Raspberry Pi - First Impressions
Thu, 24 May 2012
My Raspberry Pi has arrived! The diminutive computer came through the door in an unassuming packet direct from Element 14 (Farnell) 10 weeks or so after I placed my order. This was pretty much when they said it would arrive, so I have no complaints.
To get it working you first need to download an operating system from the Raspberry Pi website. I downloaded Debian 6 because it's nice and familiar - although other operating systems are available. You have to install the operating system on to an SD card using a software utility. I followed some instructions I found here. Next you simply plug the SD card into the Pi, add a USB mouse and keyboard and connect it to your TV via an HDMI cable. Finally, you will need a micro USB power supply. I used the one from my Kindle.
As soon as you plus the power supply in to the device it starts to boot up. You get the classic Linux loading screen with lots of messages as the system boots and reports on progress. A word of warning. I initially used a 16Gb Sandisk Ultra SD card but the boot process hung half way through saying "Waiting for hardware interrupt". I then tried a 4Gb card and everything worked fine, giving me the login prompt at the end.
The username is "pi" and the password is "raspberry". Once logged in you get the system prompt. Typing "pwd" will show where you are in the file system. Linux/Unix users will know what to do from here. I used "apt-get" to download a graphic interface. But I actually don't think I needed to do this. Just type "startx" and a desktop should appear. Next, I opened the "Minori" web browser to see how my website looked (pretty good!). Finally, I followed the instructions here and installed the Chrome browser and had a proper test.
My first impressions are that the Pi is exactly what the creators say it is. It's a fully fledged computer running Linux suitable for programming and experimentation. As you would expect for the money it's a bit sluggish, but not overly so. It comes with plenty of programming tools to help you get the most out of the resources available.
It runs Chrome fairly well so I should be able to use one to run my web-based artworks - such as ArtScanner and the Dropsketch viewer. When browsing the web I found that video playback was slow, but I know that it can run videos off of the SD card without a problem. I may also not be running an optimal system configuration yet.
That's it for now, I'll post again when I've had a more complete look around. I uploaded a few pictures here on Flickr.
