Raspberry Pi - $35 Linux computer

  • Thread starter Thread starter daz
  • Start date Start date
I'm thinking of getting a Pi 3 as a present for someone but I'm not sure if I just get it on it's own and let them buy accesories or get a starter kit. The starter kit I found had a few bad reviews because of the SD card being faulty.
Buy them all the bits they need but source them individually, will be cheaper and you will have better components.
 
I'm thinking of getting a Pi 3 as a present for someone but I'm not sure if I just get it on it's own and let them buy accesories or get a starter kit. The starter kit I found had a few bad reviews because of the SD card being faulty.

Depends on who you're buying it for I guess...

I'd be a bit gutted to receive a Pi 3, only to realise I'd need to buy other bits and pieces for it before I could actually use it.

Personally, if I was buying a Pi for someone that I knew didn't have one previously, I'd at least buy the starter kit (or buy it individually, as GSXR recommended). That way, they can at least power it up and give it a boot through and a test :)
 
Leaving work in 2 weeks and they've asked me what I wanted as a leaving present, up to the value of £75. Asked them for the Raspberry Pi 3 starter kit on Amazon and some beers :cool:

After lumping all my old consoles up the loft the other day I thought about building a retro gaming system for my daughter (as a stocking filler). After seeing the Pi-Hole I may have to convince my mum to get me another Pi for xmas, to do some serious tinkering though!
 
I was very impressed with the PI3 in general for emulation. It falls short on n64 though, sadly, but everything before that is a winner. connect a keyboard and mouse and it'll play amiga games quite happily ect. Great bit of kit. Mines stuffed inside my old ps3 shell and i use my ps3 controllers over bluetooth :)
 
Last edited:
I've got 3 in total at the moment.

One is running retropie - cos, well, it's cool! :D

One I'm using just to run an FTP/Web/SQL server at home to fiddle around with (I'm a n00b when it comes to that side of things).

The other one is just running Raspbian, fiddling with different features, projects and possibilities.

I bought heatskinks for mine too, not that I have overclocked them (it is tempting) but just that I've noticed around a 10C drop just by using a heatsink.
 
I've got 3 in total at the moment.

One is running retropie - cos, well, it's cool! :D

One I'm using just to run an FTP/Web/SQL server at home to fiddle around with (I'm a n00b when it comes to that side of things).

The other one is just running Raspbian, fiddling with different features, projects and possibilities.

I bought heatskinks for mine too, not that I have overclocked them (it is tempting) but just that I've noticed around a 10C drop just by using a heatsink.

I didn't think you could overclock the Pi3 or are you using older versions?

I overclocked my Pi1 but it's still slow compared to the 3.
 
I'm pretty sure you can overclock the Pi3, but it naturally runs at a higher temp than the 1 and 2, so you'll need cooling.
 
I was very impressed with the PI3 in general for emulation. It falls short on n64 though, sadly, but everything before that is a winner. connect a keyboard and mouse and it'll play amiga games quite happily ect. Great bit of kit. Mines stuffed inside my old ps3 shell and i use my ps3 controllers over bluetooth :)

Apparently it works better with N64 if you over clock the Pi3, I've been meaning to try on mine.

https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/wiki/Optimization-for-Nintendo-64
 
I didn't think you could overclock the Pi3 or are you using older versions?

I overclocked my Pi1 but it's still slow compared to the 3.

You can overclock it but unlike the older Pi's where there are OC options supported by the Raspberry Pi Foundation the Pi3's OCing is entirely at the owners risk and from what I've seen is very hit and miss and I know of 2 people personally who've damaged the GPU side of the processor with heat.
 
You can overclock it but unlike the older Pi's where there are OC options supported by the Raspberry Pi Foundation the Pi3's OCing is entirely at the owners risk and from what I've seen is very hit and miss and I know of 2 people personally who've damaged the GPU side of the processor with heat.

oh i didn't realise that they explicitly supported overclocking on the older Pi's (i only own 1 Pi3 and 1 Pi Zero).
 
Worth mentioning that if you're going to OC the RPi 3, then you could void the warranty (if you care about those sorts of things).

Whilst there are overclock settings which are considered "supported" by the Raspberry Pi Foundation, not every Pi will be able to reach all supplied overclock settings, and overclocking always runs the risk of shortening the lifespan of your Pi.

There are some settings which flip a hardware switch inside the Pi and void the warranty, these are:
  • over_voltage greater than 6
  • force_turbo=1
  • temp_limit greater than 85

https://github.com/retropie/retropie-setup/wiki/Overclocking
 
I'm not bothered about it anyway. But a small heatsink (£1) and small 2.5cm fan and a reasonable enclosure shouldn't cause too many issues.

I think the performance of this little computer is amazing for the price!
 
You can buy cases where the case is a heatsink. In my usage i've found a copper heatsink to be sufficient, but then i'm not doing anything particularly taxing with the Pi.
 
I've been trying to get my head around Crontab, but can't get it to work.

My Raspberry Pi runs on Libreelec, and I'm trying to set it up so that it reboots itself at 6:00AM every day. I connected to it via SSH on my computer using PuTTY. Then typed "crontab -e" and added the line:

Code:
0 6 * * * sudo reboot

Saved and thought that was it :p

I'm obviously missing something here - Can anyone help?

I just tried the "sudo reboot" command manually, and it said that Libreelec is automatically logged in as root admin and so "sudo" isn't required... Could this be it? Should I just remove "sudo" from the crontab?

EDIT: Yep... that did it :p I just tested it and it rebooted perfectly :) Just needed to remove Sudo :)
 
Last edited:
Guys hoping someone can help me out as there seems a lot of knowledgeable people on the PI here.

Wanted something to replace my amazon box in the front room and was thinking about a Pi3 with retropie and kodi.. question is has anyone been able to run kodi on a Pi3 plus netflix and amazon instant video?

I am pretty sure the old netflix app doesnt work on kodi and never tried amazon in kodi as I had the amazon box.
 
Back
Top Bottom