I take a rubber grommet and a nylon nut and put those on the bottom of each leg --- can adjust the nut to height you want to raise it up off surface.  

Another set of grommets and nuts on top keep the board snug in place.

It's pretty cheap and open air


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## KuJoe

^I'm going to build this one.


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## drmike

KuJoe said:


> ^I'm going to build this one.


Anyone temperature tested a case like that with the Pi?


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## KuJoe

Good thinking. Assuming the Raspberry Pi has some sort of temperature sensor I'll be using my nice little temp monitoring script.


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## drmike

KuJoe said:


> Good thinking. Assuming the Raspberry Pi has some sort of temperature sensor I'll be using my nice little temp monitoring script.


I'm old school like that. Way too easy to burn things up 

Still haven't bought a Pi, but considering one to drive a pair of radio transmitters (AM and FM).  Feed the transmitters audio, store the programming, etc.

Have to get up to speed with Jack and other other tools to get the solution hammered out and see if the Pi can keep up.


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## fisle

Oh man I really want to get one after reading the reddit link and this thread.. Wanna try OpenELEC with it so badly.. but have to get my TV fixed first, damn you old plasma, just out of nowhere *boom* and now only color it displays is blue :|


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## KuJoe

I think I'm going to play around with PiBang if the RPITC doesn't work out for me.


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## MannDude

Well, I finally decided to play with my Pi tonight. No net connection to it so connecting to it via ethernet.

Was able to ping the Pi, the Pi could ping my debain desktop. Could SSH into the Pi via my PC _*BUT*_ the connection keeps dropping. I can fix it by reassigning the IP back to eht0, but it's a pain in the ass.

So, I can SSH into my Pi. I have a couple minutes to play around with it 'remotely' (its 2 feet away from me) and then terminal locks up. Can't ping it, can't reach it. I reissue, 'sudo ifconfig eth0 [iP]' and can connect to the Pi again. Repeat. What do I need to do to get this to 'take hold'?


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## nunim

KuJoe said:


> I think I'm going to play around with PiBang if the RPITC doesn't work out for me.


Looks neat but I figured it would be related to something earlier in the thread that my wife might enjoy...


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## wlanboy

MannDude said:


> So, I can SSH into my Pi. I have a couple minutes to play around with it 'remotely' (its 2 feet away from me) and then terminal locks up. Can't ping it, can't reach it. I reissue, 'sudo ifconfig eth0 [iP]' and can connect to the Pi again. Repeat. What do I need to do to get this to 'take hold'?


What os + version are you using?


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## MannDude

wlanboy said:


> What os + version are you using?


CrunchBang on the desktop (Debian) and Raspian on the Pi.


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## Chronic

MartinD said:


> I'm running raspbmc on a 256 model with no problems what so ever. There are tweaks you can do to minimize the menu glitching.


I tried RaspBMC during it's early stages, but have later switched over to Xbian, which has been performing great. I'm running it on a Model B though and I haven't tried network streaming yet, I've been using a USB key.



KuJoe said:


> Out of curiosity, did anybody buy a case for theirs? I was looking at some of the cases online and they look pretty cool but I also found some nice instructions for building cases out of LEGOs which are fun and cheap.


I got mine from ModMyPi. It's fairly sturdy and it looks nice enough. I got the regular model in black, but they have a few different ones in selection along with a ton of other accessories.


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## wlanboy

MannDude said:


> and Raspian on the Pi.


Ah ... you might have get one of the broken images then...

Remove all lines in the file "/etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules" (or better just delete the file) and reboot.


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## matt[scrdspd]

acd said:


> rasbmc can be flakey, at least the version I tried. If you are running a 256MB board, don't even bother with it, it will lock up on you while trying to navigate menus and playback video at the same time (which is what it is designed to do, you can't avoid this); you really need a 512MB (rev2) board to make it work. Occasionally, I'll get video stutter on some high bitrate files (really high 5+mbit burst) when streaming from samba/nfs but I'm not sure if this is a network problem or a raspi problem (raspi seems to be capped at around 80mbps effective bw). It has hardware assisted decoding for mpeg4 and h264, so as long as you're not trying to stream your DVD images (mpeg2), it's pretty durn quick and seamless, even at 1080p24&p30 (I don't have any p60s, or I'd try it). Decoding is based on ffmpeg as far as I can tell, so it's very compatible and accurate demuxing & decoding. I use stereo out because I'm sending to a monitor (hdmi->dvi converter) instead of to a TV so I can't speak on the hdmi audio output, but I'm sure proper futzing with pulseaudio will get it working. The plugins for TV show metadata in xbmc suck, even with configured "properly" and have a hard time recognizing folders & subfolders, but it plays back the files just fine from the browser.
> 
> tl;dr version, if you're already running XBMC and like how it handles, pick up a raspi model B rev2. A fully kitted out rpi w/ case, psu, and storage will probably run you 70-80$ and if it isn't suitable for your media playback needs, you can always repurpose it as a seriously overpowered garage door opener.


Thanks for that info. Much appreciated. Id definitely buy the newer 512MB version.

I'm a big fan of XMBC. It has always worked quite well for me over the years. My first XBMC project was actually soft modding an original XBOX into a media center to play XVID AVI's. It worked well for a long time until I wanted to play HD video and the poor little ~Pentium 3 CPU in there couldn't keep up.


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## MartinD

buffalooed said:


> Which FM transmitter?


The Pi has a transmitter built in, or rather, you can run certain software and connect an antenna up to one of the GPIO pins and it's a very good FM transmitter.


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## wlanboy

MartinD said:


> The Pi has a transmitter built in, or rather, you can run certain software and connect an antenna up to one of the GPIO pins and it's a very good FM transmitter.


Transmit FM using Raspberry Pi and no additional hardware. <- One of a lot of reasons to read HackADay.


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## Chronic

Not sure if this counts, but I've just set an old MicroSD card up with Raspbian, cross compiled the Armory Bitcoin client for ARM and am using it as a cold storage Bitcoin wallet. Just an idea, if anyone was thinking about anything similar. The Raspberry is great for this purpose because you don't need to dedicate it to the task and can instead just swap the MicroSD cards when needed.

https://bitcoinarmory.com/

https://gist.github.com/FiloSottile/3646033

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=156003.msg1691384#msg1691384


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## KuJoe

I went to Walmart today to grab an SD card and some LEGOs and completely forgot about both.  Hopefully I have some empty SD cards laying around that will work since UPS should be here any moment.


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## D. Strout

WebSearchingPro said:


> How are amazon basics products, any good? I've not gotten around to buying anything from them since monoprice gets the job done...


I've got an HDMI to DVI cable and a mouse from them. It is indeed basic, but it works just fine. They both seem like sturdy products: the cable is a bit thicker with solid connectors and the mouse feels well put together. No complaints, for the price.


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## KuJoe

AWESOMENESS!!!! Luckily I found a 2GB SD card to play with and just as I finished putting RPITC on it there was a knock at the door. I was logged into my Windows 7 VM about 5 minutes after opening the box and it's not bad but not as good as my netbook of course.

I'm wondering if I set the resolution lower it wouldn't be so choppy. Right now it's usable in 1600x1200 but even as I type this there's a bit of a delay. I've got MTPuTTY open with 12 tabs and it's smooth as can be though so I'm sure it's just Chrome being slow.

I will probably pick up a 8GB card tonight for PiBang to see how well that works.  I do have to say that RPITC is beautiful and would make an excellent OS by itself (Debian based with LXDE).


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## KuJoe




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## drmike

MartinD said:


> The Pi has a transmitter built in, or rather, you can run certain software and connect an antenna up to one of the GPIO pins and it's a very good FM transmitter.


Pi has an FM transmitter built in?  Never heard/knew this before.  Do you have a reference of some sort to support this feature so I can get up to speed?


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## drmike

wlanboy said:


> Transmit FM using Raspberry Pi and no additional hardware. <- One of a lot of reasons to read HackADay.


Interesting hack.  Low bit rate though and probably not best sound.  Looking at it for tinkering though.  Neato.


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## acd

Chronic said:


> Not sure if this counts, but I've just set an old MicroSD card up with Raspbian, cross compiled the Armory Bitcoin client for ARM and am using it as a cold storage Bitcoin wallet.


 
Not exactly the same thing, but I do something similar with my trusted CA privatekey for my vpn, pki auth, etc. It's not rpi though, I have it on my beagleboard, though there's no reason you couldn't do it on the rpi.


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## matt[scrdspd]

KuJoe said:


> ^I'm going to build this one.


Does anyone sell a kit with the required LEGO pieces to make that?


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## ChrisM

matt_securedspeed said:


> Does anyone sell a kit with the required LEGO pieces to make that?


I know i've seen lego kit's offered for it before. Not sure where I seen it though.


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## matt[scrdspd]

Chris Miller said:


> I know i've seen lego kit's offered for it before. Not sure where I seen it though.


Post a link in this thread if you come across it again. I know there is no way id find all those pieces unless someone made a kit


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## KuJoe

Half the fun is buying a ton of LEGOs to build other things with to interact with the RPi.


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## MannDude

KuJoe said:


> Half the fun is buying a ton of LEGOs to build other things with to interact with the RPi.








How about a Raspberry Pi robot to make panorama photos with LEGOS


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## ChrisM

Anyone know if there are waterproof cases for Raspberry pi's? I have an idea that would require one.


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## drmike

Chris Miller said:


> Anyone know if there are waterproof cases for Raspberry pi's? I have an idea that would require one.


Probably, but I haven't seen / shopped for one.  

What I've done for over a decade with electronics stuff like this (when deploying outdoors) is head to the local big box hardware store.

There are tons of plastic outdoor enclosures for electric equipment.  Often pretty simple boxes and big enough to pack more inside than just a Pi.


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## acd

Waterproof usually means air tight, which probably won't play well with the rpi, which does run hot enough to require ventilation. YMMV


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## drmike

acd said:


> Waterproof usually means air tight, which probably won't play well with the rpi, which does run hot enough to require ventilation. YMMV


I asked about this earlier with the lego cases 

There are outdoor waterproof cases with passive ventilation.  I always try to shade my outdoor hacks where I can (unless it has forced air fan in the enclosure).

Waterproofing remains a bit issue where heat and ventilation must exist.


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## KuJoe

If the water is cold enough can't you utilize some sort of heatsink to dissipate the heat?


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## titanicsaled

I don't think the Pi produces much heat anyway to be honest.


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## bizzard

Got hold of mine last day and is experimenting with it. Plans to build a portable advertizing unit out of it, so that it can be kept in places like malls and the the videos can be updated remotely.

Surprized to see that it supports a USB hub, with a wifi adapter, 3G dongle, Keyboard and mouse without any external supplly and the pi itself is running from the USB power of my laptop.


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## pcan

bizzard said:


> Plans to build a portable advertizing unit out of it


There is already a commercial application, with a free open source edition: http://www.screenlyapp.com/

A LEGO case kit is offered here: http://www.thedailybrick.co.uk/lego-sets/custom/lego-custom-raspberry-pi-case.html

But: what's wrong with the cheap stock plastic case offered by most Raspberry Pi distributors, such as RS components?


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## vanarp

bizzard said:


> Got hold of mine last day and is experimenting with it


 
Are these available within India?


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## titanicsaled

Managed to set up my 4x20 blue backlit LCD today, very satisfying!


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## fusa

I've used a Rasp PI as a 3G router (Huawei 3G stick) and Asterisk server.

Someone experience with: http://rpitc.blogspot.be/ or any other Thin Client?


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## KuJoe

Just ordered a couple of SD cards to test out along with a case (LEGOs don't last long around a 2 year old ) and a WiFi adapter (LESS CABLES!!! ).


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## sv01

I use for my personal vpn and as router.


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## Nick

KuJoe said:


> (LESS CABLES!!! )


Don't get me started... I have ~40 tangled around my legs. It's a mess!


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## bizzard

pcan said:


> There is already a commercial application, with a free open source edition: http://www.screenlyapp.com/


Thanks for the link. Will give it a try tomorrow itself.



vanarp said:


> Are these available within India?


Yep! RS Components ship it from UK to India. Don't know about the present stock status. But you can find it on ebay.in all the time with a little higher cost.


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## KuJoe

Nick said:


> Don't get me started... I have ~40 tangled around my legs. It's a mess!


When I bought my new desk I made some modifications to it for cable management. I'm in love.


----------



## MannDude

So far just been using it to get frustrated at network bridging attempts. I've got both machines capable of pinging back and forth, can SSH back and forth locally, but trying to get the Pi to connect to the internet by sharing the WiFi connection of the PC it's wired to and all hell breaks loose.

Though while typing this I just thought of an idea that may just work...


----------



## MannDude

Sorry to bump an old(ish) thread, but I want this case!

http://shop.pimoroni.com/collections/pibow/products/pibow-timber


----------



## shawn_ky

Thats a cool looking case!


----------



## MannDude

shawn_ky said:


> Thats a cool looking case!


Classy, I know.

I can't afford an office like this:



But that Raspberry Pi case would ad a bit of class to my otherwise un-classy desk, haha.


----------



## NodeBytes

I just bought a Raspberry Pi. Planning on using it for logging functions as well as some software defined radio projects.


----------



## KuJoe

I've setup a Windows 7 KVM on our new KVM node in Denver and the RPi with rdesktop is amazingly smooth. I'm running PiBang right now because I was doing some actual work but I'm going to switch over to RPITC to see how it runs without any extras in the background.


----------



## Jeffrey

KuJoe said:


> I've setup a Windows 7 KVM on our new KVM node in Denver and the RPi with rdesktop is amazingly smooth. I'm running PiBang right now because I was doing some actual work but I'm going to switch over to RPITC to see how it runs without any extras in the background.


Very nice setup, Kujoe!  Glad to see you here at VPSBoard also, I was wondering why you left LET.


----------



## rm_

> So far just been using it to get frustrated at network bridging attempts. I've got both machines capable of pinging back and forth, can SSH back and forth locally, but trying to get the Pi to connect to the internet by sharing the WiFi connection of the PC it's wired to and all hell breaks loose.


You can't bridge WiFi to anything if you're just a WiFi client. Only the AP can bridge.

Very annoying, but that's how it was designed. Google around if you want to know details.

An alternative would be to set up routing+NAT on the PC, not bridge.


----------



## MannDude

rm_ said:


> You can't bridge WiFi to anything if you're just a WiFi client. Only the AP can bridge.
> 
> Very annoying, but that's how it was designed. Google around if you want to know details.
> 
> An alternative would be to set up routing+NAT on the PC, not bridge.


Actually, I now have access to the router so I have the Raspberry Pi can connect to it directly now. Need to reflash the OS, as some updates recently rendered the device unbootable. Boo.

I've got some ideas, but not had time to do anything yet.


----------



## MannDude

MannDude said:


> Actually, I now have access to the router so I have the Raspberry Pi can connect to it directly now. Need to reflash the OS, as some updates recently rendered the device unbootable. Boo.
> 
> I've got some ideas, but not had time to do anything yet.


Got motivated earlier, re-flashed my SD card and installed a local webserver. Looking for a pre-configured solution so I didn't have to strip down the stock Raspian install, I found this: http://coburndomain.net/forums/topic/249-raspberry-server-20/ Basically a minimal Debian distro with Nginx, php5-fpm and MySQL.

Since it's documented pretty poorly, I'll just list some basics below:

Download and extract the .img file: https://mega.co.nz/#!gU5W2S4D!FbwYuUTf_zJxrW-gFDTbMzaDY9Y4vWYIayymyneKfrg

 and flash your SD card:


dd bs=4M if=~/RaspberryServer2_Foundation_21062013.img of=/dev/sdc

(Thats assuming your SDCard is /dev/sdc and that you're using the same build I am.

After that, setup was a breeze. Slide that SD card into your Raspberry Pi, wire your Raspberry Pi to your router and plug it in. After that all you have to do is figure out what IP your Raspberry Pi has locally, so run:


nmap -p22 -sV --open 192.168.1.0/24

Which resulted in (for me, may be different for you):


Starting Nmap 6.00 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2013-08-06 04:17 EDT
Nmap scan report for 192.168.1.108
Host is up (0.00085s latency).
PORT STATE SERVICE VERSION
22/tcp open ssh OpenSSH 6.0p1 Debian 4 (protocol 2.0)
Service Info: OS: Linux; CPE: cpe:/o:linux:kernel

Service detection performed. Please report any incorrect results at http://nmap.org/submit/ .
Nmap done: 256 IP addresses (5 hosts up) scanned in 4.57 seconds


So now I could SSH into my Raspberry Pi with using 'root' and the default password of 'raspberry'.

I was able to confirm it was working by going to: 192.168.1.108 in my browser on my desktop PC and getting the default webserver page.

Stock install takes up about 50MB of RAM, so it's already pre-configured/tuned for the most part.

Anyhow, I messed around for a bit, set things up as I normally would for a LEMP stack. Running a ServerBear benchmark on it right now, haha. I'll post those results when they become available.


----------



## KuJoe

MannDude said:


> Anyhow, I messed around for a bit, set things up as I normally would for a LEMP stack. Running a ServerBear benchmark on it right now, haha. I'll post those results when they become available.


It's been 2 days, is it still running?


----------



## MannDude

KuJoe said:


> It's been 2 days, is it still running?


Woops! Forgot to post it! http://serverbear.com/benchmark/2013/08/06/EBxm4F8KJoDedq0i

I've got a class 10 SD card in it too, IO is horrible. May need to 'offload' MySQL to my desktop and use the Pi for Nginx and PHP. We'll see, haha.


----------



## rm_

If you want I/O performance, you should have got a Cubieboard, it has a SATA port.


----------



## MannDude

rm_ said:


> If you want I/O performance, you should have got a Cubieboard, it has a SATA port.


No kidding? Thta's pretty cool. Haven't really looked into the Cubieboard before.


----------



## bizzard

Just came across this: http://rastrack.co.uk/index.php

Looks like a cool project.

I have added my Pi there. What about you?


----------



## drmike

Anyone doing anything new and fun with their Pi?

I am holding out on the Pi, being a disk speed type of person USB isn't going to cut it.  Cubies look more my speed, but Pi's seem to be getting all the love.


----------



## KuJoe

I used mine as my primary desktop while I waited for my new laptop (about 3 weeks due to a delay). I was very impressed with how well it ran when RDPing to Windows servers that were less than 50ms away. No loss in productivity.


----------



## stim

Haven't got one yet but I have a few ideas brewing:

-zombie backup machine using Bittorrent sync. I'm finished with the cloud.

-make a solar-powered music server with battery back-up.

-see if I can make a basic music synthesizer/MIDI sequencer.

-with camera as a timelapse creator.


----------



## Boltersdriveer

I've been having fun with mine running several services!

-Plex Media Server

-nginx

Really a solid piece of device, simply attached to my primary server with an additional ethernet cable plugged into it.


----------



## CraigA

I use one for XBMC and another I use to run an HID authentication system to start my car


----------



## MannDude

CraigA said:


> ...and another I use to run an HID authentication system to start my car


Woah, what? That's awesome and scary at the same time.


----------



## CraigA

MannDude said:


> Woah, what? That's awesome and scary at the same time.


Yup.  I do IT Security research too.  Check out me hacking the Univerity proxcard system:


----------



## CraigA

Here is me doing the same thing to the University parking system.  Disclaimer: This was all done under the supervision by one of my professors


----------



## drmike

So anyone out there use their Raspberry Pi for simple MP3 playing/streaming?

Interested in knowing if that speedy co-processor for media can/will/does also do MP3 offloading.  Interested in using one to decode an  audio stream (ideally on co-processor) so the wimpy CPU can be used to actually do anything else.

What do folks think?


----------



## blergh

20Mbps tor-relay.


----------



## wlanboy

Currently using my Raspberry Pi to record local radio stations.


----------



## drmike

wlanboy said:


> Currently using my Raspberry Pi to record local radio stations.


Using Streamripper?  or something else?  How is the load recording a stream?


----------



## drmike

I've joined the Pi cult.

While small, the boards aren't the smallest out there and some big hand models showing them in hand 

About to re-use this nifty plastic box the Pi came in as a ghetto case, maybe.


----------



## wlanboy

drmike said:


> Using Streamripper?  or something else?  How is the load recording a stream?


On my 1000Mhz Pi it is about 7-9% of the CPI.



Code:


Load average: 0.16 0.20 0.22


----------



## drmike

wlanboy said:


> On my 1000Mhz Pi it is about 7-9% of the CPI.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Load average: 0.16 0.20 0.22


If you play back those streams on say mplayer on the Pi, what does load look like?


----------



## wlanboy

I am streaming them to my hi-fi system, don't think that playback (mplayer) through HDMI will cause a lot of load.


----------



## MannDude

Watch out Google Glass! Got a new player in town!

Fashionable AND functional:



Src: http://www.reddit.com/r/raspberry_pi/comments/1qzxtl/quick_picture_of_a_hud_i_made_with_a_raspi_and/


----------



## drmike

I am loving my Pi.  It's a nifty piece of time waste   Performance on disk, network, etc. is meh.  It's not server grade in any way, but sure is a cobbler/hacker/tinkerers wet dream.

A few random things I am liking:

1. The Pi has an RNG Random Number Generator built in.  Requires module + config to get it working.  

2. The Pi is capable of broadcasting on the FM band.  That's right, it's capable of being used as a FM transmitter.  Sufficient for all sorts of stuff (car audio, listening around house, etc.).  Requires custom code, file transcoding and currently crappy software and since the Pi uses parts involved for other tasks, best for a Pi server only.   Running a desktop will likely end up in bad experience/breakage.


----------



## NodeBytes

What's a good desktop environment to run on it? Is the default Raspbian okay?


----------



## bizzard

My present Pi is being used as a headless download system, connected with a pretty old IDE HDD, using a USB to IDE Converter. Using a normal PC SMPS to power the whole system. Will post a pic of the whole setup soon.

Have ordered 2 more Pi's which will be delivered by next week.


----------



## drmike

Well, I have 2 Pi's now...  Model B 512MB and a Model A 256MB model....

The Model A is on the shelf until I get a wifi adapter that works right out of the box or nearly...  Stupid Chinese ones I bought had mislabeling on listing about chipset and that chipset doesn't appear to work right in current Debian.  Definitely not plug and play.

My 512MB Model B is running ssh tunnels, sshfs, proxying, DNS server...  traffic cleanup, filtering, ad blocking, etc.   Still half baked and in progress.


----------



## KuJoe

I hope to have my new project finished by Christmas. I'm setting up a dashboard camera for my car using the RPi. Hopefully I'll get the HD camera for Christmas and then I'll just need to work on the mounting fun. I wish I could get it setup before our camping trip in the mountains but I don't think I will.


----------



## bizzard

I received my two new Pi's today. The shipping from RS Components was pretty fast as I was expecting it on Monday only. It costed me around INR 3250 (~53 USD) per Pi. Didn't get much time today to play with them. Actually, I haven't even opened the plastic cover.

Will be replacing my existing Pi functioning as the download system with one of the new, as they have a 1 year warranty. Not sure whether it will last that much, considering the power fluctuations in my place. 

I still have few issues to be sorted out.


The UPS powering the Pi and router goes off after a few mins of power outage due to low load.
Not yet able to make swap work from the HDD connected. Tried many ways, but no success.
Here is a pic of my present setup.



Using the NO-IP service for dynamic DNS, since we have dynamic IP allocations here. Just installed Fail2Ban and its already receiving attacks on SSH mostly from 61.147.1**.* IP's. The other major processes running are transmission-daemon and nginx.

If anyone needs an Indian IP to do some legit tests, I have my Pi online and can give access to it. Its has 2Mbps unmetered downlink and 512Kbps uplink.


----------



## wlanboy

bizzard said:


> If anyone needs an Indian IP to do some legit tests, I have my Pi online and can give access to it. Its has 2Mbps unmetered downlink and 512Kbps uplink.


Great offer.

Maybe you can install lighttpd + php + lg?


----------



## mtwiscool

i'm thinking of running a CB station that broadcasts time and weather.


----------



## bizzard

wlanboy said:


> Great offer.
> 
> Maybe you can install lighttpd + php + lg?


Its running Nginx + PHP-FPM. Will setup LG. The issue is that I don't wan't that IP to be available to public, even though its dynamic.


----------



## wlanboy

bizzard said:


> Its running Nginx + PHP-FPM. Will setup LG. The issue is that I don't wan't that IP to be available to public, even though its dynamic.


I see - would PM be ok?


----------



## drmike

&nbsp;



mtwiscool said:


> i'm thinking of running a CB station that broadcasts time and weather.



I had cobbled this together using a text-to-voice tool for Debian for the time/date portion. The weather I pulled here for the United States from NOAA. They have approximately hourly files they update for various (not all) NOAA reporting stations. Simple wget when you locate the proper file(s).


mplayer for a playlist of the time/date then the weather.


Simple lightweight fun evening project.


----------



## mtwiscool

drmike said:


> &nbsp;
> 
> 
> I had cobbled this together using a text-to-voice tool for Debian for the time/date portion. The weather I pulled here for the United States from NOAA. They have approximately hourly files they update for various (not all) NOAA reporting stations. Simple wget when you locate the proper file(s).
> 
> 
> mplayer for a playlist of the time/date then the weather.
> 
> 
> Simple lightweight fun evening project.


The hardest part is the putting Up an antenna.

I want it to also do other stats like moon these, and other info

And want to know what is the info to broadcast


----------



## VPN.SH

I'll be getting hold of a Raspberry Pi soon and using it as a CCTV camera to keep an eye on my motorbike, as it's currently parked at the side of a busy road that's between a town centre and a university campus, and drunken students frequently like knocking it over. Hoping that a camera and a big "CCTV in operation" sign may keep the pests away!

Anybody have experience setting up a Raspberry Pi as a CCTV unit? Found a tutorial somewhere, but any past experiences from guys here would be much appreciated if shared!


----------



## k0nsl

HTTPD, IRCD, IRC Bots...et cetera


----------



## Boltersdriveer

I just got my second rPi and have installed Plex Media Center on it - Rasplex. (http://rasplex.com)

Quite pleased with it considering it only cost $50 (incl. shipping) to have a nice media centre machine that works pretty well. And I could still add IR sensor and use a control in future


----------



## bizzard

wlanboy said:


> I see - would PM be ok?


Sure. If you need access to it for a valid reason, I'll be happy to provide.


----------



## stim

Eventually got one  Should have done it earlier because this is one nifty device for the money.

My main purpose was to create a zombie backup server using BTsync under Raspian. I cobbled together an unused 1tb drive, powering both it and the pi from a USB hub. I found an old charger that can supply enough juce to the hub (2A) and it's working perfectly. 

Speed-wise, It completely tears the ass off my old LG NAS. That's going in the bin. 

Cool thing is,  I just have to reboot into Raspbmc and I have the full media centre which can be controlled by my TV remote out-of-the box. Flawless operation - no need to overclock. 

..or boot into PiMame for a quick game of Wizball....


----------



## wlanboy

Currently using my Raspberry Pi to power, programm and test my (Videolink).


----------



## drmike

mtwiscool said:


> i'm thinking of running a CB station that broadcasts time and weather.


Worked on this project yet?  Sounds good / useful.

Glad to see the Pi conversations.   Hope to get more hobbyists working on them here in the near future.


----------



## wlanboy

drmike said:


> Worked on this project yet?  Sounds good / useful.


There is allready the AirPi project available.


----------



## notFound

Well I got given a RPi by my school back in September, haven't really had a chance to use it properly. Only use for it at the moment is to help some kids at the local primary school learn python, the RPi makes it feel fun for them I guess.


----------



## drmike

wlanboy said:


> There is allready the AirPi project available.


Wow neat project.  Back ordered or hasn't shipped yet though?


----------



## drmike

notFound said:


> Well I got given a RPi by my school back in September, haven't really had a chance to use it properly. Only use for it at the moment is to help some kids at the local primary school learn python, the RPi makes it feel fun for them I guess.


Using the RPi to learn Python sound like a great idea.... Should bring some of that knowledge up to here... Bunch of Pi owners lurking and good way to get folks doing more with them.  

I need to pick up another 512MB on.   Existing one is already overtaxed doing other things


----------



## stim

Bought another one and made it into a slick media centre using xmbc/Raspbmc. Glued it to the back of the TV. I put openvpn on it so my girlfriend can watch BBC iPlayer inc. HD. She's thrilled!

I did run into some problems, including 2 corrupted SD cards, but they were all related to power supply. I was powering it from a hub and hoped to attach a couple of drives. The Pi is very sensitive to voltage drops. All solved after getting a better PSU and using a network drive instead.

It performs way better than expected!


----------



## Taronyu

Does anyone know if it is possible to run rtorrent on it? I can throw one for pretty cheap in a DC including 100mbit unmetered.


Verstuurd vanaf mijn iOCEAN X7 met Tapatalk


----------



## stim

Taronyu said:


> Does anyone know if it is possible to run rtorrent on it? I can throw one for pretty cheap in a DC including 100mbit unmetered.




Headless qbittorrent runs fine here, and is pretty light on resources with a great webUI (port 8080)



Code:


sudo apt-get install qbittorrent-nox


----------



## drmike

Taronyu said:


> Does anyone know if it is possible to run rtorrent on it? I can throw one for pretty cheap in a DC including 100mbit unmetered.


Yeppers, it runs rtorrent just fine.   Use one of my Pi's almost solely for that.


----------



## bizzard

drmike said:


> Yeppers, it runs rtorrent just fine.   Use one of my Pi's almost solely for that.


Mine tuns the transmission-daemon pretty well, with the web interface enabled.


----------



## blergh

I use my pi's as tor-relays and for graphing via cacti.


----------



## MannDude

Time to bump this thread with the release of the new Raspberry Pi!

I've got the new one sitting on my desk. Awaiting a new MicroSD from Amazon to arrive so I can tinker with it. Planning a Plex server with it.


----------



## drmike

bizzard said:


> Mine tuns the transmission-daemon pretty well, with the web interface enabled.


Transmission, oh that's what my Pogoplug does 

The whole Plex server I never jumped onto, especially on these ARM devices since they lack any proper disk interface.


----------



## MannDude

Getting around to messing with my RPI2 again tonight. Doing a reinstall and going to do some tinkering... Going to play with IPB4 and some random network stuff.

Anyone been doing anything neat with theirs lately?


----------



## HalfEatenPie

Originally mine was a wireless access point.

But now I think I've given up with ARM devices.  It was fun but I haven't seen anything really practical come out of it besides for tinkering purposes.


----------



## drmike

Mine went fubar on the boot OS... so it's collecting dust until I find time to copy data off and reinstall.


----------



## pcan

I still use several RPis at work, there are two dozens in production now. The latest additions are:


quad-view monitor replacement for videosurveillance (on lobby desks) - they display 4 mpeg streams from IP-cameras on a repurposed 19'' dvi computer monitor. The backend is ZoneMinder.
RDP thin client.
The original RPi CPU was too weak for this purposes. The new RPi2 works just fine.

Other uses are:


environamental monitor for network/computer rooms (sensors are cheap).
digital signage client, for office lobby
email+ftp server for multifunction printer. I use it to enable scan-to-email and scan-to-folder functions
datalogger for industrial measurements (voltage, current, thermocouple)
After almost 2 years of continued use, the weak spots of the RPi hardare have been the power supply and the SD card.


The USB cable needs to be "thick". Regular run-of-the-mill cheap USB cables may work for a while, but the RPi will be unstable.
Most SD cards will fail after a while. We spent lot of time troubleshooting several options. The Samsung Pro micro-sd cards are my current choice. Avoid Kingston. I got mixed results with SanDisk.
Microsoft released Windows 10 for RPI2 yesterday. It is not a full-fledged OS now; the RPi just becomes a kind of peripheral of the main PC. They suggest Samsung evo and Sandisk SD cards, both of them failed to me after intense write operations.  http://ms-iot.github.io/content/win10/SetupRPI.htm


----------



## KuJoe

I've finally replaced my RPi B+ running MRTG with my RPi2 running Observium and it's been great so far.

I'm working on turning my RPi B+ into a self contained surveillance camera with it's own battery backup and internet connection (cheap $10 USB battery pack and free FreedomPop 4G hotspot).


----------



## MartinD

Mine sits in the shed along with an Arduino Uno and various other boards controlling everything from alarms, cameras, lighting, water features etc


----------



## stim

I've been very pleased with my Pi2 running as a media centre (OSMC) and remote file server. Works like a champ!

My second Pi has been turned into a dedicated Stockfish chess computer with a webUI. I'm impressed with it's performance so far (beats me every time, and can hold it's own against full-strength Shredder). And it's very easy to setup, thanks to this lovely man.

https://github.com/antiproton/Web-GUI-for-stockfish-chess


----------



## HalfEatenPie

stim said:


> I've been very pleased with my Pi2 running as a media centre (OSMC) and remote file server. Works like a champ!
> 
> My second Pi has been turned into a dedicated Stockfish chess computer with a webUI. I'm impressed with it's performance so far (beats me every time, and can hold it's own against full-strength Shredder). And it's very easy to setup, thanks to this lovely man.
> 
> https://github.com/antiproton/Web-GUI-for-stockfish-chess


Oh man that's pretty cool.


----------

