Raspberry Pi - A credit card sized, linux based mini-computer for $30

http://alsa.opensrc.org/.asoundrc

but yeah, shairplay works rad on this, but I would recommend running it as a daemon with the right priority. I believe this page has the right setup: http://lifehacker.com/5978594/turn-a-raspberry-pi-into-an-airplay-receiver-for-streaming-music-in-your-living-room

it's a little dated, I don't think you need to build shairplay from scratch anymore

right. I guess I would like to know what pcm even means, for instance. alsa .asoundrc references seem to be very "add this line to a file," which is a hard way for me to learn b/c I want to know what the line is and what 'PCM' stands for. In the end, I'd like to be able to write a driver for an old usb soundcard I own.

pcm is basically default digital audio. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulse-code_modulation

like 99% of what you send to a sound card these days is going to be pcm audio, unless you're sending it midi or something

or more succinctly, in 2013 "pcm output device" basically translates to "sound card"

ok, thanks. I think I was looking for something like these: http://www.volkerschatz.com/noise/alsa.html
http://www.sabi.co.uk/Notes/linuxSoundALSA.html

and this http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc/alsa-lib/pcm_plugins.html

how easy is it to get one of these up and running as a media player (or is it the same process as the airplay receiver for streaming music as above)

AirPlay is very easy to get running. I have no experience with media player use. You'll likely want an external soundcard for either.

Think i spotted one connected to a mate's tv the last day. Might ask him and report back...

It really is super easy. I hook up the pi to my TV via HDMI, stereo via jack/rca and network with my desktop to access downloaded films etc.

There are also plugins for on demand services like iplayer, 4od, TuneIn etc.

Check out Raspbmc

ta! that sounds simple

http://www.fastcompany.com/3033850/most-creative-people/whats-next-for-raspberry-pi-the-35-computer-powering-hardware-innovatio

https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/pi-zero/

nice idea but probably meant more for embedded projects.

but it prompted me to buy a 2B - i wanted something a bit more general purpose and didn't want to have a buy a bunch of cables i wouldn't use for anything else.

They have a new one now that's still $35 but has a 1.2gb quad core processor and 802.11n wifi!! I was thinking of getting one to make an always-on Plex media server, but I have little exp w/ these things -- are there better options (for something I can connect directly w/ an HDMI cable or possibly stream w/ Chromecast but definitely something I can control w/ my iPhone)?

does anyone else have one of these? i wanna chat rapsberry pi

I got one for my kid but we are stuck at stage 1 trying to get it to see the wifi network in the house

sure, what's up

once we get this thing working what should me and my kid do with it?

http://www.rasplex.com/index.html

when we move I'm thinking about doing this for our home wifi:

http://www.tripwire.com/state-of-security/security-data-protection/sweet-security-part-2-creating-a-defensible-raspberry-pi/

After a couple of months of not using mine it now refuses to sync with the TV over HDMI. Tried two different distros, neither of which has changed in the meantime but all I get is "no signal" on the TV.

Need to check the HDMI cable.

I tried Rasplex but it's a bitch to set up as a standalone HTPC. It can't do ANY streaming video services w/o connecting to yr main computer, and transferring files to it is insaaaaaaanely slow (and the file system makes it m/l impossible to just xfer files directly onto the SD card)

basically I wanted this to be a standalone Plex server and it's not working and idk what else I should do with it (I don't really play games all that much?)

Put the files on a USB stick?

just got my raspberry 3 in this morning. anyone else still fuck with a pi? my goal is to use an ultrasound sensor (or two or three) as input, determine if someone is there, then output different videos and sounds according to if someone is present and where they are positioned.

i'm sure this will be super easy and i won't run into any problems

it's kind of fun and silly connecting it to my living room tv as a display. tbh i wish i could just connect it directly to my macbook, like arduino. apparently there's a way to do it with RPi but it doesn't seem nearly as simple/plug-in-play as arduino in that respect.

I sort of do! I just put Kodi on it and installed Exodus

at this point i have no fucking clue what you're talking about! i love that feeling.

what does Kodi do? what is Exodus? i could google it but i'm too busy deciding what my secret pi password should be. gotta make sure no one can hack into my pi and discover my secret files.

kodi is xbmc, x-box media centre.

Exodus is Dark Netflix

that's cool! so you use it primarily as a media center, then? i got sidetracked early on when i found out that minecraft comes pre-installed in raspbian.

i don't even like minecraft that much, wtf

I have a couple of Arduinos gathering dust while I wait for my electronics skills to progress beyond 'man discovers fire and recoils in fear'. Hopefully, it will still be exciting to toy around with them when they're twenty years out of date.

yeah, the electronics part is the thing i'm worried about. if all goes well i'd like to output my video directly to a projector, and i'm terrified of overloading everything and accidentally burning the building down

there's insanely little chance of that

It's a watered down version of Minecraft but yeah it's kind of amazing to discover when you're not expecting it to be there at all.

Are you living in Brooklyn? There's a store called Tinkersphere downtown in Manhattan that carries all the components you'd need to rig up all that stuff.

nah, i moved to Chicago. but i bet we have something similar here as well.

i'm lucky to have a new friend who is super into all of this stuff and wants to help me with my project.

btw, re exodus: https://torrentfreak.com/popular-kodi-addon-exodus-turned-users-into-a-ddos-botnet-170203/

Don't know how I missed that you moved to Chicago, KM. It's always rad to learn that there are rad people in the metro area outside of my hermitsphere.

I'm trying to teach the kid I'm tutoring what little electronics stuff I know in the hopes that he'll quickly surpass me in that magical way kids do and can, in turn, teach me more than the rudiments.

oh, i didn't make much of a fuss about it! i'm in hyde park, which i believe is located in the heart of the hermitsphere.

It's easy to teach kids basic electronic principles using Minecraft, because they're generally receptive to it.

one odd thing off the bat - i opened up one of the pre-installed python games (Simulate) and almost immediately a thermometer icon appeared in the upper-right to let me know that the CPU temperature was too high. i used "vcgencmd measure_temp" to get the exact reading, which was 83.8 C - just below the max 85 C temp that's supposed to be safe. as soon as i closed the Simulate python game and checked the temp again, it was down to 75 C. after another few minutes of inactivity, it was down to 65.

i repeated all of this and the same thing happened - running the python game instantly raises the CPU temperature to near its maximum safe reading, and closing it immediately drops the temp back down to normal.

i guess i should take the case off? i really didn't expect to need to use the heatsink just for running a simple python game.

heyo new chicago-ers i am nearly among u likewise after moving to evanston for my partner's phd.

i rigged up my pi recently to start up a vpn, via an open source package called streisand, on an amazon web svc machine. i steered into the data collection paranoia skid earlier this yr and started trying to secure all my web traffic and encrypt things in advance of anticipated loosening of isp privacy protections of my web traffic. (i do not wish to become a data point for sale to marketing firms.) i am still in early days of developing working understanding for the tech and tbh it is a pretty pedestrian use for the lil pi but it's my only linux capable machine presently. i am considering conversion to a kodi box for more utility. Or maybe i will make a weather station. the primary limitation still seems to be motivation & time but who knows

> i'd like to output my video directly to a projector,

wouldn't you just use the hdmi port?

my experience with pygame is very similar - very intensive. it's trying to squeeze high fps values out of an interpreted language.

once python's up and going it should be fine unless python for arm sucks

would be interesting to know how many hundreds of times more powerful they are than the spectrum i grew up with. and if the kids are similarly inspired or whether the complexity works against it.

inspired imo

some are, at least, imo

pi Jukebox decided to die yesterday, just stopped playing after a Dead Can Dance song. i was logged in at the time but i couldn't ls let alone shutdown nicely. pulled the plug but the sd card is now toast, laptop doesn't even see it.

still, something to do...

Pi 5 is the most capable yet, and the most expensive (and needs active cooling?). part of me thinks this is missing the point, but i guess you still have the zeros for the small stuff, even the picos. do i need a third? perhaps not.

(oh, places still have various model 3s and 4s in stock, more than enough choice)

It's weird but you can often find used computer kits that used rpi3 for the brains for cheaper than bare rpi3.

I guess less weird but still weird -- you can find full working laptops for even cheaper.

needing active cooling makes them pretty much useless

some of the new cases have fans built in (but will limit expandability, getting in the way of the pins)

the official word is "continual heavy usage" will cause thermal throttling and a fan will avoid that. also that the 5 is generally cooler than the 4 and faster even if throttling, so it's not as terrible as all that.