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The Raspberry Pi is here at last — now what can you do with it? We’ve been champing at the bit waiting for the Raspberry Pi here at Gizmodo UK, but we’re please to report that the Raspberry Pi Foundation has managed to ship that mini-marvel of applied Great British Geekery for a shade over 21 quid. If you are lucky enough to grab one in this first round of orders, what exactly can you do with it? Here is our pick of the project ideas that you can try with your Pi.
Note that not all of these are going to work straight of the bat. The Raspberry Pi is brand new and will require some fiddling to get working properly. Give it a week or so however, and we reckon there will be several pre-packaged installers available for you to use if you lack the skills or time to try these yourself.
The Raspberry Pi may only be tiny, but it has enough graphical oomph to play HD video. Add some USB storage or a network share and you can run a full blown media center app, as this demo of the free XBMC media center running on an early test model clearly shows.
Raspbmc is a project to build a special version of XBMC optimised for the awesome Raspberry Pi that supports DNLA, AirPlay and 1080p video playback. There is no downloadable code yet, but with a real Pi in his hands, the developer should be able to make speedy progress and coders from the full XBMC distro are chipping in too.
Chuck a big ol’USB drive into the Pi and turn on Samba file sharing in the Fedora Remix that comes with it and boom, you have an instant(ish) network storage device. At its most basic, this is a handy server to stick on your home network from which you can grab music, video, documents or whatever else is too big to fit on your notebook, tablet or smartphone.
With a little more fiddling you can share your data over the internet using either a compact web server like Abyss or NGinx or even set up a secure file repository using SSH. If the thought of trusting your data to Dropbox or Google Docs fills you with dread, this is a great way to join the cloud computing revolution for cheaper than a Pogoplug.
VNC is a free desktop remote control service that you run on a PC or Mac to give you remote desktop access from the companion VNC Viewer app. Run it on your work PC (best to ask permission first) and then plug a Raspberry Pi into your widescreen telly, pair up a Bluetooth mouse & keyboard and you can ‘work from home’ from the comfort of your sofa.
Even if your employer takes a dim view of such shenanigans, you can run VNC on the Pi to take control of your home computer from elsewhere in the house, giving you a ‘terminal’ in the living room to check on downloads or one in the kitchen to live the dream and both check out the BBC Food recipe archive and listen to mp3s while you cook.
Some hobbyists are working to bring FreeSwitch to the Raspberry Pi. FreeSwitch is a full PBX telephone exchange package that can be set up to work as a voicemail system. Want to give callers a menu of options when they call you? “Press 1 to leave a message, press 2 to hear my current news, press 3 to try my mobile, press 4 if you’re a telemarketer… cos you can go to hell.” The Raspberry Pi is already powerful enough to run the software and many similar systems use both linux and ARM processors like the beating heart of the Pi.
Don’t waste money on expensive ‘smart TV’ offerings from the likes of LG or Samsung that just give you a few apps and a lame web browser. By plugging in a Raspberry Pi to your tellybox you get a proper desktop web browser that will actually work with the modern web and a potentially huge library of apps and games. And that’s just with the Pi’s default Fedora Remix.
A small army of nerds is already working on more specialist distros for you to sling on to your Pi that will outfit it as a mini office machine, a social media powerhouse, or even a retro gaming arcade to name but three.
Have you managed to order a Raspberry Pi today? Let us know in the comments and tell us what you plan to do with it.
Image credit: Raspberry Pie from Shutterstock
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I WANTS PI, BUT I CANT HAS PI AS TEH PI SHOPS R BROKD.STOOPID PI SHOPS.
Same.
One reservation (well, not reservation as I want one badly) is that in a youtube video of web browsing, it seemed really really slow. But could also have been something else going on.
I remember seeing that demo, at the time, 2D graphics acceleration hadn’t been optimised for that distro (yet). Not sure if anything will change, but undoubtedly it will get better before too long.
I want Pi too
Pricks on ebay are already trying to sell (even though they don’t have stock) for like £90
both RS and farnell are only ‘registering interest’.
demand is going to be high, I dont really care if browsing is slow. the true test is how well it will blend.
I would very much like a Pi, however I’m going to wait till they start shipping them with cases (or a case becomes available) and the XBMC distribution is out. Seeing as I use XBMC at home already adding another setup to another room would be nice.
Already a good XBMC release out for it.
http://www.openelec.tv/news/itemlist/category/21-downloads
The case really doesn’t matter, just gaffer tape it to the back of your TV
I wonder if they will get a Light Version of Windows XP running on it?
If so then i want a slice of the PI !
It won’t happen, the Pi runs on an ARM processor and XP runs on x86, there is an ARM version of windows called Windows CE, but it’s unlikely that will make it on.
No need for XP, most linux flavours are lighter and have more features/compatibility.
I’m keeping an eye on this guy-
http://www.retrovia.ie/showthread.php/8491-Game-Boy-PC-%28Raspberry-Pi%29
He’s modding the Pi into an Original Gameboy case with a colour LCD!
Imagine that! you could shove a couple of 32gb flash drives in it and a battery and put a NES EMu on it and Shazam! portable play + being able to take your Smart TV to your mums over Xmas with a load of films pre-loaded on it! i want this!
Brilliant, I have a spare gameboy case lying around and this looks like a decent use for it.
It’s myself that’s making that Game Boy case for the Rasp Pi. I cant wait to get my hands on the board and start the proper work. But I also cant wait to get my hands on a dozen of them to start making lots of different kinds of mods. I have some ideas for some commodore 64 and spectrum 48k mods.
As with all these mods I will only be using already faulty hardware, as in dead Game Boys and dead C64′s etc. I wouldn’t destroy a working one as I’m big into the retro scene, as you can probably tell.
Starred for being cool. Love the idea (and there are so many possibilities!)
Keep us posted!
I’ll be updating that post on Retrovia regularly when I get the Rasp Pi board to play with. At the moment its kind of all theory. Although I am working on recompiling some emulators for the ARM platform(using a VM inside a VM). That part is going slowly and I just got MAME running on it badly(plus the mame version is years old). Lots to do :0)
Bookmarked your post, I am keen to see how it goes. Would be something I’d love to replicate in the future if yours goes well. On the train or bus with everyone on their phones and I pull out an old Gameboy with millions of games on. Glorious.
Dammit if you hadn’t been give your star already i’d have given it to you right here and now!
Probably of less interest to the people here but I’m also planning another mod for the Rasp Pi. An old circa 1946 Kodak Six-20 Brownie C camera.
Decent amount of room inside to add storage and hardware. Also a great case to stick a suitable USB (or other)camera in and use the the front lens.
Project here: http://bit.ly/BrowniePi
The best thing to happen for computing in schools ever. Maybe now they’ll teach something beyond how to make a word document in IT classes…
As a student in secondary school taking a course that the RasPi was designed for, I can safely say, it’s so much better. While everyone is making a PowerPoint, we’re building and modding computers, etc… If they taught everyone this, it would definitely change the opinion of IT at school!
Totally agree I’ve got 2:1 Computer Science degree from a top 10 uni and a real desire to teach but I can’t bring myself to to spend my days teaching power point and excel to kids who already know how to use them and have done since the age of 5.
As soon as the government decide to introduce proper computer science lessons into the curriculum my PGCE application will be the first out of the door.
IT infuriated me in school. I remember taking the (then new) IT Diploma taking up two option blocks and therefore six hours of my week JUST BECAUSE we were told we would learn about COMPUTERS and not how to use the Office suite. Lo and behold, we spent two years learning about business with the most computing involved consisting of fitting a network card – something my mum can do. I got a U at the end of the course because I just plain stopped going, and I know for many of the kids it ruined the prospect of taking IT further.
I digressed, and now I’m doing computing at college and it’s the best thing ever. We learn about COMPUTERS! Granted, there’s still some silly topics like applications for technology, but the majority of the course is relevant and has rekindled my love for IT. I just wish we had something like the Raspberry Pi available as a resource right now, but moreso I wish it was something made available at school.
Got up at six this morning to buy one and the sites where so unresponsive I went back to bed after an hour, just hoping that they will push out enough PIs that I can get one soon.
Register your interest with both sites, they will be building them to order from here on out. Everyone who wants one will get one in the end.
You get a like for using a QR code for your avatar that links to your web page!
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