Raspberry Pi - $35 Linux computer

  • Thread starter Thread starter daz
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not heard that term but have my 2 PC's upstairs connected to the hub plus 3 laptops around the house all set up in a homegroup sharing the printer, or reading movies/music/books etc from my Win 7 desktop machine.

So, I know the basics. My Pi is connected to the hub via a wire and can access the internet with no issues. I've tried 2 guides, one was basic and just said click files and select the computer, it might ask for the homegroup option. The other suggested turning off the homegroup, sharing the files individually.

Again, both methods work with all the laptops in the house etc (not tried printing) but it reads the files.

Pi doesn't even see the PC :(

My linux experience sits with installing Ubuntu/backtrak and playing around with it but its at a basic level.
 
You need to enable file sharing on the folders or partitions which have the media you want to stream, see below:

aLtleKn.png


Them simply add the share on XBMC via SMB!
 
Files are set to shared and are viewable from all the windows devices in the house.

Shared with 'Everyone' as well with Read/Write permissions.

Going to have another go with the Pi when I get home from work!
 
Homegroups are a Windows only thing..

I wish MS had never invented homegroups.


----

Create a new user, call it 'media' or something, with a password you'll remember.

Create..
C:\Movies\

Chuck a few films in there.

Right click the folder, properties, sharing.

Give the 'media' user 'read only' access to the share.



Now on another pc, type the following in a run box...

\\NAMEofFIRSTpc
-press enter.

If it asks for a user, type in the media / password.

Once this is working, add the share to your XBMC, a Windows share is an 'SMB' or Windows share.





--

Pi works better with NFS shares, but that's a different kettle of fish. I use NFS on my Synology NAS, works perfectly.
 
did all that, nothing. Reset everything, nothing.

then about 10 minutes later, it was working :S very odd but thanks for the help, much appreciated :)

Now I just need to figure out how to set it all up :p

EDIT: Got it running well with films/tv shows. Still need to figure out the music side, but a lot of the tracks are mislabeled for some reason on the server and things like not searching via genre of music or creating playlists.

Its currently playing Elysium at 1080p on my monitor and it looks awesome, main issue for me is speed in menu's etc due to the size of the collections. May have to convert one of the i5 machines to run this downstairs, build a proper media system around it :)
 
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Overclock the Pi.

I use mine on the 'Turbo' overclock settings. Look up a youtube guide on how to do it, it's just editing a text file.

Use 'yatze' on your Android phone to control the XBMC instance, far quicker than using a TV remote.

-I use a bit of both..
 
Yeah, navigation through the menus with OpenElec is like watching a slideshow!

Does overclocking really get rid of this?
The B+ runs at 700Mhz but I always see the magic number 1000Mhz when overclocking.
Also are heatsinks a must?
 
bledd. said:
Overclock the Pi.

I use mine on the 'Turbo' overclock settings. Look up a youtube guide on how to do it, it's just editing a text file.

Use 'yatze' on your Android phone to control the XBMC instance, far quicker than using a TV remote.

-I use a bit of both..
Click to expand...

Excellent, that's the next project then :D

And Yatse is superb, working like a dream, no issues at all setting that up. Even the wife will be able to use it :p

Jony27 said:
Yeah, navigation through the menus with OpenElec is like watching a slideshow!

Does overclocking really get rid of this?
The B+ runs at 700Mhz but I always see the magic number 1000Mhz when overclocking.
Also are heatsinks a must?
Click to expand...

I've the B model and I think that they all run at 700Mhz, having a read over this: http://hsilomedus.me/index.php/overclocking-the-raspberry-pi-with-openelec/

I'd say its not going to harm it by adding a heat sink. I've got some thermal compound somewhere and might take some heat sinks off some odd cards i've got lying around. could even look at a small found noise dependent :)

edit: hmm can't find heatsinks, wonder if I can make one :p
 
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Jony27 said:
Yeah, navigation through the menus with OpenElec is like watching a slideshow!

Does overclocking really get rid of this?
The B+ runs at 700Mhz but I always see the magic number 1000Mhz when overclocking.
Also are heatsinks a must?
Click to expand...

A 1ghz Pi, using a usb stick for the file system, running the latest daily helix builds of OpenElec for XBMC is really quick, no slowdown at all.
 
Indeed, it's come a long way since the first day I had my Pi.

Wait until OpenElec 5 comes out (any day now) and try that.
 
just bought the raspberry pi B+ starter kit.

want to start using it as a Server for DHCP & maybe some other stuff
What would you say is the best Distro for the PI for this kind of job?

lightweight sounds good. :)
 
I am still to overclock the Pi, but I seem to have an odd issue with some movies.

For instance, we have The Gruffalo and we've just watched it (daughter is sick), its 720 or 1080 and runs with no issue. The Gruffalo's Child was next to watch, works fine on laptop but the Pi keeps freezing every 10-30 seconds for 5-10 seconds. It's only 480p too.

I've noticed it with a few other films as well, and they aren't super high quality rips.

Any advice? maybe its a buffering issue? :(
 
I assume you're using xbmc through either OpenELEC or raspbmc? It could be an issue with omxplayer struggling with how it's encoded. If it's in the wrong format the pi's cpu rather than gpu will have to do the de-encoding. Can you right click on the file (or bring the context menu up) and tell it to play with dvdplayer instead?

The latest versions of xbmc (now kodi) will work out which is the best payer to use based on the file's encoding on the fly so it becomes seamless.
 
Trick said:
I assume you're using xbmc through either OpenELEC or raspbmc? It could be an issue with omxplayer struggling with how it's encoded. If it's in the wrong format the pi's cpu rather than gpu will have to do the de-encoding. Can you right click on the file (or bring the context menu up) and tell it to play with dvdplayer instead?

The latest versions of xbmc (now kodi) will work out which is the best payer to use based on the file's encoding on the fly so it becomes seamless.
Click to expand...

Well, added 2 heatsinks and overclocked to turbo mode, also updated to the latest beta version. It started playing everything fine to start then started getting bugs, keyboards not working so I've dropped it back to the official release and it seems to be ok for now.

Next thing, sorting libraries out so I can remove duplicates and then it's just time to tinker :D
 
Update, well, moved it back downstairs and its started getting stuttering issues again which means that it has to be the generic wireless adapter.

Means i need to buy a new one or look at some sort of wifi hub so I can run a cable to that :S
 
AHarvey said:
Update, well, moved it back downstairs and its started getting stuttering issues again which means that it has to be the generic wireless adapter.

Means i need to buy a new one or look at some sort of wifi hub so I can run a cable to that :S
Click to expand...


use a powered USB hub if you are not already for the wifi dongle. I've had issues with mine just plugged straight into the Pi.
 
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