Friday, February 1, 2013

My latest project, the $35 Raspberry Pi, HDMI Capable Computer

I have an admission to make, for the last few years I have secretly becoming a computer geek! I got into building computers and messing around with Linux operating systems a while ago and lately I have been getting back into again. Most recently I came across this great piece of hardware, the Raspberry Pi (RPi), which is actually a computer with HDMI, Ethernet, USB, RCA, and Audio ports and more for only $35.00!! I was blown away at how small and affordable this board was so I had to have one. I just recently got mine in the mail along with a power supply and case for $55.00 shipped. Here are some pictures of it.

My Raspberry Pi from MCM Electronics

Raspberry Pi top view

Raspberry Pi with case

Raspberry Pi bottom view
I also bought heat sinks to go on the processors and a power transistor. I got the heat sinks shipped to me from a US vendor for only $7.99 with free shipping. The heat sinks also came with the thermal adhesive on it for easy mounting. Here are some pictures of the heat sinks installed.

Raspberry Pi with three aluminum heatsinks in case
In order for the RPi to run you need to load an image file to an SD card which acts as its hard drive. There are many to choose from that have many purposes. I wanted to try it out as a small PC so I found a copy of Bodhi Enlightenment that was written specially for the RPi. It is a super bare bones version of Linux that works right out of the starting gate for me. I need more time to set things up and add more cool items to my $35 computer. Well more like $60 computer when you add up all the little things that go into it. Here is a picture:

Bodhi Linux on my Raspberry Pi (RPi)

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