My Raspberry Pi Journey - Bunch of stuff & Brian Lara 99

So as mentioned in another thread, had finally decided to buy Rasberry Pi 3. The good thing about this model is that it comes builtin with wifi and bluetooth unlike previous models. I will share what I do with it and how I do it so if anyone wants to buy one they can follow this thread.

Let us start by knowing what is Rasberry Pi

What is Rasberry Pi?

The Raspberry Pi is a low cost, credit-card sized computer that plugs into a computer monitor or TV, and uses a standard keyboard and mouse. It is a capable little device that enables people of all ages to explore computing, and to learn how to program in languages. It comes with Python and Java out of the box.

How many models are there for Rasberry Pi?

There are 6 models of Rasberry Pi.
1. Pi Zero
2. Pi Zero W
3. Pi Model 1 A +
4. Pi Model 2 B +
5. Pi Model 2 B
6. Pi Model 3 B (latest)

What are the specs?

Rasberry Pi Model 3 B comes with

• Quad Core 1.2GHz Broadcom BCM2837 64bit CPU
• 1GB RAM
• BCM43438 wireless LAN and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) on board
• 40-pin extended GPIO
• 4 USB 2 ports
• 4 Pole stereo output and composite video port
• Full size HDMI
• CSI camera port for connecting a Raspberry Pi camera
• DSI display port for connecting a Raspberry Pi touchscreen display
• Micro SD port for loading your operating system and storing data
• Upgraded switched Micro USB power source up to 2.5A

How does it look?



How much does it cost?

The Rasberry Pi alone as a board is shipped for $35. It requires a SD card(acts as your Storage), a power adapter(sold separately), a screen depending if you dont have one, keyboard, mouse and a case.

Now it seems a lot when you have to buy all but trust me a $100 kit will give you everything. Rasberry Pi with its specs runs Rasbian version of Linux. You can install other images too. With its particular use you need a maximum of 32-64 GB sd card which costs $20. A 7 inch touch screen costs $30 and power adapter costs $10. Now there are companies like CanaKit | Electronic Kits & Modules | Arduino | Embedded Electronics | Parts & Components | Electronic Tutorials which will sell you a bundle like the one I bought for $69. My kit includes SD card, Case, Power Adapter, HDMI cable, Heat pads. I use my extra tv I have at home as my screen. If I add screen thats only $100

Whats so good about Rasberry Pi?

Since the Pi boots up from SD Card, you can have different OS's running. Buy one SD card per OS. I got one from the kit and had an old one in house which I use for a cool OS RetroPie.

RetroPie converts your Rasberry Pi into cool retro gaming console. You install this OS and add the ROM's and bam you can play NES, N64, GBA, GBC, Playstation1, Atari all games using controllers or keyboard.

My Plan Ahead...

Currently as mentioned in another thread, my Rasberry Pi after installing Apache Server is acting as my host. I have given my Rasberry Pi a static IP and forwarded port to go to my Pi. I already owned a domain which I just forward it now. This way I have a one time paid unlimited hosting.

This is just my short term goal. My long term goal is to build a solid hardware/software product.

I am currently playing with normal Rabsbian OS which is acting as my server and Retro Pie which I play cool games like Fifa 98, Mario, Donkey Kong, Contra etc.

I want to eventually integrate a 7 inch touch screen with RetroPie and play around with it. I will also be building one of the coolest project ever built on Rasberry Pi and that is a Smart Mirror

I am pretty excited.

 

I saw this back month ago and I was thinking to buy one. But never really end up buying it...

 

IF you end up buying do let me know if you have questions or need help. Its a good purchase to make tbh. You though need to be good at either knowing Unix Command or understanding those commands for learning.

 

Project 1 - Personal Hosting Server​

Description - A Raspberry Pi web server makes for a great lightweight Web Server. It can handle a small amount of traffic and lightweight scripts making it fantastic for a home server or an area you can learn web programming languages such as PHP.

Steps -

1. After setting up my Pi, I directly opened the terminal and wrote

Code:

sudo apt-get install apache2 -y

This will install Apache Web Server. Once the server is installed this is all you need. You just need to know your IP Address. You can get your IP Address on Linux either using

Code:

ifconfig

or

Code:

hostname -I

2. Browse to the IP address in a browser and you should get a page with Apache default page.

3. Now you can access the webpage from other computers in same network but in order to make it visible to outside network, there is added step. Now do not try this step if you have no clue whatsoever

4. Login to your router. The IP Address to login would usually be 10.0.0.1 or written on router. Username and Password would be admin and admin and if not it would be mentioned on the router.

5. Once you are in, go to See all IP connection section.(This will be in a different place for different routers). Do some searching for your particular router.

6. Find the rasberry pi IP address and change it to Static.

7. Now next find the Port Forwarding menu and forward port 80 generally to the Rasberry PI Address.

8. Inside the router find the ISP's IP address for your network.

9. Enter that ISP IP address from outside network and pass port number 80 for example - http://192.0.0.0:80, this will take you to the default Apache page. You have your hosting read.

10. Change the HTML or place your project under

Code:

/var/www/html/*

My hosting is live and it can be found here Welcome to Jolly Jumbo

Things to know - Linux commands, Basic networking skills

P.S - To keep your host alive you need to keep your RasPi switched on always

 

Coming up later today I will show how rasberry pi works with retropie and some game play if I am able to record it from it.

 

Project RetroPie
​

So one of the reason for getting the Rasberry Pi was this, a beautiful OS called "Retro Pie". Over the years being opensource, lots of users have contributed and created lots of things. I am not good with carpentry but those who are have created beautiful arcade machines.

Few of the examples are





My project idea

Obviously as stated above, I am neither good at carpentry nor electrical circuits. My plan is to play around have some good games selection into my retropie and then buy a 3.5 or 5 inch small screen. Connect the screen to the RasPi and make it a handheld console. Obviously I cannot sell that as with games in it but if I have a good product, I can sell a hand held console with an unofficial way of adding games.

My RetroPie Images

I have installed quite a few games, not all work so testing out which works well and which does not. Here are few images of games I played and how RetroPie OS looks like.



View attachment 196949

​

 

Bad jump.

 

No excuses there but I actually wanted to take a screen shot, I had an option of going for good jump or screenshot, I took the later

 

Just configured and now playing this. Oh how this takes me down the memory lane

 

And finally, after hours of patience I have my favourite game of all time running on RasPi! Brain Freaking Lara

 

I will make a portable one not that kind of fancy though. I have a mini phone size projector too that I just found out Have a plan going in mind for it

 

Play EA Cricket 2000. It was the first cricket game I played on my lowest specs PC.

Really liked that game before moving on to EA Cricket 2007.

 

Things you can do with this small piece of hardware is insane.

 

Yupe. It's a whole PC in your pocket. That time is not far when people will carry 32GB RAM, 5 TB SDD and GTX 1xxx in their pocket...