Hi all,
(Also posting toDC-404 )
I know many of you are Raspberry Pi fans. I just got my first one
running, and I wanted to share some of the experience. Someone in
another thread mentioned Micro Center. And that's where I bought the
unit, with some accessories coming from Frys.
My prior experience with Ubuntu helped a lot, since Raspbian, based on
Debian Wheezy, is very similar. Without that prior knowledge, I would
have found it a good bit more difficult to get acclimated.
Just a few days ago, on July 14, a new and improved model was announced,
the Model B+. While it has the same 700 MHz processor and 512 MB of
RAM, it has a number of other newly enhanced features. After reading
about it, which happened to be very good timing, I decided to finally
jump in and get one to do experiments with, and I decided that I wanted
the new one.
The new unit has: 40 GPIO pins instead of 26, a more secure micro SD
slot instead of a full SD slot, 4 mounting holes instead of 2, 4 USB
ports instead of 2, lower intrinsic power consumption (not including
peripherals), better audio, and a neater form factor.
Looking at the photos, it looks like they lost the composite video
function, but they've embedded that into the audio connector to save
space on the board.
Here's their blog post:
http://www.raspberrypi.org/introducing-raspberry-pi-model-b-plus/
The 1st 26 GPIO pins are the same electrically as the Model B rev 2.
So, many things designed for the old one will work with the new one.
However, the layout of everything on the board has changed, so things
which depend on the physical configuration, like add on boards which
mate closely with the PI board, may not work. Old cases will not work.
Some GPIO breakout tools will not work.
The same software that ran on the Model B rev 2 will work. However, you
need to update your OS Kernel. In my case, I just downloaded the latest
NOOBS software from the foundation and installed it. I chose to put
Raspbian and RISC on the memory card.
I had to fight with the thing a while to get my Belkin F5D7050 v3xxx usb
wifi adapter working, but I finally got it going.
Then, I got a chance to play with it for a while. I had never used LXDE
before. But, it's not too bad. Kind of like the Gnome 2 which I got
used to, and liked, on Ubuntu.
The Pi is not primarily intended to be a desktop pc. But, surprisingly
with 512 MB of RAM, it actually does pretty good at that. I spent a
while working with the Midori web browser with scripting turned off.
According to the task manager, only about 80 MB of RAM was in use not
counting the cache. That leaves a good bit for other applications to
run. I've installed the synaptic package manager and then the GO
programming language. It comes with Python and Scratch. And, I think
Ruby was already installed.
When browsing text only websites or sites with a moderate number of
images, the performance is fairly snappy. For sites with many images,
or very large images, the cpu can peg at 100% and the system can
destabilize. But, again, it's not a $ 1000 gaming machine. But, for
lightweight desktop usage, I'm really impressed. Of course, what I
bought it for is to make use of those cool GPIO pins to actually control
some experiments. This is way better than an fpga because you can
custom program it. Also, it's really handy to have access to
conventional networking tools and a conventional file system while
configuring your experiment. That's why I chose this instead of PIC,
Propeller, Picaxe, Basic Stamp, and even Arduino.
It's billed as a $ 35 computer, but you really have to add to that to
make it work. Counting the Pi, memory card, power supply (5V, 2A), USB
power cable, hdmi cable, and two PI related bookazines; I'm into the
project about $ 120. I'm providing a keyboard, mouse, and wifi adapter
that I already had. If I had to buy all that, it would probably add
about $ 50 to the project. One website I read mentioned that you can
get a keyboard with built in touchpad to save using up one USB port. Of
course, you can add a powered USB hub if the 4 ports provided are not
enough. The power supply that runs the unit cannot provide much power
to peripherals.
Later, I'll probably end up buying a circuit breadboard, breadboarding
jumper wires, a 4.3" monitor so I don't have to always have the big one
attached, a power supply for said monitor, a video cable, a PI case, a
USB cable with a power switch, possibly an external power supply, some
sensors, some drivers / buffers, and some project specific parts like
coils and motors and magnets.
I spent many hours on Amazon looking at hundreds of products related to
the Pi. When I have some time, and after some sleep, I hope to sort
through those and post the best ones. The Model B+ is so new, most of
the accessory manufacturers haven't adapted to the new board yet. I'm
sure they'll catch up pretty quickly though.
I'm really excited to see what this mini computer can do.
Sincerely,
Ron
--
(PS - If you email me and don't get a quick response, you might want to
call on the phone. I get about 300 emails per day from alternate energy
mailing lists and such. I don't always see new email messages very quickly.)
Ron Frazier
770-205-9422 (O) Leave a message.
linuxdude AT techstarship.com
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