Time for Pi

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

| From: Evan Leibovitch <evan-ieNeDk6JonTYtjvyW6yDsg at public.gmane.org>

| OK, you've convinced me. I wanna get a Raspberry Pi. Maybe more than one.
| Probably to play around with, but maybe ultimately as a home theatre client
| running Rasplex.

I think that they are great toys, and a bargain.  If you want a
"production" HTPC, you might be ahead with something that is less DIY.
It depends on how you value several dimensions: openness, community,
price, required effort, perfection.

In the worst case, you'll learn a lot from the RP, even if you end up
wanting something else.

One neat feature of the RP: CEC support.  That means it can control
your devices over HDMI.

| Now ... about procurement...
| 
| The two sites that are the direct sellers -- Newark and Allied -- both
| appear to make you create an account before they'll tell you shipping
| costs. What are they? Is one suppier clearly better than the other? Is
| there any clear advantage to multiple people pooling into one order?

I've bought a few from Newark.  They charged me $8 shipping and were
very very quick.  Slight hickups:

- they've advertised free shipping a couple of times but in the fine
  print exclude shipping to Canada.  Once was on their Canadian web
  page; another in email to me, even though they have my location.
  Grr.

- once I ordered two RPs and two power supplies.  They were backordered
  on the RPs so they made it two shipments, charging me twice for
  shipping.  Apparently I missed the tick box to request that everything
  to be shipped in one shipment.

Their phone people are not like mass-market CSRs.  That's good.

Their power supplies are $7.00 (including the cable).  You could hunt them 
down for less.

| And finally ... what are people doing for cases?

I've cut a few cases at Hacklab.  Scott is the expert.  Paul Wouters
really helped me.  The blank plexiglas came from Plastic World, in
your neck of the woods.  Slightly tricky: get the right thickness (my
first attempt used slightly too thick stock that I had already; the
result was cracking as I forced the bits together).

The cases from Newark are probably fine.  Just less in the DIY spirit.

| From: Nicholas <nicholas-D2Whf1L5i00 at public.gmane.org>

| Which reminds me -- you'll want an SD card.  I got a high speed Phillips
| 16GB SD card from Fortune Computers (also at College & Spadina) for $10.
|  It does a pretty good job.

I've heard that Sandisk SDs do better than (most?) others because of
their superior performance on short writes.  I've not verified this.



| From: John Martin <martjh-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org>

| I bought mine from Newark. If I remember, the cost with tax and
| shipping was $53.11 so the shipping would have been $12. I think it
| was Purolator.

Maybe my $8 charges were sale prices, but that's what I've paid each
time, as far as I recollect.  I think that that is a minimum charge
and would increase when the mass reaches a certain threshold.

Hmm... from their FAQ:
<http://canada.newark.com/help-delivery-information>

    Standard delivery

    We use Canada UPS for next day delivery to all major cities in Canada. 
    Please add additional days for remote locations. All deliveries will be 
    shipped UPS at a shipping cost of $8.00 CDN per parcel up to 50 lbs. 
    Shipments greater than 50 lbs will ship ground with the cost based on the 
    actual weight.

| From: Stewart C. Russell <scruss-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org>

| • HDMI cable — cheap ones (~$5 from College St or Active Surplus) are
| fine. Sayal might be $6-8. If you want to buy a Monster cable, can I
| also interest you in this lovely beach-front timeshare just outside
| Phoenix, AZ …?

Short ones are even cheaper from Dollarama.

| • powered USB hub — optional, but the Raspberry Pi has very little
| protection on its USB ports, and hot-plugging something has a good
| chance of resetting or hanging the board.

Will a powered hub prevent that?  I've only once tried hotplugging on
the RP, and it wasn't successful.  Apparently a well-known bug.

| > And finally ... what are people doing for cases?
| 
| I think the Allied (or whoever's aligned with RS [Radio Spares]) ship
| it in a small plastic box that can be used as a case — it has cutouts
| for ports, and most importantly, the SD card is fully enclosed.

Neat!

Scott (I think) recommended Newark and I've stuck with them.

| From: Tim Tisdall <tisdall-DXT9u3ndKiSh7up9GtFB90EOCMrvLtNR at public.gmane.org>

| Might I suggest something like this:
| http://www.geekbuying.com/item/MK808B-Dual-Core-Android-4-1-Jelly-Bean-TV-BOX-RK3066-Cortex-A9-1GB-RAM-8GB-ROM-Mini-PC-TV-Box---Black-313213.html
| 
| There's a ton of these small stick-like machines out there that primarily
| run Android, but there are Linux builds for them as well.  This one is a
| dual-core processor.  There's also some quad-core processors out there now.
|  This one has built in wifi and bluetooth.

Those are intriguing.  I've not tried them.  Not as much of a culture
of open-source hacking.

These have much more CPU horsepower than the RP.  Doubly so for the
quad core ones.  And more RAM -- most have 1G but the quad core ones
have 2G.

I think that the RP's video is more powerful (but less open, oddly
enough).

They might have better I/O bandwidth that the RP.  In the RP, All SD,
USB, and ethernet goes through a single internal USB 2.0 port, which
sure sounds like a bottleneck.  I don't know the topology of these
sticks.

These sticks are specialized for HTPC so might be better for that
purpose.

Is there a reasonable ordinary linux distro for these?
Debian/Ubuntu/Fedora/Arch/...?  Most of the activity appears to be
custom permutations of Android, key parts of which are binary-only.

The Geekbuying link you gave is for US$44, a very attractive price.
They have quad cores for twice that price too.