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On 2016-10-12 13:16, Alan McKinnon wrote: |
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> On 12/10/2016 13:56, Daniel Campbell wrote: |
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>> My birthday's coming up in 10 days and my SO and others are wanting to |
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>> know what to get me for my birthday. I'm slowly growing tired of |
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>> trying |
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>> to keep my desktop Gentoo machine lightweight and "clean", so it'd be |
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>> fun to hack on a little computer that I could possibly DIY a case or |
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>> other arrangement for. Maybe a file/web server, or a "freetoo" machine |
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>> where I can experiment with being rigidly FSF-APPROVED or other fun |
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>> shenanigans. |
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>> |
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>> I've looked around at the Raspberry Pi 3, the Pocket CHIP (I also have |
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>> PICO-8 and am hacking something for it), the Pi Zero, and have heard |
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>> about the Beaglebone and Arduino, though isn't the latter meant for |
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>> more |
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>> interactive or robotic thing due to the large array of IO pins? |
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>> |
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>> If I had the right tools or gadgets, creating my own UMPC would be |
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>> really fun. |
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>> |
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>> At a minimum, I would prefer HDMI instead of composite or VGA, though |
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>> it |
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>> could be headless and I just use SSH or an Adafruit LCD. |
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>> |
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>> Any opinions or use cases and stories would be much appreciated. I |
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>> would |
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>> prefer running Gentoo on it, but Debian, Mint, or Slackware would be |
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>> tolerable. |
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>> |
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> |
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> |
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> Those devices are dirt cheap, ask for one of each :-) |
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Seconded :) |
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here are my 2c on my two experiences |
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Raspberry Pi |
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great to play with Gentoo ARM, runs well until you do anything related |
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to IO. Really well in fact, so that when you do do anything to save a |
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file or emerge (yes you can but i really wouldn't recommend it) it takes |
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you by surprise how bad it is. Also be aware of USB power draw and |
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reboots if you can't supply power well enough for all devices! is more |
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of a "computer" in the traditional sense. |
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|
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Arduino |
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I really like the Arduino from a programmatic automation point of view |
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as the inputs and single threaded C program make sense to me, and in |
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my own simple way of viewing things, things like nest.com are more easy |
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to do via Arduino than Pi. is more of a microcontroller than a computer |
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Final thoughts |
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get them all, they are so cheap. the addons are what make them though |
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-- wifi shields or movement sensors etc, otherwise they are just a piece |
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of compute. you may find a Pi controller controlling arduino leads |
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you to a new form of robotics and the limits are your imagination |
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but if you are looking for a linux box to play with i would suggest |
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Intel Atom based Jetway mini-atx with the daughterboards that let you |
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have multi-nic or multi-sata |
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they are fast enough to keep up to date without needed distcc and |
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feature rich enough that you can build your own SAN or build your own |
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router etc |
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