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DIYing with the Raspberry Pi?

makem said:
Oh! it is USB2 and the RPi needs up to 700ma apparently. However, if I do away with the drive that is now connected as I rarely use it, I could use both ports and get up to 1A?
Click to expand...
Early external USB drives (and a IDE/SATA to USB adapter I have in my toolbox) came with "Y" USB cables which connected to data on one port and power on both, to get more current headroom - so it should work. I don't think TV USB ports will be particularly highly spec'ed, and there has been success running an RPi from there, so my approach would be to try it on one port and see if it works, and if not double up.

Something to keep in the back pocket: USB chargers for Apple products (particularly iPad) are able to kick out significantly more current, I think 1.2A in the case of iPad. Indeed, my iPod Touch charger refused to charge my iPad!
 
Does that mean that if I use a lead which connects both USB ports to one US output, the required 700ma output may not be shared reasonable equally across the two ports and therefore may trigger a fuse?

Thanks for the help for everyone, it will save me time when to unit arrives.

EDIT: Posted before I saw the above post.

I want to keep away from using the TV and will use both router ports as I really don't have a necessary use for either. I already have the Y lead you mention.
 
Black Hole said:
I'm not sure of the current situation, but I used to have to show trade credentials (just a business card) when turning up at an RS trade counter. They will however take mail order from anyone.
Click to expand...

The branch at Southend has closed (not listed). I remember many years ago you could order online for branch collection.

I have ordered the necessary from Amazon (just added the heatsink today)
 
makem said:
I've read that as there isn't an off switch there can be a problem with corrupted SD cards. The trouble is, when you read these things you can never tell how old the information is and whether that has been overcome.
Click to expand...

Yes, that worried me too. It's why I chose OpenELEC over Raspbmc: as I say, OpenELEC doesn't use a swapfile, so it's very unlikely to be making any writes to the SD card. Hence survives the power being pulled rather rudely. Teaching a non-power-user how to shut it down gracefully wasn't an option!

Oh, I do have auto update disabled in OpenELEC too; again to minimise the likelihood that it's in the middle of a write when the power gets cut.

I've run the Pi/OpenELEC for about 4 months, powering it up and then killing the power at least once a day. So far I've not experienced any problem.
(but I agree, leaving it on permanently isn't a bad idea. It's sufficiently low power that it won't cook itself or burden the electric bill).
 
I think that this thread should be renamed to something that reflects it's content. Do we have any suggestions?
 
I have decided to go down the NOOBS route:

http://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads

NOOBS_v1_1 gives you a choice of operating systems to install, including Raspbian, Pidora and two flavours of XBMC. It also enable you to recover a corrupt SD card. I have seen OpenELEC mentioned but it appears to be a step to far for me at this time. I also saw the note about auto-update.

Yes, if it is powered from an always on router, accessed via a PC and permanently connected to the TV, it will be convenient to experiment with and hidden from view. I am lucky in that I don't have children or adults who play with any of the recorders or the remotes and nobody but me is remotely interested, UNLESS I get a particular web site to stream to the TV in February.

I have been trying to find out if Raspian includes XBMC or whether it needs to be installed. I also need to find a web browser.

There appear to be some 35,000 packages although I have not come across a list. So many things can be done with this little card, I am looking forward to a steep learning curve.

Many thanks to Ezra for pointing me in this direction.
 
makem said:
I have decided to go down the NOOBS route:

<snip>

choice of operating systems to install, including Raspbian, Pidora and two flavours of XBMC. It also enable you to recover a corrupt SD card. I have seen OpenELEC mentioned but it appears to be a step to far for me at this time.

<snip>

I have been trying to find out if Raspian includes XBMC or whether it needs to be installed. I also need to find a web browser.
Click to expand...

Actually, OpenELEC _is_ one of those two XBMC flavours that you mentioned as being included in the NOOBS distribution.

Raspbian is the primary general purpose OS for the Pi - you probably don't want Raspbian if all you're interested in is XBMC. Much easier to pick one of the NOOBS XBMC builds, i.e. either RaspBMC or OpenELEC.

Of those two:
  • RaspBMC is a conventional Linux OS with XBMC installed on top, so install that one if you're keen to use the Pi for other general purpose computing at the same time as running XBMC (say running a webserver or something).
  • OpenELEC is based on a much more cut-down Linux OS, so is more of a focussed XBMC build. Consider that one only if you're purely running XBMC.
Have fun!
 
Thanks, RaspBMC is the way I will go.

I like the idea of being able to easily swap OS's to check them out.
 
I may have missed something, but I cannot see the attraction of NOOBS - you have to load (just) one OS, and all you do is postpone the decision. I prefer to make my selection, and then download the specific package, so I know that I don't have to worry so much about the overloaded servers.

I've just been trying Raspian and Pidora. Raspian doesn't have XBMC, and is very basic - for me I couldn't get anything on the monitor until I used putty to access the beast and run raspi-config. Contrast that with pidora, which showed on the monitor right from the start, and seemed a better product.

I've seen also references to XBIAN, which I think has XBMC+Raspbian?
 
I think the advantage of NOOBS is that it's one unified download, and after that you can easily recover (or re-install a different OS) using just the Pi. For example, the normal process of flashing Raspbian is very different to flashing RaspBMC. This kind of thing can be a bit off-putting to, well, noobs..!

And some people will not necessarily have the knowledge to evaluate which of the many OS variants and/or builds they want, so NOOBS lets them experiment a bit and get some confidence.

Given that one of the main aims of the Foundation is getting people introduced into "proper" computing, it's good that they've lowered the barrier to entry for those people. Having said that, it's probably not something I'll use personally.
 
In case I was missing something I downloaded the NOOBS distro(?), and installed it - that part was different from installing the distros on their own (I've tried RaspBMC, Raspbian and Pidora - the same method can be used for each of these!)

I found that NOOBS and Raspbian had one horror in common - with my test setup, which has video from the HDMI socket fed through a converter to a VGA-only monitor - nothing shows up on screen. Raspbian was accessible via ssh, but NOOBS wasn't.

As loaded by NOOBS, OpenELEC won't allow editing in the root filesystem, as it's mounted read-only.
 
So, a summary for us noobs? What it can do? What you need? Can a couple of these and a HDD replace a Hummy? :D

I went another route and got an Android HDMI stick, and that was a great disappointment. The catch-up players are mostly incompatible with it. Installed memory was meagre, though it did run Android 4.x.
 
Mike0001 said:
So, a summary for us noobs? What it can do? What you need? Can a couple of these and a HDD replace a Hummy? :D

I went another route and got an Android HDMI stick, and that was a great disappointment. The catch-up players are mostly incompatible with it. Installed memory was meagre, though it did run Android 4.x.
Click to expand...

http://lifehacker.com/5978594/turn-...eiver-for-streaming-music-in-your-living-room

http://www.raspbmc.com/wiki/user/
http://learn.adafruit.com/using-an-ir-remote-with-a-raspberry-pi-media-center/hardware
http://learn.adafruit.com/using-an-ir-remote-with-a-raspberry-pi-media-center/hardware

Start there?
 
dandnsmith said:
In case I was missing something I downloaded the NOOBS distro(?), and installed it - that part was different from installing the distros on their own (I've tried RaspBMC, Raspbian and Pidora - the same method can be used for each of these!)

I found that NOOBS and Raspbian had one horror in common - with my test setup, which has video from the HDMI socket fed through a converter to a VGA-only monitor - nothing shows up on screen. Raspbian was accessible via ssh, but NOOBS wasn't.

As loaded by NOOBS, OpenELEC won't allow editing in the root filesystem, as it's mounted read-only.
Click to expand...

I loaded NOOBS onto a 32GB (10) SD card, inserted it, connected an HDMI lead Pi to TV, LAN cable to router, USB for mouse and keyboard and powered up. Red LED on constantly, two green on, one flashing, one amber on constant, no TV output.

Removed the power, removed the USB as had been suggested and powered again. Still no output to TV. Connected a composite video cable Pi to TV and immediately had the NOOBS start-up screen. Connected the USB, lost the TV output. Removed the USB, still no TV output.

Removed the power and replaced the power (boot?), gained TV output and saw briefly something about recovery then the NOOBS choices screen came back. Plugged in a different USB (no problem this time), and selected (using the mouse), Raspbian which is highlighted as recommended.

Few minutes later I had a DOS window which needed a keyboard to make selections such as 'Expand file system' to make sure you use the whole SD card, change password, choose GUI or command line on boot. My USB dongle is for my netbook and I do not have a separate keyboard so I am stuck. Do I use the USB which gave the initial problem? Perhaps as the OS is installed, I can access remotely?

Next episode later.
 
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