Raspberry Pi

Last week I built an XBMC media server and found out it was totally awesome.  Why spend money on an Apple TV or Roku box when with some extra hardware lying around you can put Linux designed for XBMC (OpenElec) and create a cool media player.  As I was researching how to build the OpenElec box, I saw that they had a build for Raspberry Pi.   Hmmmmmm.

For those of you not familiar with Raspberry Pi, it is a UK designed $35 computer.  http://www.raspberrypi.org/  is the link to check it out.

Anyway, they are not very easy to get in the US as there are only a couple of authorized resellers and sometimes they have a long backorder.  I was fortunate enough to find one through the Amazon Marketplace that was $44 with no tax so I bought it.  The model I got was the Model B Rev 2 which has 512 mb of RAM.  There is a Model A that is cheaper and has only 256 mb of RAM but you can't buy it yet in the US.  There is a lot of info online about operating systems, cases, etc. so I'll go through that as well.

The Raspberry Pi arrived today and this is what it looks like.  I put a quarter next to it so that you can see it is about the size of a credit card.  There is a Ethernet port, 2 USB ports, HDMI, old school RCA video (composite) and analog audio, a Micro USB for power, and a SD card slot for the OS and storage.

Since it does not have a case, Sarah, Abby, and I built a lego case.

Then I had to load the OS onto the SD card.  I used the RPi-sd card builder utility for Mac.  I could have gone old school and use the command line but I wasn't that old school.

My monitor probably has every input except HDMI and I don't have a HDMI to DVI converter so I had to use old school composite.  My power supply was a Micro USB cable connected to a Kindle plug.  It needs to be 5V and at least 700 mA and that Kindle plug is 800 mA.  I used a Dell USB keyboard and a Microsoft USB mouse.  Here is what it looks like connected.

When I finally got everything connected and powered it on, it actually worked and came to a configuration screen.

After playing the command line for a few minutes, I started up the GUI and here is what it looked like.

As you may note, the graphics look like crap.  That is because I am using the composite video instead of HDMI.

So there you have it for tonight.  My next steps are to get HDMI video working and the networking either through the Ethernet or buying a wireless USB adapter.  Let me know if you have any questions or thoughts.