# raspberry pi



## nutxo

Will these units be suitable for a car pc?


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## FartinInTheTub

Rasberry Pi?


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## spl152db

linux computer the size of a pack of smokes. cool concept, but pointless.


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## aV8ter

spl152db said:


> linux computer the size of a pack of smokes. cool concept, but pointless.


Why pointless? It is around $40 for us in the US and a 64gb SD card for it around $65. It is cable of performing 95% of the tasks that my current tower does for me everyday and it wouldn't generate and heat or noise. 

Not saying it is a solution for everybody, but it would be silly to call it pointless and dismiss its advantages.


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## spl152db

aV8ter said:


> Why pointless? It is around $40 for us in the US and a 64gb SD card for it around $65. It is cable of performing 95% of the tasks that my current tower does for me everyday and it wouldn't generate and heat or noise.
> 
> Not saying it is a solution for everybody, but it would be silly to call it pointless and dismiss its advantages.


can it actually support a gui? I didn't think it had the nuts to do that. I don't spend 95% of my day in command line. not even 1%.


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## LGHT_

I think it may be easier trying to get this to work.


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## minbari

spl152db said:


> can it actually support a gui? I didn't think it had the nuts to do that. I don't spend 95% of my day in command line. not even 1%.


it supports fedora, debian and archlinux. the first two are gui for sure, never used the last one. I think it looks ossum for what it is.


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## nubz69

nutxo said:


> Will these units be suitable for a car pc?


Yes it will work, one day. If you are really good with linux and programing then you would just need a touchscreen and a USB sound card. My guess is that it will be better to use it as a digital source to send to a processor. Let your processor do all the hard audio lifting and leave the Pi to play media. Now where can we find a 7" touchscreen that has 1080P, looks good and is affordable?


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## t3sn4f2

nubz69 said:


> Yes it will work, one day. If you are really good with linux and programing then you would just need a touchscreen and a USB sound card. My guess is that it will be better to use it as a digital source to send to a processor. Let your processor do all the hard audio lifting and leave the Pi to play media. *Now where can we find a 7" touchscreen that has 1080P, looks good and is affordable*?


No where. A quality sunlight readable transflective 7" touch screen is >$600.

How much is a new or used iPad or other smaller tablet with a much better screen and awesome OS+app+computer? 

(I would relocate their lithium battery to somewhere cooler if going that route though).

Why reinvent the wheel when the current wheel is better and cheaper.


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## Neil_J

spl152db said:


> can it actually support a gui? I didn't think it had the nuts to do that. I don't spend 95% of my day in command line. not even 1%.


Of course it can support a GUI, why the heck would they put an HDMI port on it otherwise? It also has USB keyboard, mouse, and network support, ie a credit card sized personal computer. Did you even visit the site? Or at the very least, the wikipedia page?


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## Neil_J

t3sn4f2 said:


> No where. A quality sunlight readable transflective 7" touch screen is >$600.
> 
> How much is a new or used iPad or other smaller tablet with a much better screen and awesome OS+app+computer?
> 
> (I would relocate their lithium battery to somewhere cooler if going that route though).
> 
> Why reinvent the wheel when the current wheel is better and cheaper.


Umm.. iPad in car = theft hazard? I hate using mine I the car, it's a pita and a driving hazard if you ask me (with the auto-lock and crappy ui refresh on ios4, or is it ios5 now?). I had to start using a 1/2" black three ring binder as an anti-theft device


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## spl152db

I didnt see mention of a GUI. But I did read through it thoroughly now and am aactually intrigued by it now. And being able to output isn't the same thing as supporting a GUI. 

Sent from my ADR6400L using Tapatalk


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## Neil_J

spl152db said:


> I didnt see mention of a GUI. But I did read through it thoroughly now and am aactually intrigued by it now. And being able to output isn't the same thing as supporting a GUI.


It'll likely have the performance of an android smartphone, give or take a bit. It's powered by an ARM11 processor, 256MB of RAM, with a VideoCore GPU which also handles audio and video decoding AND encoding at 1080p  

So basically It will handle all your standard GUI stuff, FULL 1080p video, and even 3D via OpenGL (pending all the drivers are in place). All while only pulling 3.5 watts.

You also get 8 GPIO lines, so you could technically hook a Burr Brown DAC directly up to it, if you knew how to write the drivers (I have a few O'Reilly books, fun stuff!)

Is a Raspberry Pi worth $40? I'd answer this with another question.. Are you a hardware hacker like me? If yes, then this thing is freakin' gold


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## t3sn4f2

Neil_J said:


> Umm.. iPad in car = theft hazard? I hate using mine I the car, it's a pita and a driving hazard if you ask me (with the auto-lock and crappy ui refresh on ios4, or is it ios5 now?). I had to start using a 1/2" black three ring binder as an anti-theft device


Iwas thinking integrated into the dash like a PC screen double din would be, only larger. If its too big a smaller tablet would still be cheaper and better than any carpc screen. I think android also makes car specific apps whos GUI is more car friendly. 

Check out leechtunes for your iPad. It has customizable gesturing and auto lock disable while playing and or always when the app is in the foreground.


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## MarkZ

The raspberry pi is a great solution for people who want a simple carPC. Why?

* it's cheap
* yes it runs a gui (where did you guys get the idea that it doesn't??), and there are now distributions being made specifically for it
* its power consumption is minimal, meaning it can probably function quite nicely as an always-on device -- ie. no more boot-up and/or standby issues
* doesn't appear to be influenced by climate in any way
* it's small and can be easily installed ANYWHERE... most car PCs are large and unwieldy

The main drawback to it is that you're presently limited in what software and hardware you can use with it. If you're using it as a basic a/v player, it's cool. If you want to do processing, run custom software, GPS, etc, you need to look elsewhere.

Mine is already ordered, but my plan is to mount it inside my TV to use it as a XBMC HTPC.


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## MarkZ

MarkZ said:


> The main drawback to it is that you're presently limited in what software and hardware you can use with it. If you're using it as a basic a/v player, it's cool. If you want to do processing, run custom software, GPS, etc, you need to look elsewhere.


BTW, this isn't always going to be the case. The open-source community is very excited about this unit, and it has on-chip support to run basically anything. I would expect applications to start coming out of the woodwork soon.

For our purposes, the main problem is that linux doesn't do a good job with VST support. I'm not holding my breath with that (even though it's theoretically possible, because some VSTs are offloading their processing to the GPU!).

In the meantime, hopefully the popularity of this thing starts to make more people realize that there are lots and lots of applications where small & efficient is more important than fast. This will steer entrepreneurs to start developing similar products that we could eventually put a version of Windows on so that we can run VSTs and configurable media players. The CPU in my car PC is only at about 25% during normal operation, and it's only a ~2GHz Sempron IIRC. A simple 1 GHz 256MB machine should be perfectly adequate in running a fully functional 8 channel audio processing rig. In fact, some of the pro audio VST standalone units that go for $3500-$5000 run off 1 GHz processors, so there's precedent...


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## basshead

MarkZ said:


> Mine is already ordered, but my plan is to mount it inside my TV to use it as a XBMC HTPC.


Where did you ordered it from? I've read that the first batch sold out in less than a minute... Also that there's lots of fake since the demand is so high.


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## MarkZ

basshead said:


> Where did you ordered it from? I've read that the first batch sold out in less than a minute... Also that there's lots of fake since the demand is so high.


I was on the preorder list. I ordered mine through Parnell but it hasn't shipped yet due to the mfg problem.


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## eviling

:laugh:


LGHT_ said:


> I think it may be easier trying to get this to work.


oh man that **** made me laugh. good stuff


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## Ashunte

1yr later, anyone actually try these out?


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## MarkZ

I use mine all the time now. Few months ago it was rough going because RaspBMC was so buggy, still in the RC stage.


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## Ashunte

What are you using for a screen? That's all that's keeping me from starting this in my project, also got any tips? RaspBMC was what I was looking at also!


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## Neil_J

I don't see why a Lilliput 769GL wouldn't work, that's what a lot of the CarPC guys including myself use. It takes HDMI in, and I'd bet the touchscreen wouldn't be that hard to get working in Linux.


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## BowDown

Mmm.. Raspberry Pie.


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## BowDown

I'm looking at getting one for 'work related' testing. I hear there's RDP support. Would make a nice thin client.


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## chad

spl152db said:


> can it actually support a gui? I didn't think it had the nuts to do that. I don't spend 95% of my day in command line. not even 1%.


even snappy over VNC, look top left..... and that's VNC from work to home...










Don't have VNC on my raspBMC machine, but it's beautiful.

Want SATA? Wanna run Android?

http://cubieboard.org/


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## Ashunte

took a look at the cubie also, thanks!


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## ecbmxer

I'm gonna get one of these at some point. I've been reading about a lot of cool projects with them lately.


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## eviling

it'd be easier and more usefull to intergrate your phone into the stero. theirs a unit that does it, i posted a reference to some material last year some time.


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## chad

Sure would prevent you from forgetting your phone in the morning!


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## eviling

chad said:


> Sure would prevent you from forgetting your phone in the morning!


haha, I forgot mine at work today, it'd of been a quiet ride home haha.


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## sh.moto.2

will the raspberry pi unit interface with my rockford 360.3, therefore using the rockford as a volume/eq/x-o? if not wut would be the steps to take bcuz i'd like to be able to tune on the go


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## Hi-FiDelity

sh.moto.2 said:


> will the raspberry pi unit interface with my rockford 360.3, therefore using the rockford as a volume/eq/x-o? if not wut would be the steps to take bcuz i'd like to be able to tune on the go


All the physical connections are there (USB ect) but I don't thing the 360.3 has native linux support at the moment. Though if you want to tinker you could try using WINE and see if you can get the calibration software to work. 

Also on a related note I believe there is an audio expansion board for the RasPi that if you know hoe to code can turn it into a fairly robust DSP, though I could be wrong.


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## chad

I doubt wine will work with much success on the Pi


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## Hi-FiDelity

chad said:


> I doubt wine will work with much success on the Pi


I don't know, I think Pi got enough beef to run a light weight linux distro and run wine on top. Not 100% sure but if your dedicated you could probably get it to work.


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## chad

the Pi is no powerhouse, I can try it, I'd do it now but going horizontal in a half hour. I have one up on VNC waiting to be messed with.

I think the meatier one boad wonders would be a better choice at more money but still dirt cheap.

Edit, scratch that, it's a no-go... Makes sense due to the processor......

http://www.raspberrypi.org/faqs


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## Hi-FiDelity

chad said:


> the Pi is no powerhouse, I can try it, I'd do it now but going horizontal in a half hour. I have one up on VNC waiting to be messed with.
> 
> I think the meatier one boad wonders would be a better choice at more money but still dirt cheap.
> 
> Edit, scratch that, it's a no-go... Makes sense due to the processor......
> 
> FAQs | Raspberry Pi


I know the PI wasn't made to be a power house (it was made as a teaching tool) but the requirements to run a light distro like puppy linux aren't that steep (something like a 233mhz CPU with 32MB of ram) and wine doesn't really eat up that much on it's own. Though I did space for a second that it is an arm processor and trying to "emulate" a x86/x64 on an ARM based processor really isn't going to work that well. Though you're right something from arduino would probably get the job done and for not that much more coin. Though If I were better at coding I would try my hand at turning a RasPi into a DSP.


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