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BerryBoot Multi-Boot Launcher #piday #raspberrypi @Raspberry_Pi

Matt — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 10:00:00 +0000

For people short on SD cards: Berryboot is a simple boot selection screen, allowing you to put multiple Linux distribution on a single SD card.

In addition it allows you to put the operating system files on an external USB hard drive instead of on the SD card itself. From BerryBoot:

For people short on SD cards: Berryboot is a simple boot selection screen, allowing you to put multiple Linux distribution on a single SD card.

In addition it allows you to put the operating system files on an external USB hard drive instead of on the SD card itself.

Download link Berryboot for the Raspberry Pi: berryboot-20130225.zip

To install: extract the contents of the .zip file to a normal (FAT formatted) SD card, and put it in your Raspberry Pi.
This can be simply done under Windows without any special image writer software.

Once you start your Pi it will start an installer that reformats the SD card and downloads the operating systems files from the Internet.

Beer Maker Builds a Raspberry Pi Tap List for His Home Brews #piday #raspberrypi @Raspberry_Pi

Matt — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 09:00:00 +0000

A great story about a hobbyist, a Raspberry Pi, some Linux tutorials, and some … beeeer! From WIRED Design:

The Raspberry Pi has a reputation for being beginner-friendly, but even slightly buzzed hackers have been able use the mini microprocessor to improve their microbrews. Now one tinkerer is using his board, plus a 7-inch Sony touchscreen and a little PHP coding as the perfect high-tech setup for for his home-brew tap list.

Created by a hobbyist beer maker who goes by the name “SchrodingersDrunk,” the setup can give a garage operation the high-end brewpub makeover for about $35. And while the project’s creator wants to keep his identity secret, he has shared the code on GitHub….

While there aren’t many write ups on creating a beer board, the Raspberry Pi that Schrodinger chose as the brain of the project runs Linux, which offered him loads of PHP and Python tutorials as well as a dedicated community that loves debugging offbeat projects. Beyond that, he relied on tenacity and online research. “As a non-coder, non-graphic designer getting a website built that is visually appealing and easy to edit from anywhere was quite the task,” he writes. “Really, my strength lies in having strong ‘Google-fu’ and being able to adapt working snippets of code to my particular needs.”

openFrameworks for Raspberry Pi! #piday #raspberrypi @Raspberry_Pi

Matt — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 12:00:00 +0000

We have started to hear lots of exciting news from those pitching in to help the development of openFrameworks for Raspberry Pi — now’s a great time to dive in and join this project!

You are now entering the world of embedded linux development. You’ll be using mostly bash scripts, gcc, and your preferred commandline Text Editor. It this world screen is your friend, from bash type man screen to learn more. If you are completely new to the idea of doing linux development from a command line and have no idea what a commandline Text Editor is, you’re in luck we’ll show you how to get started and point you in the right direction to learn more. Note: If you are a seasoned vet and use vim+regX to refactor your code move along to Installing dependencies and Compiling the openFrameworks Core.

Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit, be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Have you tried the new “Adafruit Raspberry Pi Educational Linux Distro” ? It’s our tweaked distribution for teaching electronics using the Raspberry Pi. But wait, there’s more! Try our new Raspberry Pi WebIDE! The easiest way to learn programming on a Raspberry Pi.

We now have Raspberry Pi Model B with 512MB RAM in stock and shipping now!

Tips for New Raspberry Pi Owners #piday #raspberrypi @Raspberry_Pi

Matt — Fri, 28 Dec 2012 12:00:00 +0000

Here is a selection of some great Pi tips from Matt Richardson, co-writer along with Shawn Wallace of the upcoming Getting Started with Raspberry Pi book (that we’ve been loving at Adafruit), from MAKE. (Read all ten tips here.)

Some of these might be old hat to experienced Linux users, but who knows, you might also learn something new.

Command line completion

You don’t have to laboriously type out long paths, filenames, and commands. Just type the first few letters and hit tab. If bash (the command interpreter, or shell) can determine what file you’re referring to, it will fill in the rest for you. If not, hit tab again it will give you a list of possibilities if there are more than one.

sudo !!

It can be frustrating to type out an entire command only to be told you need to be the superuser to execute it. Type “sudo !!” (pronounced “sudo bang bang”) to execute the previous command as root.

Taking screenshots

Install scrot (by executing “sudo apt-get install scrot”) so that you can take screenshots within the graphical desktop environment. After it’s installed, execute the command scrot in a terminal window to save a PNG of the desktop to the working directory. Scrot is also highly configurable; execute “scrot -h” to see all the options available to you.

Log in remotely

If you want to access your Raspberry Pi’s command line from another computer, type sudo raspi-config at the prompt and choose the option to enable SSH. Then type ifconfig to get your Raspberry Pi’s IP. On a OS X or Linux computer, type ssh pi@[ip address] to connect to your Pi. On Windows, use PuTTY.

Use your computer’s internet connection

If you don’t have a convenient ethernet connection nearby or a USB Wifi adapter handy, you can also use your computer’s Wifi internet connection and share it via Ethernet to the Raspberry Pi. Here are guides to do on various operating systems: Mac OS, Windows, or Linux (Ubuntu).

raspberrypi.local

If you have trouble remembering the IP address of your Raspberry Pi when you want to access it over the network, install avahi with the command “sudo apt-get install avahi-daemon” and you’ll be able to use raspberrypi.local instead of the IP address. If you’re accessing the Raspberry Pi from a Windows machine, you may need to install Bonjour Services on it for this to work.

Setting Up Pi Store On Your Distro #piday #raspberrypi @Raspberry_Pi

Matt — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 11:00:00 +0000

Here’s a quick video walking you through how to setup the Pi Store to access free and pay Raspberry Pi Software for those who are using distros that don’t yet have the Pi Store installed. From Raspberry Pi IV Beginners. Read more.

Want a FREE RASPBERRY PI? All orders over $350 get a FREE Raspberry Pi Model B with 512MB RAM!

Basic Linux Networking Tips: “ifconfig” #piday #raspberrypi @Raspberry_Pi

Matt — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 23:00:00 +0000

One resource that I return to time and again when I’m looking into Linux networking tasks is the Linux Home Networking site — one of the best written online guides for stepping you through the underlying structure to how networking functions from concept to execution.

Here is a basic Linux command line tool I felt worth mentioning here for those looking for networking tips for their Pi.

ifconfig

The first place to start is fire up a terminal. In Occidentalis, you will need to grab the Root Terminal under “Accessories” as the LXTerminal on the desktop doesn’t have this tool. Or you may be able to access the terminal for your Raspberry Pi via the WebIDE.

Type “ifconfig -a“, the command to give you information about your network devices, with the “-a” flag which according to the “man ifconfig” pages will “display all interfaces which are currently available even if down.”

In this case, $ ifconfig -a tells us a number of things about my Raspberry Pi. Typically, the eth0 interface is the one you will be using on your Pi, unless you add a wifi connection or similar.

In this case, it is not online: if it was, there would be the line:

inet addr:xx.xx.xx.xx Bcast:xx.xx.xx.xx  Mask:xx.xx.xx.xx

The xx.xx.xx.xx would be a series of four numbers from 0-255, such as the IP address 192.168.1.101. This assessment is correct, because the unit isn’t even patched in, it is sitting on a tray table on an airplane over the Atlantic Ocean.

Using this tool you can make changes to the interface by typing commands such as:

$ ifconfig eth0 192.168.1.104 up

This command will assign the above static IP address for the session to interface eth0 and then activate the interface. (And down would deactivate the interface.)

Type “man ifconfig” to learn more!

Want a FREE RASPBERRY PI? All orders over $350 get a FREE Raspberry Pi Model B with 512MB RAM!

How Mac Users can set-up a Raspberry Pi, the Adafruit way #piday #raspberrypi @Raspberry_Pi

Matt — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 08:00:00 +0000

Check out this great all-in-one tutorial for how to get Occidentalis up and working on your Raspberry Pi from Chuck Heckman:

Raspberry Pi is an awesome little single board computer for around $35. Adafruit is a one-stop-shop diy electronics supplier. Adafruit rolled it’s own Linux distro to run the Raspberry Pi, called Occidentalis, and has recently alpha released the Raspberry Pi WebIDE that allows you to program your Pi with Chrome or Firefox on your Mac or PC.

The documentation to get things rolling is a bit spread out, so here are steps that Mac users need to use to run Occidentalis with the WebIDE on your Raspberry Pi.

Getting VNC going on your Raspberry Pi #piday #raspberrypi @Raspberry_Pi

Matt — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 16:30:00 +0000

I picked up on a few of Shawn Wallace’s Raspberry Pi 101 tips at World Maker Faire this year and decided a few minutes ago to act on his advice to setup a VNC server so that I can view my Pi’s screen on my laptop without re-patching anything.

I found this site quickly (check out this guide for using Bonjour to auto-locate the VNC server and other cool tips) and was up on my Pi (sporting it’s lovely Occidentalis v0.2 Adafruit Raspberry Pi Educational Linux Distro) in less than three minutes of tweaking. And then I hit the Python Games link!

I went with TightVNC for my server and Chicken-of-the-VNC (Mac only) for my client. I physically have my laptop and Raspberry Pi connected over ethernet to the same little switch, so if you are configuring a wi-fi option, you might have a few more steps.

Oh, and here’s a hint: I opened up the terminal in the Adafruit Raspberry Pi WebIDE and was able to install TightVNC from there using the tutorial. I did learn however that I can’t run TightVNC from that web terminal without establishing the USER environment variable (at first I thought this was an error) — so I used my username and password and SSH’d in via Terminal to startup the VNC server and pick the screen geometry and bitdepth I wanted (I switched between 1024×728 and 1920×1080 and both worked great).

From Getting Started With Raspberry Pi:

So you’ve got your Raspberry Pi setup, but what if you don’t have a dedicated monitor to use with it (for example, mine’s connected to my TV). How can you use it without disrupting your setup? VNC (Virtual Network Computing) allows you to see your Pi’s desktop and control it remotely using another computer running Mac OS X, Windows or Linux (and other devices too).
The VNC server software runs on your RPi, access it by running VNC client software on your other device.