Raspberry Pi - $35 Linux computer

[jrwagh333]

I've got my Pi working fine as a Plex server. But sometimes I have some media in my other pc that I want to transfer over to the Pi.

Currently I'm doing CLI and SCP which is a real pain. Can I add the Plex server as a network device in my Ubuntu desktop? So I can just do drag and drop?

 

[jrwagh333]

Worked it out. Had to add it in network devices.

 

[bledd]

Been busy playing with Pi's this week.

Made a CCTV (4x hikvision camera) playback station. It checks every minute to make sure the feeds are running. If I camera was to reboot (ie, switch reboot taking out Poe), then it will recover that feed.

A kiosk pi that autorefreshes a page in chrome every 2 minutes on a TV (public viewing info station)

Advertising Pi, that displays images from a folder over and over, if you add more images and a specific file name, then it will reload with those images.

Next thing is to make a "happiness rating station", like the ones you get at airports and public bathrooms.

After that, going to make server room humidity/temperature monitor, that has a physical button on it, so you can log "server room has been checked" alerts when pressing. Will probably feed into a syslog server with Grafana.

 

[jrwagh333]

I've really been looking the look of the SATA hat kit from China that was linked above.

Currently I have a 3B+ and one 3.5" HDD serving as a Plex server and it runs fine, even for 4K stuff. But I'm thinking if I get the SATA hat, add 4 drives, I could run a Plex server as well as a backup server.

I've also been contemplating with something a bit crazy that I don't know would work well or not.

I either need to buy a much smaller chassis for my home ATX PC or now I'm thinking I could move that PC to another room and just use the Pi4 as a desktop PC.

My gaming fix would be from Steam Link and Stadia. I know Steam Link works fine on a Pi4, not sure about Stadia yet.

Nothing else I do on my PC is really demanding.

 

[EYEREX]

Just setup Tvheadend on a Raspberry Pi 3 with a PCTV tripleStick 292e so i can watch over the air TV on my Amazon Fire Cube (via Dream Player TV) and iPad which works really well plus give me DVR functions

 

[Semple]

After that, going to make server room humidity/temperature monitor, that has a physical button on it, so you can log "server room has been checked" alerts when pressing. Will probably feed into a syslog server with Grafana.

That sounds interesting! Will be interested if you do a build log. Not too fussed on the physical switch side, but scaling it out to log multiple temperature/humidity readings from various sensors.

 

[jrwagh333]

Just got an email that I think is pretty amazing.

The Pi 4B, the 1GB model is being discontinued and the 2GB is taking its place for the same price as the 1GB!

I wish that would lead to a fall in the 4GB price but we will see.

Fantastic to have 2GB as standard.

 

[Armageus]

Just got an email that I think is pretty amazing.

The Pi 4B, the 1GB model is being discontinued and the 2GB is taking its place for the same price as the 1GB!

I wish that would lead to a fall in the 4GB price but we will see.

Fantastic to have 2GB as standard.

https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/new-price-raspberry-pi-4-2gb/

 

[jrwagh333]

The older I get, the less I want to spend in hardware so this is great. The challenge of trying to get a Pi to do something Vs a traditional desktop, I love it.

 

[Semple]

https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/new-price-raspberry-pi-4-2gb/

That's actually tempting to buy some 2GB models to replace some of my older Pi's.

At least that way i don't have to talk myself into paying an extra tenner for double the ram. In this case it's an extra 20, which is getting on close to double.

Hopefully these will contain the new rev that allows them to work with any USB C cables?

 

[maj]

edit: nvm sorted.

 

[JonnyT]

Hello! A bit late to the party here, but wanting to dip m toe into the RPi rabbit hole! What's your recommendation for starting out, kit wise? I was initially wanting a RetroPie box to load all my Amiga games on (and perhaps Mega Drive) to take round friends for retro gaming, but then exploring other possibilities?

 

[jrwagh333]

Plex issue

I'm using a 3B+ with a powered 3.5" drive and using ethernet

Plays 1080p fine when streaming to our Xbox One.
Last night attempted a 2160p movie but issues of buffering every 30 seconds to 2 minutes.

How would I work out where the bottleneck is?

 

[Evilpaul]

To check the CPU loading on the RPi then SSH in and run the top command while you are streaming files. You'll quickly see if you are maxing out the CPU.

My initial suspicion is that you will be hitting the network limitations of the RPi due to the higher bandwidth required for 4k video and the poor Ethernet implementation on the RPi3. If you do find it is a network limitation then you could try upgrading to the RPi4 as that has a proper Ethernet connection instead of one that is connected through the USB, as on the RPi1, 2 & 3.

 

[R.C.Anderson]

Plex issue

I'm using a 3B+ with a powered 3.5" drive and using ethernet

Plays 1080p fine when streaming to our Xbox One.
Last night attempted a 2160p movie but issues of buffering every 30 seconds to 2 minutes.

How would I work out where the bottleneck is?

How's the HDD connected? USB?
From memory, the USB & ethernet connectors share the same data bus, so being data heavy on both interfaces may well be your issue.
As Evilpaul said, check your CPU usage, if that's not maxed out, it's most likely the USB/Ethernet bus bottleneck.
From memory, however, I think the wifi doesn't share the same bus, so you might be able to get around the bottleneck moving to wifi, rather than ethernet (assuming a good enough wifi network)

 

[EssexBoy]

Could i setup a pi running ubuntu 18 to have a static ip while my provider (vm) is dynamic and is it pretty straightforward?

 

[R.C.Anderson]

Could i setup a pi running ubuntu 18 to have a static ip while my provider (vm) is dynamic and is it pretty straightforward?

You won't be able to have your Pi have a static external IP, if your ISP gives you dynamic IPs, but you can use something my duckdns to give you a domain name that'll auto-update with your new IP anytime it changes. I use it for connection to a download manager on my server & works really well with IP updates.

 

[EssexBoy]

You won't be able to have your Pi have a static external IP, if your ISP gives you dynamic IPs, but you can use something my duckdns to give you a domain name that'll auto-update with your new IP anytime it changes. I use it for connection to a download manager on my server & works really well with IP updates.

Thanks but i don't think that will work for what i need it to do (masternodes)

 

[alfalavala]

Currently I have a 3B+ and one 3.5" HDD serving as a Plex server and it runs fine, even for 4K stuff.

Do you encode your media specifically for the rpi to serve it? I'd like to move to a rpi for a plex server but worry that if clients can't play the audio or remote connections with limited bandwidth cause plex to transcode that the pi will fail.

 

[jrwagh333]

Scrap what I said. 4K is stuttering.