Tasty Raspberry Pi

I thought I was doubling down on stupid.

I bought a 512MB model B Raspberry Pi. I couldn't get my 256MB Raspberry Pi to perform satisfactorily as a media computer. However, a mix of climbing the learning curve and adjusting my expectations has brought about a pleasing round of experiments I'd like to relate to you.

First off, less is more. If you don't have to plug in a USB hub, don't. If you don't need a wireless Internet interface, don't use it.

Second off, more is more. Dig out some extra SD chips and try out more Linux distros until you get the one that works best for you.

Here's my new model Raspberry Pi. If you see that little black nubbin on the right of the card, that's the USB dongle for the keyboard. The unplugged dongle on the left is the wireless Internet adapter that I unplugged and don't use.

I attached this teeny USB keyboard/touchpad combination. Yes, it costs more than the Raspberry Pi itself did, but it's cool.

My application is to create a media computer/set top box. When I bought my big new HDTV last winter, it came complete with Internet connectivity. Trouble is that Sharp's idea of Internet connectivity is pretty lame.

Instant Netflix works really well, but almost everything else does not. This includes YouTube or media stored on my network. So, I decided to buy or build something to make everything work with everything.

My first stop was an Apple TV. It is cheap $99 and it does a good job with stuff I didn't care about: iTunes. It falls on its face for what I really want: media stored on my network.

I am told that if I can jailbreak the AppleTV3, all my problems will be solved. Trouble is that nobody has figured out how to jailbreak the AppleTV3 yet.

Here's an amusing factoid: If you have an Apple TV2, you can sell it used for more money than an Apple TV3 sells for new.

This is why I wanted to make the Raspberry Pi into a media computer.

First thing I suggest if you buy a Raspberry Pi is to buy three SD cards that run as fast as possible. Then install onto these cards the following Linux distributions:

• Wheezy-raspbian
• Raspbmc
• OpenELEC

Each distribution has unique pros and cons. For instance, Wheezy-Raspbian is the most stable build and most things "just work." However, it is not specialized for service as a media computer. It doesn't readily run XBMC which seems to be the gold standard for Open Source media center software. That's XBMC you are seeing on the TV screen above.

Raspbmc automatically boots into XBMC as does OpenELEC. Sadly, Raspbmc does not seem as stable as OpenELEC.

Maybe I have just learned what not to try to do on a Raspberry Pi. I first installed Raspbmc and struggled with it in my first Raspberry Pi Model A 256MB card. It never really worked and I gave up.

That's why I thought I was doubling down on stupid buying a Model B 512MB card.

This was one of those rare times that worked out. I made the three SD chips with the three Linux distributions described above.

Of these I settled on OpenELEC. As you can see above, the Raspberry Pi handled media stored on my network. That's the Dude in the bathrobe above.

Then I installed the YouTube plug-in and pointed it to my favorite YouTube video. Happily, it worked and you can see it here.

If you'd like to see that video for yourself, you can find out more about it here.

Raspberry Pi As Torture

The Raspberry Pi is a $35 computer. It's great. Just hook it up to your TV and some junk laying around the house and boom, you've got a computer.

If you want a cheap media computer, uh, well... what's your time worth?

I've got several years' worth of junk in my junk box. So, I rifled through it to find junk to plug into it.

• I've got a TV with an open HDMI port.
• And do I have a USB mouse? Yeah, but it's an optical mouse...
• And do I have a keyboard? Several. Any of them USB? Uh, no.
• But I've got two USB hubs, a big white one and little black one. 

There's one critical point that you might overlook like I did. Just because your junk box has a bit of kit in that list doesn't mean it has the right bit of kit. 

The Raspberry Pi has a thing about power. If you plug something really power-hungry into its USB, the board won't work. You fix that by plugging a USB hub into the Raspberry Pi then plugging your stuff into the hub.

Mindful of this, I used the big white USB hub. Mistake. You'd think that a USB hub is as vanilla device as imaginable. It is not as far as the Raspberry Pi is concerned. ERGO, when you decide to set up your Raspberry Pi, verify each of the items above to make sure they are verified to work with it.

I discovered this when I couldn't get the Wifi dongle to work and went googling for device drivers. Didn't find them, but I did find a list of approved USB hubs. What? Turns out the little black USB hub is confirmed to work with the Raspberry Pi and the big white USB is confirmed to cause trouble. I swapped in the little black hub and it seemed to work a little better, but I suppose by this time my expectations had been downgraded significantly.

Ergo, when you start hooking up things to your Raspberry Pi, check to see they have been confirmed to work with it. Here's a link where you can check. Check first. It will save time & pain.