Anyone got a Raspberry Pi ?

[benyeats]

No need to make pie jokes here.

Knowing there are a fair few geeks on here I wonder if any of you have bought a Raspberry Pi yet.  I got mine at the weekend and it seems fun so far but wonder what to do with it beyond XBMC......

Ben

[Rob McPherson]

Hi Ben,
          Haven't got one myself, but a couple of geek friends at work have. They've all done the media center thing as well...

One made his into a VPN Server (don't know what software though). When I asked "why...!!?", he just said, "because it's cool" 

Neat if you want to make a mini Linux box I guess, and a great low-cost tool to train up the nerds of tomorrow, but I do wonder what the average guy (does that demographic include you ?) will do with it after the first week....

Cheers,
Rob

[Anx]

I've got a couple of them - one I bought when they first came out, the others all came as freebies when you spend more money than you should at Adafruit.  I'm more software than hardware oriented, so keep that in mind...

It's ok from my fiddling with it, but for generic linux I currently prefer the MK802-class devices - much smaller and fun to work with.  Plus you can pick them up on Amazon for like $35, and that's with a case, I think 2x the memory, faster CPU, wifi, etc.  Spend a bit more and jump up to their newer ones, and they have even more juice...

The Pi is a bit too limited for me to use for my linux projects, and without a real RTOS, it's not that handy for interfacing with things.  I dabbled a bit with their I2C/SPI stuff, but wasn't all that impressed.

If I need to bang something out, I generally just grab one of the Arduino nano boards and use that - super easy and as long as you're not solving world hunger, it's fine without a debugger (plus most of my embedded system work was before debuggers were wide spread, so printf is fine for me).  I use them like candy, probably have close to 10 or more deployed around the house doing a variety of different things.

[ross]

We had a couple here at work, but they were too slow to run XBMC without being very annoying.  I gather there are faster versions available now though.

[toms]

This thread makes me realise how stupid I am    It might as well be written in Russian 

Can someone just tell me (in laymans terms) - what is one?!

[ross]

It's just a very small, very cheap, bare bones computer that needs lots of messing around with to get things running on it.  Great for learning about computers and for specific projects.

[benyeats]

[quote="Ross McWilliam"]
We had a couple here at work, but they were too slow to run XBMC without being very annoying.  I gather there are faster versions available now though.
[/quote]

Disappointed Ross, I had an internal bet with myself that you would be first to reply.

I am running the latest version of XBMC on mine and it seem to handle 1080p videos no bother, from what I can tell having a meaty enough power supply is quite important for that to work.

I would quite like to find a project using the GPIO pins so I can do some proper fannying about, then again it might become a bit too much like my day job......

Ben

[ross]

[quote="benyeats"]
[quote="Ross McWilliam"]
We had a couple here at work, but they were too slow to run XBMC without being very annoying.  I gather there are faster versions available now though.
[/quote]

Disappointed Ross, I had an internal bet with myself that you would be first to reply.

[/quote]

Me too - too many 'fast nerds' on here for me too keep up with!

[quote="benyeats"]
I am running the latest version of XBMC on mine and it seem to handle 1080p videos no bother, from what I can tell having a meaty enough power supply is quite important for that to work.

I would quite like to find a project using the GPIO pins so I can do some proper fannying about, then again it might become a bit too much like my day job......

Ben
[/quote]

Aren't you better off just using some form of Arduino for that kind of stuff though?

Cheers, Ross.

[ross]

Incidentally Ben - as I imagine you'll be interested even if no-one else is - I've got a dev kit for one of these on order:-

http://www.oculusvr.com/

From the reactions I've seen of press testers trying the tech demos of these things, it sounds like these might finally kickstart the whole area of consumer VR.  I'm looking forward to trying them.  This video's quite funny (in a nerdy kind of way):-

Davis Daily: CES Oculus Rift Reactions

I've also pre-ordered a Leapmotion device (https://www.leapmotion.com/) to see if they're as good as they appear to be.

[Anx]

I'll be interested to hear what you think about the LEAP, and what exactly they're doing to get that kind of resolution... I've done a fair bit with the Kinect on the PC, including using multiple ones at the same time, etc - and when I first say the LEAP it looked like it could be one seriously cool piece of tech.  It would be interesting to see if it could also be used to do surface extraction and at what kind of resolution...  It would also be interesting to see how different materials affect the LEAP, such as glass or chrome.  Without knowing exactly how it works, it's hard to say.

The Oculus Rift looks seriously cool - I haven't had my hands on it, and I'm pretty proud of myself for not succumbing to the lure of the Kickstarter!    The last thing I need is another project, and I can't come up with anything for that since I'm not working in the game space at the moment.

On the Arduino front, the big advantage to it is if you need to do something interrupt driven or time sensitive, like bit banging serial or something similar.  Otherwise from a development standpoint working on a device like the Pi is always a treat, because the OS does so much for you, and realistically you never have to worry about limitations.  One of the more recent Arduino things I did ended up having less than 100 bytes of flash left - now this was an Uno, and I could have jumped up to a Mega and gotten more, but on something like the Pi, the thought of size probably wouldn't even cross your mind.

[ross]

I suspect Tom will no longer be following this thread....

[toms]

[quote="Ross McWilliam"]
I suspect Tom will no longer be following this thread....
[/quote]

  This is my last visit - so feel free to say what you like about me from now on 

[wattie]

[quote="Tom"]
This thread makes me realise how stupid I am    It might as well be written in Russian 

Can someone just tell me (in laymans terms) - what is one?!
[/quote]

+1......
it's official, Geeks and nerds drive Atoms

Cheers Wattie

[Rob McPherson]

[quote="Ross McWilliam"]
I suspect Tom will no longer be following this thread....
[/quote]

He's probably gone off to look at some big manly drive flanges, and brewing a cup of tea to get the taste of nerds out of his mouth... 

[benyeats]

[quote="Ross McWilliam"]
Incidentally Ben - as I imagine you'll be interested even if no-one else is - I've got a dev kit for one of these on order:-

http://www.oculusvr.com/

From the reactions I've seen of press testers trying the tech demos of these things, it sounds like these might finally kickstart the whole area of consumer VR.  I'm looking forward to trying them.  This video's quite funny (in a nerdy kind of way):-

Davis Daily: CES Oculus Rift Reactions

I've also pre-ordered a Leapmotion device (https://www.leapmotion.com/) to see if they're as good as they appear to be.
[/quote]

This is what my company is working on.  Way better than the approach taken by other similar devices.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/sep/10/augmented-reality-glasses-google-project

Can be made 3D and all sorts of cool stuff.

The leapmotion looks like a lot of fun, especially for smart TV type applications.

Ben