[ReeceGrads]

I ordered my Raspberry Pi a couple of months ago and expect that it will be delivered in the next couple of days.

I was just wondering if anyone had already received and set theirs up and what kind of hardware / software combinations they'd gone for?

Currently I've bought a few items:

Wireless Keyboard / Mouse - Xenta - Ebuyer
8GB SDHC Card - Transcend - Ebuyer
HDMI Cable - Unbranded - Ebuyer
Wireless Dongle - Unbranded - 7 Day Shop

Think i'm going to run the debian distro, and aim to put the Pi to use to essentially enable my tv, making it an internet tv of sorts.

Anyone else got one and what's theirs set up to be used for?

Cheers

[Scott1541]

I haven't ordered one but I am thinking about getting one to use as a file server. I don't know what OS I would use on it, I would like to use Debian but it looks like it is a work in progress port to ARM. A good idea I got from another forum was to use a powered USB hub to provide both power for the Pi and attached devices by connecting a USB cable to the power connector and the hub then connecting the hub cable to the Pi USB ports. I don't think I would need a keyboard or mouse as it will pretty much be a headless server so I might use something like VNC to control it.

I would like to use an ethernet cable to connect to the internet but that might not be possible as it would need to go either downstairs on the TV stand or in the spare bedroom with the CCTV DVR, but for that I would need to buy a switch and I don't know it would be worth buying one. A USB dongle might be a better option, especially as I would have 4 USB ports through the hub.

I wouldn't go crazy on a massive SD card as from what I have found out you only need to store the boot folder on the card, the rest can go on an external hard drive.

[mfaxford]

I've got a Pi but not done much with it yet. However a couple of notes.

It potentially needs more power than a USB socket on a pc/hub can provide so you might want to get a decent power supply (I'm using a spare phone charger that's designed for USB based phones but the PSU is 5v,1A)

Also not all wireless cards will work with Linux, there's a list on the RPi wiki. I've got one of the cheap ones from eBay and it seems to work.

Currently I think the only real Distro that works is Debian. I'm thinking about doing a Linux from Scratch type build but I've not got that far yet.

One of my plans is to make a media player for a non-smart TV. The other plan is to do some sort of car PC setup (GPS, Music, and a few other more specialist things)

[alex-hs]

Mine's got OpenELEC on it at the moment. Haven't really done much with it. I'll probably put Debian back on it at some point (had it on there before OpenELEC) or I might get another SD card and have both by swapping the cards around.

[python05]

I keep meaning to set mine up. It's going to be all boring and all me to scan to email from my scanner (since the scanner doesn't support 'modern things' like SSL SMTP...)

I'll be using the Debian image probably because that's what I've always ran on my servers and it'll be familiar in that sense. Another idea was to hook it up with a webcam and record timelapse videos with it, but the camera is currently broken so that's on hold!

[ReeceGrads]

All the kit i've got surprisingly works without the need for a powered usb hub, so all thats needed is the power in.

I've set it up on debian wheezy and squeeze (i like wheezy a lot more) and also had Raspbmc installed.

I like the idea of Raspbmc so i'm trying to configure it properly, can't seem to get the damn wifi dongle working with it for some reason.

Having two SD cards with separate images is a good idea, especially due to the low cost of the SDHC cards.

Some cool ideas on here, i like the idea of making a non-smart tv smart, just a couple of problems with the distros not supporting flash so no youtube videos.

With OpenELEC do you have both the XBMC aspect aswell as being able to boot to the linux GUI?

Thinking that could be a more viable option.

Cheers everyone for their input so far

[alex-hs]

I haven't really done much with OpenELEC. It boots straight into XBMC, and as far as I know there's no linux GUI. It does give you command line access via SSH, however.

[ReeceGrads]

Got it all set up as of last night, not had a lot of free time. WiFi Dongle is finally working and all the RPi needs now is a 2 metre Micro-USB charger so i can hook it up to the wall mounted TV.

Surprisingly its running both the wireless keyboard/mouse and the WiFi with no powered USB hub so its a big win.

Now i need to buy another SD card and have a look at some other distros, see whats hot and whats not