Raspberry Pi

Raspberry Pi[]

Pros[]

• Low power consumption
• Cheap
• Very active community

Cons[]

• Extremely low power (per wats consumption taken into account)
• Extremely shitty audio
• USB and ethernet have their buses shared meaning they will beslow as fuck
• Has a tendency to brick/corruptSD cards. On that note, the SD card reader has a tendency to snap off the corner of some SD cards which will make the card unreadable in almost every other SD card reader you may find
• It'sARMv6, meaning it needs special OSes (you can't just install any flavour of linux you want)
• GPIO can only provide little amount of power per pin, meaning if the thing attached to it needs more power, you might fry the pi

Applications[]

• Supercomputer,http://www.southampton.ac.uk/~sjc/raspberrypi/pi_supercomputer_southampton.htm
• Torrentclient/seeder,https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83tZftxJTnA,https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIUgQEKxjNU
• Security,http://www.pcpro.co.uk/features/386086/make-a-motion-sensing-camera-with-the-raspberry-pi
• Bitcoin miner,http://computers.tutsplus.com/tutorials/how-to-create-a-raspberry-pi-bitcoin-miner--cms-20353,http://www.raspberrypi.org/bitcoin-farming-on-a-industrial-scale/

Hosting[]

• Email server,http://www.ducky-pond.com/posts/2012/Jul/installing-citadel-on-rpi/
• Webserver,http://elinux.org/RPi_Nginx_Webserver,http://raspberrywebserver.com/raspberrypicluster/comparing-the-performance-of-nginx-and-apache-web-servers.html
• TOR Middle Relay,http://cavebeat.org/2013/08/raspberry-pi-as-tor-middle-relay/
• YACY Search engine,http://www.yacypi.org/,http://yacy.net/en/index.html
• Piratebox,http://piratebox.aod-rpg.de/dokuwiki/doku.php/raspberry
• arkOS, Arch Linux-based operating system & self-hosting solution for Raspberry Pi,https://arkos.io/
• OwnCloud,http://www.owncloudbook.com/owncloud-on-raspberry-pi/

Communications[]

• Instant messaging-server, screen +finch
• Mumble Voip-server,http://sharpygoesoff.wordpress.com/2013/05/20/setting-up-a-mumble-server-on-a-raspberry-pi/
• Retroshare,http://cavebeat.org/2013/08/howto-compile-retroshare-on-raspberry-pi/,http://cavebeat.org/2013/08/create-retroshare-user-on-raspberry-pi/
• Smartphone,http://www.davidhunt.ie/piphone-a-raspberry-pi-based-smartphone/

Audio[]

• FM Transmitter,http://www.icrobotics.co.uk/wiki/index.php/Turning_the_Raspberry_Pi_Into_an_FM_Transmitter
• Police scanner,http://southgoldcoastscan.net/raspberrypi_streaming_police_scanner_audio_darkice_icecast_howto.html
• Audio source,http://www.raspyfi.com/
• Subsonic,http://mj2p.co.uk/install-subsonic-media-streaming-server-on-a-raspberry-pi/

Media[]

• Media player,http://www.raspberrypi.org/tag/openelec/

Gaming[]

• Retrogaming,http://chameleon.enging.com/,https://github.com/Aloshi/EmulationStation,http://www.raspberrypi.org/quake-iii-bounty-we-have-a-winner/
• Host ownMUD,http://www.tbamud.com/downloads

Performance & overclocking[]

TheBroadcomSoC used in the Raspberry Pi is equivalent to a chip used in an oldsmartphone (Android or iPhone). While operating at 700 MHz by default, the Raspberry Pi provides a real world performance roughly equivalent to the 0.041 GFLOPs.^[1][2] On theCPU level the performance is similar to a 300 MHzPentium II of 1997-1999^[3] and theGPU however provides 1 Gpixel/s, 1.5 Gtexel/s or 24 GFLOPs of general purpose compute and the graphics capabilities of the Raspberry Pi are roughly equivalent to the level of performance of theXbox of 2001.^[3] The Raspberry Pi chip operating at 700 MHz by default, will not become hot enough to need a heatsink or special cooling.^[3]

TheLINPACK single node compute benchmark results in a meansingle precision performance of 0.065 GFLOPs and a meandouble precision performance of 0.041 GFLOPs for one Raspberry Pi Ver. B board.^[4] A cluster of 64 Raspberry Pi Ver. B computers, labeled "Iridis-pi", achieved a LINPACKHPL suite result of 1.14 GFLOPs (n=10240) at 216 watts for c. US$4,000.^[4]

Most Raspberry Pi devices can be overclocked to 800 MHz and some even higher to 1000 MHz. Via theRaspbianLinux distro the overclocking options onboot can be done by a software command running "sudo raspi-config" without voiding the warranty. In case of issues, the overclocking settings can be reduced until stability is restored, or one can put an appropriately sized heatsink on it.^[3]

Specifications[]

Notes

1. Model A andModel B are cultural references^[28] to the original models of the British educationalBBC Micro computer, developed byAcorn Computers, who originally developed theARM processors (the architecture of the Raspberry Pi) and operating systemRISC OS, which will also be able to be run on the Raspberry Pi (version 5.17).^[26]
2. On the older beta model B boards, 128 MB was allocated by default to the GPU, leaving 128 MB for the CPU.^[29] On the first 256 MB release model B (and Model A), three different splits were possible. The default split was 192 MB (CPU RAM), which should be sufficient for standalone 1080p video decoding, or for simple 3D, but probably not for both together. 224 MB was for Linux only, with just a 1080pframebuffer, and was likely to fail for any video or 3D. 128 MB was for heavy 3D, possibly also with video decoding (e.g. XBMC).^[30] Comparatively the Nokia 701 uses 128 MB for the Broadcom VideoCore IV.^[31] For the new model B with 512 MB RAM initially there were new standard memory split files released( arm256_start.elf, arm384_start.elf, arm496_start.elf) for 256 MB, 384 MB and 496 MB CPU RAM (and 256 MB, 128 MB and 16 MB video RAM). But a week or so later the RPF released a new version of start.elf that could read a new entry in config.txt (gpu_mem=xx) and could dynamically assign an amount of RAM (from 16 to 256 MB in 8 MB steps) to the GPU, so the older method of memory splits became obsolete, and a single start.elf worked the same for 256 and 512 MB Pis.^[32]
3. Level 2cache is 128 KB, used primarily by the GPU, not the CPU.
4. TheARM11 is based on version 6 of theARM architecture (ARMv6k), which due to its age is no longer supported by several popular versions of Linux, includingUbuntu which dropped support for processors belowARMv7 in 2009.^[33]
5. The Raspberry Pi also contains a 15-pinMIPIcamera interface (CSI) connector, which is used with the Raspberry Pi Camera Addon.^[34][35]
6. Support for rawLCD panels is available in hardware through the availableDSI connector from theMobile Industry Processor Interface (MIPI) Alliance.^[15] Software support is being planned.
7. Supported digital video resolutions are: 640 × 350EGA; 640 × 480VGA; 800 × 600SVGA; 1024 × 768XGA; 1280×720720pHDTV; 1280 × 768WXGA Variant; 1280 × 800WXGA Variant; 1280 × 1024SXGA; 1366 × 768WXGA Variant; 1400 × 1050SXGA+; 1600 × 1200UXGA; 1680 × 1050WXGA+; 1920 × 10801080pHDTV; 1920 × 1200WUXGA.^[17] Also to be supported are the generation of576i and480i composite video signals forPAL-BGHID,PAL-M,PAL-N,NTSC andNTSC-J^[36]
8. Size dimensions do not include overhanging components such as the USB and RCA connectors.
9. Newer versions of the firmware contain the option to choose between five overclock ("turbo") presets that when turned on try to get the most performance out of the SoC without impairing the lifetime of the Pi. This is done by monitoring the core temperature of the chip, and the CPU load, and dynamically adjusting clock speeds and the core voltage. When the demand is low on the CPU, or it is running too hot, the performance is throttled, but if the CPU has much to do, and the chip's temperature is acceptable, performance is temporarily increased, with clock speeds of up to 1 GHz, depending on the individual board, and on which of the turbo settings is used. The five settings are:
   1. None; 700 MHz ARM, 250 MHz core, 400 MHz SDRAM, 0 overvolt,
   2. Modest; 800 MHz ARM, 250 MHz core, 400 MHz SDRAM, 0 overvolt,
   3. Medium 900 MHz ARM, 250 MHz core, 450 MHz SDRAM, 2 overvolt,
   4. High; 950 MHz ARM, 250 MHz core, 450 MHz SDRAM, 6 overvolt,
   5. Turbo; 1000 MHz ARM, 500 MHz core, 600 MHz SDRAM, 6 overvolt^[37][38]

In the highest (turbo) preset the SDRAM clock was originally 500 MHz, but this was later changed to 600 MHz because 500 MHz sometimes causes SD card corruption. Simultaneously inhigh mode the core clock speed was lowered from 450 to 250 MHz, and inmedium mode from 333 to 250 MHz.

List of operating systems[]

This is a list ofoperating systems that have been, or are being,ported to Raspberry Pi:

• Full OS:
  • AROS
  • ChibiOS/RT^[39]
  • Haiku^[40]
  • Linux
    • Android
      • Android 2.3 (Gingerbread)
      • Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich)
    • Arch Linux ARM
    • Debian ARM architecture ports, but not the Debian ARMhf architecture ports (introduced with Debian 7 Wheezy), since these are compiled for ARMv7 and the Raspberry Pi CPU is ARMv6
      • Raspbian^[41] (Debian 7 Wheezy ARMhf backported for ARMv6)
        • XBian
    • Firefox OS
    • Puppy Linux^[42]
    • Gentoo Linux^[43]
    • Google Chromium OS
    • openSUSE^[44]
    • PiBang Linux^[45]
    • Raspberry PiFedora Remix
    • Slackware ARM (formerly ARMedslack)
    • QtonPi, across-platformapplication framework based Linux distribution based on theQt framework
    • WebOS
      • Open webOS^[46]
  • Plan 9 from Bell Labs^[47][48]
  • RISC OS
  • Unix
    • FreeBSD^[49]
    • NetBSD^[50][51]
  • Windows CE^[52]

• Multi-purpose light distributions:
  • Moebius operating system, a light ARM HF distribution based on Debian. It uses Raspbian repository, but it fits in a 1 GB SD card. It has just minimal services and its memory usage is optimized to keep a small footprint.
  • Minibian, another light ARM HF distribution based on Raspbian repository.
  • OpenWrt "Attitude Adjustment" 12.09
  • Squeezed Arm Puppy, a version ofPuppy Linux (Puppi) for the ARMv6 (sap6) specifically for the Raspberry Pi.^[53]
  • Kali Linux

• Single-purpose light distributions:
  • IPFire
  • OpenELEC
  • Raspbmc
  • RasPlex
  • Raspberry Digital signage, an operating system for digital signage purposes (web and media views)
  • Ark OS, website and email self-hosting

Archived 4chandata threads[]

• http://4chandata.org/g/Raspberry-Pi-Thread-a509517
• http://4chandata.org/g/What-are-the-practical-applications-of-a-raspberry-pi-a331486
• http://4chandata.org/diy/Hey-guys-I-want-to-make-a-quadrotor-with-my-Raspberry-Pi-which-I-will-program-myself-in-C-I-have-a-few-questions-though-1-Do-I-nee-a511203
• http://4chandata.org/g/Raspberry-Pi-vs-Beagleboard-vs-Pandaboard-vs-whatever-other-options-I039m-forgetting-for-something-new-to-play-with-Pros-and-cons--a435903

Related[]

• NOOBS,http://www.raspberrypi.org/introducing-the-new-out-of-box-software-noobs/