I know many don’t care for technical type posts as a rule, but just in case someone happens to be searching for information on a RaspberryPi, they can see the set up I have made.

I thought I would try one of these small computers that were developed in the UK just a few years ago. They are very small, some can be had for as little as $29 bare bones. I wanted a better one so opted for the newer version. Raspberry Pi 3 B. This one has a quad core processor that runs about 1.2-1.6ghz. It has 1GB of on board memory you share with video. (4) 2.0 USB ports, Wireless, Bluetooth HDMI and Ethernet. A lot packed into a small computer slightly smaller than a playing card. Michelle ordered this for me as a late birthday present. She ordered the deluxe Kit, which is more at around $69 but comes with everything including a fan, and SD card 32GB, HDMI cable, power adapter.

• 1.2GHz 64-bit quad-core ARMv8 CPU, 1 GB RAM
• 802.11n Wireless LAN, 10/100Mbps LAN Speed
• Bluetooth 4.1, Bluetooth Low Energy
• 4 USB ports, 40 GPIO pins, Full HDMI port, Combined 3.5mm audio jack and composite video
• Camera interface (CSI), Display interface (DSI), Micro SD card slot (now push-pull rather than push-push), VideoCore IV 3D graphics core.

You can get a kit with everything but the micro SD card, for around $49.

For something to play with it is fun and interesting. Much cheaper than a desktop. It runs  various Linux distributions which are free, the most popular being “Raspian” which is a mix of some Raspberry programs and Debian Linux. You can install Ubuntu or other Linux flavors. It has an HDMI port so you can hook it to a monitor, I don’t have a monitor with HDMI so I am using VNC to connect into it and use my computer monitor. Parts are cheap for the Pi, a simple case around $5-$6, power adapter $8 or cheaper, 32 GB SD card, if you want one that big. $14 at Walmart. The latest Pi with all the above listed features, just the board is $34. Webcam for it that plugs onto the board with short or long ribbon cable is only about $19 for a 5 mp or $26 for an 8 mp! I am going to save up and get me a 5 mp camera. Which brings me to the only shortcoming.

Shortcoming: The only thing I found wrong with it was limited webcams that work with it. It is hit-and-miss. Some super cheap USB cams work, some don’t. Unfortunately, none of my cheap ones work. But I can solve that with a Pi camera for what I pay for a cheap USB cam.

I have posted to the forum from it, after all it is a full Linux computer, just small and not super charged. You won’t do video editing I don’t think (but I bet I try). It has office software, mail, chromium or Firefox browser, just like larger computers. You can install what you want just like from a normal Linux computer.

I got this one to learn on, I wanted something that could run my weather station 24/7 and not use the main computer for that. So this tiny machine can sit on the desk off to itself and happily monitor the weather station and generate the pages and upload them to the website. I am still working on it, Trying out a simpler weather software. Anyway… here are some pictures of it’s size. This one is in a layered clear plastic case, with a tiny fan to cool the CPU. It currently is running wireless on the WiFi here in the house. The pictures and a video may show it with an Ethernet cable. I used that to set up the vnc and configure the wireless. The only cable running to it now is the weather station.

It’s small!! Just un-boxed it.

We have the case assembled and on it now. You can stack them one atop the other with some cases. Note the small, half-dollar size fan.

My car-keys look nearly bigger than the computer.

Future plans: Since it will run 24/7, I plan on

Running the weather station.Setting up a service on it to monitor my websites and alert me by email. Seems my “free” monitoring service, isn’t too reliable notifying me at times.A Time lapse, and picture upload program, for the forum, blog, and Wunderground weather service. It already uploads weather conditions to my Wunderground reporting station every 5 mins. Currently It updates the weather web page of my website every 10 minutes.

It seems to run very snappy for a 1.2-1.6ghz. It is running a server and SQL database, without noticeable lag. It is using about 400mb of the 1GB of memory when running the graphical interface through the monitor, but just running as a machine, it is using about 150mb of memory. Running cool as well. 36c

I scrounged around and found a Blue-tooth keyboard we aren’t using, and a wireless mouse. I stopped by the thrift store last week, there sat a 14 inch monitor for $10. I was pleased to see it worked being just $10.

Now I can say, I have Raspberry Pie (Pi) in my office. I just hope it doesn’t attract ants.

Comments welcome,

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