Raspberry Pi

[fpp]

Any of you guys blessed with Pi's have an USB device that plays sound, like external speakers or sound "cards" or DACs, by any chance ?

I'd really like to know if one of the distros can drive them out of the box...

(and no, haven't found the answer at rasperrypi.org :-)

[n2o2diver]

Yee Haw, I got my Pi running tonight.

After I burned the imaged to the SD card I wanted to adjust the partitions. I am having a hard time with Gparted recognizing the SD card in the reader. I want to adjust the partitions per the instructions. I tried running Debian in a VM on my Windows PC and could not get Gparted to find the SD card neither the built in card reader nor the USB adapter. I also installed Gparted on my server and put the SD card in a USB card reader and plugged it into the USB port on the server and again Gparted doesn't find it. Any sugestions?

Edit
I ran Gparted Live from USB and got it to find my SD card. I set Gparted to move the swap and expand the primary partition but when I tell it to apply the changes it gives an error saying it is read only. The little lock is not set to lock on the card. Seems I'm still stuck!

[Andy Horn]

Have you tried this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4VovMDnsIE&feature=plcp I setup my partitions using this method.

@ fpp I have a USB to audio adapter I can test, that this is when I can find the adapter and when I have some time to to try it.

Andy

[fpp]

Thanks in advance Andy !

It seems a couple of guys have succeeded by tweaking ALSA, but it's not clear what distro they were using.

Then there would be the issues of a display of sorts, and a handful of buttons... early days, still :-)

[Andy Horn]

I have had a chance to have a tinker with my Pi, I have installed Raspbmc RC2 http://www.raspbmc.com/, which once finished it loads XBMC, that play's the bulk of my movies off my server.

The menu hang's momentarily when selecting an item, but not really a problem, which may get fixed in future releases as the dev learns more about the Pi and the software, remember the Pi is basically mobile phone hardware.

All in all a nice little media streamer.

@fpp I haven't found my USB audio adapter yet sorry.

Andy

[n2o2diver]

Have you tried this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4VovMDnsIE&feature=plcp I setup my partitions using this method.

@ fpp I have a USB to audio adapter I can test, that this is when I can find the adapter and when I have some time to to try it.

Andy

Thanks for the link Andy. I followed it tonight and it worked well. I'm up and running on a Pi now. Tomorrow I plan to setup another with the raspberry Pi XBMC did you have any problems?

[Andy Horn]

@n2o2diver, only too happy to help.

XBMC on the Pi:

I run RaspbMC on an SD card, I would have provided a link but the website seems to be down, well at least for me. RaspbMC works really well once you have loaded the image on to a SD, boot up your Pi and let RaspbMC do it's thing, make sure you have your Pi connected to the internet so RaspbMC can download XBMC or it won't work. Update it seems the RaspbMC has been the victim of some sort of malicious attack, just as RaspbMC RC3 had been released, I will report back when I've updated to RC3.

@fpp.

I had a quick go with my USB sound adapter similar to this http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/USB-EXTERNAL-3D-7-1-CHANNEL-AUDIO-PC-LAPTOP-SOUND-CARD-ADAPTER-7-1-CHANNEL-/400299801430?pt=UK_Computing_ComputerComponents_SoundCards&hash=item5d33ba3b56#ht_1937wt_907

It didn't seem to work in XBMC, but thinking back I may have chosen a file that hasn't got any sound, although the speakers I plugged into the adapter did make some noise, but not anything you would want to listen to , stand by for an update when time allows. I did find a post over at http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/index.php but alas I can't seem to find it now.

Also I managed to set up my Debian SD card to run this http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=8588

Andy

[fpp]

Thanks much, standing by, no problem :-)

[n2o2diver]

The Raspbmc web site still seems to be having problems. Seems someone is really out to attack the poor young guy running the project. He has been attacked yet again it seems.

I was able to get RaspbMC RC3 installed on one of my PI's last week. It is working great! In fact it seems to run better that I would have thought. I have one PI running the Debian "squeeze" and it seems real slow in comparison. I have no problem controlling the RaspMC with my android phone and playing movies off the server. I need to get some cases for these Pi's next. Anyone try a case yet?

[DunkB]

Hi n2o2diver

I like the look of http://www.geek.com/articles/chips/the-punnet-a-raspberry-pi-case-you-can-download-and-print-2012072/

I guess it won't be massively long lasting but it is a neat idea.