Raspberry Pi - $35 Linux computer

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I'm using AirPlay to stream Google Music from either my computer (using Airfoil) or from my phone (using AirAudio). The main reason for me setting it up like this is that I plan to have 2 SD cards, one for home and one for out and about where it acts like a wireless hotspot. By using AirPlay I can have others connect to it and play music from their phones.

Makes sense, thanks :). Think I'll do something similar. Are you running Airplay in XBMC? Or is there another OS you'd recommend?
 
You can use XBMC and it makes life a lot easier that way. I'm just running the normal debian release and then running software called Shairport to act as the airplay receiver.
 
This has been my favourite purchase of the year, even the missus loves it.

Has anyone managed to get bluetooth 4.0 working through Raspbmc? The superuser get script gives me an error when trying to pull the drivers.

It's turned my crappy tv into something decent, so I've ordered another for my bedroom.

Also if my main rpi has my hard drive connected, can I use another rpi or tablet or laptop to access those files?
 
Also if my main rpi has my hard drive connected, can I use another rpi or tablet or laptop to access those files?

Yeah you should be able to, how familiar with Linux are you and what is your Pi running? You basically need to enable a network sharing protocol and tell it to share the folder/s with the files you want the other devices to be able to access. What you use will depend on what those devices are:

SAMBA: would give you a sort of emulated windows-style WORKGROUP fileshare, which you will have to do if you want windows based machines to be able to see the files. This requires you to install and enable samba on the Pi, and then create a configuration file telling it the details of how other devices will be able to connect.

NFS: Is a much better robust method but is only really suited to other Linux machines (I belive OSX based devices should be okay with it as well). If you read around on the internet about it NFS seems to have a bit of a stigma as being super complicated etc. but it's actually really simple to setup (especially if you want something fairly simple such as allowing any devices on your home network to see the shared files)

In my setup the media files etc. are on a server (running Linux) and this has both samba and NFS setup, so I can connect to it via samba for any windows machines and via NFS for any linux ones (such as the pi). Let me know if you need help setting things up (there are plenty of guides out there to get you started though)
 
Yeah you should be able to, how familiar with Linux are you and what is your Pi running?

Hi Rufus and thanks for your post, to explain I'm new to Linux, apart from dual booting about 8 years ago and tinkering but I haven't really used it at all

My rPi set-up is as follows

rPi with Raspbmc installed via SDHC memory card
Powered USB hub connected to 1 of the rPi ports
Nano wireless dongle connected
Bluetooth 4.0 nano dongle connected
Wireless HTPC remote connected
500gb USB 3.0 HD connected
All powered from the HUB and not the rPi

The rPi has the latest Raspbmc installed, what I want to do I share the files on the USB harddrive from the rPi to other devices, such as another rPi once it has arrived.

I think from your post it may require a Linux build to share and maybe not raspbmc? But ill wait and see

Cheers man!
 
You can get Raspbmc to share those files using Samba - the config file will have to be manually edited though. From the Command line, edit the File with this command

sudo nano /etc/samba/smb.conf

then add in the device you want to share at the Bottom on the file, like so/

[PiShare]
comment = PiShare
path = /path/to/share/point (might be something like "/media/devices")
browseable = yes
read only = no

Save and exit Nano and rrestart Samba with

sudo /etc/init.d/samba restart

Nate
 
Complete novice question, I connected via putty, was able to edit the configuration file and add in the PiShare but how do I save the configuration before entering the sudo restart script?

I installed the quartz theme and the UI improvement is insane, so quick and snappy now.
 
Complete novice question, I connected via putty, was able to edit the configuration file and add in the PiShare but how do I save the configuration before entering the sudo restart script?

If you're using nano (as per the commands above), then ctrl+o will save, and ctrl+x will exit. You can just press ctrl+x and it should prompt you to save but I find ctrl+o ctrl+x quicker!
 
If you're using nano (as per the commands above), then ctrl+o will save, and ctrl+x will exit. You can just press ctrl+x and it should prompt you to save but I find ctrl+o ctrl+x quicker!

Great I'll try this after work, I've made a little progress and can connect via my laptop and tablet to the rpi, but the media is unavailable until I can save the configuration file.

Anyone else have the issue of turning the Pi on but if your not on the hdmi channel it won't display a picture, I found a script to correct this but does that also go in the config file I'm adding the PiShare?
 
Finally found a use for my Pi.

Installed raspbmc and got that connected to the missus' TV. Just whack things on USB now to watch or airplay it from phone/macbook.

Runs everything flawless so far, very happy with the results and only took a few mins to setup
 
Finally found a use for my Pi.

Installed raspbmc and got that connected to the missus' TV. Just whack things on USB now to watch or airplay it from phone/macbook.

Runs everything flawless so far, very happy with the results and only took a few mins to setup

Does it airplay 1080p ok for you ok? I tried it when they came out but it was a bit stuttery. 720p was fine.
 
Finally found a use for my Pi.

Installed raspbmc and got that connected to the missus' TV. Just whack things on USB now to watch or airplay it from phone/macbook.

Runs everything flawless so far, very happy with the results and only took a few mins to setup

Exactly what I'm going to be doing when mine arrives in a few days. Did you overclock at all? Which version of RaspBMC?

Glad to hear it works OK!
 
Does it airplay 1080p ok for you ok? I tried it when they came out but it was a bit stuttery. 720p was fine.

To be honest I only use airplay for playing music off of iPhone through the TV and all my material is 480p, which plays from a USB fine. I will try get a 1080p demo and give that a try but likely won't be until the weekend.

Exactly what I'm going to be doing when mine arrives in a few days. Did you overclock at all? Which version of RaspBMC?

Glad to hear it works OK!

I believe the latest version of RaspBMC automatically overclocks the Pi. I haven't checked the config to see what it puts in there. I was running it at 900mhz before from memory with an overvolt with no issues though.

Was the latest version on their site, I used the installer script to get the latest:

http://svn.stmlabs.com/svn/raspbmc/release/installers/python/install.py
 
I could do with some help from you knowledgeable chaps.
Basic outline of what I want to be able to do is this:

I want to have a media store in a single location that I alone can access to update etc, and then two touch screen monitors which only have access to the media library through a simplified GUI (I was thinking XBMC or similar) but with individual access (so able to play different media at the same time) through a headphone port.
I'm also thinking of a third screen slightly larger for primarily video playback which would be hooked into a speaker system.

From what I have read after some research, the Pi seems ideal for this purpose and I could even probably get away with using one of the Pi units as the main server as well?

Can anyone tell me if I'm barking up the wrong tree here or there is an easier way of doing things?

Thanks

Andy
 
I think you can probably achieve most of the above, although for the server bare in mind that the Pi doesn't have any SATA ports or anything like that, so in terms of storage your only option really is external USB drives (and those will need powering from a powered USB hub) The Pi only has 2 USB ports as well so if you're talking about a large media storage area it may be very tricky...

The touchscreen "units" should be fine though, running some XBMC variant, I guess this is for some kids to use or something like that? XBMC has profiles you can configure which will allow different devices to access different sets of media, if say you wanted a third Pi sat under your TV which has access to different things to the kids
 
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