Raspberry Pi

Does anyone own one if so what do you use it for and details of any project.

I have ordered my first one, I will use it as an old school gaming emulator. I intend to order another one when more familiar and use for XBMC (the Pi is cheaper and more powerful than WDTV). Also considering using home security.

So anyone else been using one?

a) media centre - using raspbmc
b) NAS - using stuff from the projects for RPi - with 2HDD and auto-backup from one to the other
c) I plan to use a Pi camera, when I get around to it

Use it for XBMC... probably wouldn't use it for anything else... Would rather use a PC for most other implementations, a little bit more expensive but a lot more powerful.

I've got one. Tried it with XBMC but found it too sluggish and with plenty of old PCs around i found it better to repurpose those with OpenELEC.

At the moment my Pi is just sitting on the network running Raspbian.

I'm currently planning a new home server for media storage and virtual machines (and Docker containers). One of those containers will be running TVheadend and at some point i plan to add a Sat>IP box (or IP-LNB) to my network for distribution of free-to-air channels.

At that point the Pi will be used as a card server with a Freesat-from-Sky card (and maybe a Sky sub card further down the road) allowing the TVheadend server to decrypt and distribute encrypted satellite channels within the network.

cool folks thanks for the replies.

I found an old psp the other day so I am considering removing the UMD drawer and the psp motherboard & battery and converting to a pi console.

I took delivery of one yesterday. I haven't set it up yet but I'm looking at two uses - DNS server and syslog server. I'll almost certainly use Arch Linux as I don't need e GUI.

Sounds good Sarah. I would like to get to a point where i have the skill to do something like that. I am really hoping to use this as a learning tool.

I had to laugh yestery, my wife phones and says "Your Raspberry Pi has arrived and it's really small"

I get home and its the wifi adapter lol.

Perhaps I should start a Borg style project and upgrade the wife!

I'm sure that once you have your Pi up and running it won't take you very long to get to grips with what you want to do. It seems that there's a fantastic amount of information and support out there. It's going to be a learning curve for me too but I'm really looking forward to it.

Running a DNS server isn't particularly complicated. If you just want one to answer DNS queries from your local computers that's very straightforward. It only gets a little more complicated when you want to use it as an external facing nameserver running DNS zones for domains you control. Even then it's just a matter of making sure the syntax for the zone files is correct. You'll be fine.

You're already being more adventurous than I am by running wi-fi on it. I'll just be using mine hardwired.

As for the wife upgrade, might I suggest an upgrade from 1.0 to 1.1, which is a bug fix, rather than trying the leap to 2.0b in one go?

Best of luck!

wifi is a must for me as it makes moving it much easier and flexable.

Looks like I may also need to invest in a more powerful powersupply as some geek friends have suggested that can be a pitfall for emulation. First port of call has to be playing some classics from the arcade like r-type and silkworm on the big screen, then some amiga classics, after that onto some serious stuff

It's a bit tricky to say what you'll need for power supply.
600mA at 5V is usually adequate, while 1000mA at 5V is sometimes needed when there is significant peripheral demand (WiFi adapters especially)
There is a limit on what the Pi can handle before it blows a fuse.
Mobile phone chargers often prove a disappointment, as they won't sustain the supply voltage needed.

Well I have Arch Linux ARM running on my Raspberry Pi and the nameserver is up and running.

It took a bit of fiddling to give it a static IP address and disable the DHCP but it's all good now.

It seems perfectly suited to this role. I now feel I need another one to 'play' with to see what it does in the way of multimedia

I got all the emulators working but having reall issues with getting the 360 controller working, on both retropi and pimame. beginning to think my controller may be goosed!

Any progress?

I've just got a second Pi, not to play with but to run as another nameserver at a different site.

Patches on Arch Linux seem to be pretty fast with two bash patches yesterday to deal with the shellshock bug.

I'm currently cloning the SD card from my first Pi. The only difference on the second will be IP address and hostname.

No I need to get a third to play with. They're addictive!

I gave up on the Xbox controller and opted for the PS3 controller. Almost everything works fine. Had to put on hold due to other tasks for now.

I am tempted to turn it into a NAS / Media Player / Smart TV unit.

I agree totaly addictive and great for learning

Pis are addictive.

Pi one is still running flawlessly 24/7 as a DNS server.

Pi two, which was going to be another DNS server, got hurriedly pressed into service as a DHCP server to meet a specific security requirement at a customer's site.

Pi three is now the second Pi DNS server.

These are all running Arch Linux and are Model B. All very unexciting but stable.

I've just ordered Pi four - my first Model B+ and the first I can really have some fun with.

I'm going to use it as an audio streaming device - along the lines of a Sonos Connect but without the hefty price tag. Now, don't get me wrong. I really like the Sonos system and use one regularly, but can't quite justify the high price when I can build something that will almost certainly end up sounding at least as good.

It's going to connect wirelessly to my network and will run Volumio - a distribution optimized for audio streaming playback.

Once I've got it working I'll be adding a HiFiBerry Digi+ which gives optical and coaxial S/PDIF digital outputs that I can feed into an external DAC with an optical connection.

Then I can have some fun