Ordered my first Raspberry Pi with Debian Raspbian! :D

[bedtime]

So excited! I've wanted one for so long!

I ordered a new:

- Raspberry Pi 3B+
- 16GB Sandisk preloaded with Raspbian OS (Debian, of course!)
- HighPi Raspberry Pi Case (V1000)

The case is a cheap, $7 plastic printout. It is extra high to support the addition of a DAC addon, which I'll likely be installing in the future. It would be hooked up to my 1957 EA-2 Heathkit tube amp and a '48 Stromberg Carlson speaker in an open-ended cabinet. * drools *

All came to $90 Canadian ($68 US). A little more than I wanted to pay, but cheapest I've seen for far for what I got and the fact that it is new. These Pi's seem to really hold their value! I've been searching Kijiji (Canada's Craigslist, basically) and ebay for months, and used Pi's seem to go for only 20% or so less than new; a good investment, to be sure!

Just wanted to brag. Would like to hear about your Pi projects, too.

[arochester]

Raspbian is Raspbian. Debian is Debian.

Raspbian Forum >>> https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewforum.php?f=66

[Head_on_a_Stick]

The Pi 3 will run pure Debian, no need to settle for Raspbian.

https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi3

The Pi is a poor choice for Debian fans though because it needs a blob to boot, Arduino is probably a better bet.

I have a Pi Zero W (it was a gift) but I'm running OpenELEC on it.

[Hallvor]

Great purchase. I own two. A Pi 1 from 2012 that was used as a media center, but it is now a headless torrent seedbox. I also have a Pi 2 running as a media center (OSMC). The quality/price ratio is hard to beat.

[bedtime]

Raspbian is Raspbian. Debian is Debian.

Raspbian Forum >>> https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewforum.php?f=66

There is a lot that I need to learn. Will have to read into it, but it sounds exciting. Thanks for the link!

The Pi 3 will run pure Debian, no need to settle for Raspbian.

https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi3

Awww, well, can't win them all. I watched a video on Pidora (Fedora's Raspberry Pi OS implementation), and hearing of all the things needing to be done to get the Pi to work, I'm not surprised that there might need to be a hack here and there.

I'll look into this, though I think I'll start with Raspbian at first to get a feel for using an arm device. Once I am comfortable, I will surely give it a try (i.e., Pidora, Arch, and other implementations).

The Pi is a poor choice for Debian fans though because it needs a blob to boot, Arduino is probably a better bet...

I have a Pi Zero W (it was a gift) but I'm running OpenELEC on it.

I read that Arduino is more for electronics projects such as running remote controlled cars and such. The Pi Zero might be nice for something that doesn't need much muscle to run. I'm almost kicking myself for not throwing in an extra $8 and buying a Pi Zero (No wifi or soldered connections) to mess around with. But, I can't think of a use at this very moment that I would need a separate device with no wifi for, but I'm sure I'll think of something sooner or later.

Great purchase. I own two. A Pi 1 from 2012 that was used as a media center, but it is now a headless torrent seedbox. I also have a Pi 2 running as a media center (OSMC). The quality/price ratio is hard to beat. 

Yep, you could sell that Pi 1 for almost the same price. It's quote amazing how well it holds its value. Great use for it, btw. What's also a nice is that the Pi seems extremely dependable; I've yet to hear of any breakdowns of it in reviews.

...

Gonna do some reading up on the history of it now.

Oh, and one question that has been lingering on my mind: how long does it take to boot? I remember seeing a video of someone saying that it took 2 minutes to boot up. But I also saw just yesterday two different Pi OS's booting in less than 10 seconds.

Also, I'm wondering what type of performance I could expect from a 1080 YouTube video? Maybe more of a question for the Rasberry Pi forum. But just looking more for experiences than technical answers.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

Just FYI: What's wrong with the Raspberry Pi

And yes, Arduino probably isn't the best alternative, the Debian wiki has some better suggestions for those concerned by the binary blobs & inbuilt DRM infesting the Pi:

https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi

[Hallvor]

Yep, you could sell that Pi 1 for almost the same price. It's quote amazing how well it holds its value. Great use for it, btw. What's also a nice is that the Pi seems extremely dependable; I've yet to hear of any breakdowns of it in reviews.

Gonna do some reading up on the history of it now.

Oh, and one question that has been lingering on my mind: how long does it take to boot? I remember seeing a video of someone saying that it took 2 minutes to boot up. But I also saw just yesterday two different Pi OS's booting in less than 10 seconds.

Also, I'm wondering what type of performance I could expect from a 1080 YouTube video? Maybe more of a question for the Rasberry Pi forum. But just looking more for experiences than technical answers.

The Pi1 has been running almost day and night since I got it, so I am very happy with it as well.

My Pi 2 with OSMC, maybe 15 seconds to boot. The Pi3 should be a lot faster.

I haven't found any H264 1080p video I couldn't play flawlessly with the Pi 2, but it can't really play H265 content.

[bedtime]

Just FYI: What's wrong with the Raspberry Pi

And yes, Arduino probably isn't the best alternative, the Debian wiki has some better suggestions for those concerned by the binary blobs & inbuilt DRM infesting the Pi:

https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi

As alternatives, I just had a look at Odroid and ASUS's Tinkerboard. It appears that they perform quite well. The negative is that they don't seem to have nearly the support that the Pi does (well, close to no support, that is). And several people reported that watching a YouTube video on the stock system of one of those units caused the unit to turn itself off. There are other issues with DOA units.

Nope, not gonna take that chance; it's best to learn from the mistakes of others. Have to say, I'm more confident in my choice now.

The Pi1 has been running almost day and night since I got it, so I am very happy with it as well.

This is music to my ears. I would like to keep mine running day and night as well. I want it to be always ready to use.

My Pi 2 with OSMC, maybe 15 seconds to boot. The Pi3 should be a lot faster.

Sounds impressive, though I'm not familiar with the OSMC system. Though, I don't think I would be running much more than vncviewer, ssh, and a lightweight wm such as i3/openbox.

I haven't found any H264 1080p video I couldn't play flawlessly with the Pi 2, but it can't really play H265 content.

So long as it can handle displaying 1080p @ 30fps in vncviewer and an SSH connection forwarding pulseaudio to it, I'd be more than happy.

[pylkko]

1. You probably want to use Raspbian as there are so many optimizations that have been done for it. For example it can run VLC hardware accelearated and same goes for youtube videos in Chromium.
2. Raspbian is so different from Debian and there are 100x more users, that you will get better support and ideas at their forums
3. Arduino cannot run Linux, but can run C code and is better suited for situations where you need immediate (low latency) responses (because linux will always manage tasks and things will not happen in real time in a linear way.
4. There are other similarly priced ARM boards that can do H265 4k (With Mali GPU), which might be better for a multimedia station. But you will never find another project where there are so many paid people working on the development of the hardware and software and making sure that even older versions of the board are still supported many years later.
5. Pi has a very affordable price. Even if you can get a AVR microcontroller for a couple of bucks or a microcontroller with WIFI and bluetooth (ESP-32 or similar) for 2-3 USD, it is very hard to compete with the 5 USD price point of a RPI zero. So even for some of those electronics projects where a linux capable computer might be overkill, it still might make sense because of the price to use an RPi. This changes immediately when want to start running projects on battery though. While RPi consumes many times less energy than most laptops, many microcontrollers go even below that.
6. I have run an audio server on rpi that has been online 24/7 for 5 years now.

[tynman]

Would like to hear about your Pi projects, too.

I bought a Raspberry Pi3 a few years ago (early 2016) to host a personal music server in my home. I added the HiFiBerry Digi board, which sends a digital audio signal to an external DAC-DSP/crossover box (MiniDSP).

I installed Raspbian, MPD, NCMPP, and Ngnix, and that's pretty much all that's running on it. (The Ngnix is used to serve album art to MPD clients. Web servers are way outside my comfort zone, but I dutifully followed some instructions I found somewhere, and got it working.) FWIW, the sever runs headless.

It works great as a music server, and has run flawlessly for the almost three years I've had it. There are no lack of comments on the web about other small/cheap boards being "better" than the Raspberry Pi boards, but for me, the big plus for Raspberry boards is the level of support available. IMHO, the support is pretty impressive.

At the time I started with it, I had a year or so of experience with Debian under my belt, and I found working with Raspbian involved zero learning curve.

[bedtime]

4. There are other similarly priced ARM boards that can do H265 4k (With Mali GPU), which might be better for a multimedia station. But you will never find another project where there are so many paid people working on the development of the hardware and software and making sure that even older versions of the board are still supported many years later.
6. I have run an audio server on rpi that has been online 24/7 for 5 years now.

I'm not into the 4k; I think it's overkill and too much of a drag on cpu and memory. I've seen 4k TVs, and I'm not impressed. An audio server sounds nice, though.

Web servers are way outside my comfort zone, but I dutifully followed some instructions I found somewhere, and got it working.) FWIW, the sever runs headless...
At the time I started with it, I had a year or so of experience with Debian under my belt, and I found working with Raspbian involved zero learning curve.

I hadn't had much knowledge with servers at all either. I only just learned about how to forward X11 and pulseaudio with VNC and SSH the past few weeks. So if Raspbian is not too much different than Debian, then hopefully it will be smooth sailing.

I bought a Raspberry Pi3 a few years ago (early 2016) to host a personal music server in my home. I added the HiFiBerry Digi board, which sends a digital audio signal to an external DAC-DSP/crossover box (MiniDSP).

This sounds nice. I'm still not sure what DAC addon I would like but was looking at IQaudIO's Pi-DAC PRO (http://iqaudio.co.uk/hats/47-pi-dac-pro.html) which runs for about $55 USD + shipping and seems to have decent specs.

[pylkko]

there are alot of ready made images for music servers like volumio and pimusicbox which use the mpd daemon or mopidy as a backend on a minimal raspbian with things setup like DLNA, scrobbling, samba, NFS, all that network sharing stugg plus access to most streaming services. But you really need to use a i2s dac with a raspberryh pi. But when you di, the sound is better than most highly expensive systems, like hifi..ish at least. if you are super elitist about it you can even get addon crystal boards that lessen the jitter. however, the onboard sound on the higher end models is not decent for music (but you can use a hdmi connected amp)

[bedtime]

there are alot of ready made images for music servers like volumio and pimusicbox which use the mpd daemon or mopidy as a backend on a minimal raspbian with things setup like DLNA, scrobbling, samba, NFS, all that network sharing stugg plus access to most streaming services. But you really need to use a i2s dac with a raspberryh pi. But when you so the sound is better than most highly expensive systems, like hihi..ish at least. if you are super elitist about it you can even get addon crystal boards that lessen the jitter. however, the onboard sound on the higher end models is not decent for music (unless you use a hdmi connected amp)

Lots of options out there! The DAC will come much later in the year if I even decide to go through with it.

As for the Pi I ordered, the courier came by and left before you could say Jack Robinson; so, now I have to wait until Canada Post has it to pick it up.

[Job]

This is a good thread for an ignorant like me as I am debating using a Pie 3 or a Odroid HC2 as a media server. Anybody here can give me a strip down contrast of these two? I can read other posts online but I would like the opinion of someone here who knows a little about both products.

I have an old machine with an Intel D2 that use as a media server but I want to change to a smaller unit with less power consumption.

Thanks