The Flexibility of a Raspberry Pi

What is this thing?

A raspberry pi? That's food right? What's it doing on a tech blog? Well, its actually not food this time around. A raspberry pi is a small computer roughly the size of a credit card. There are various models out currently, with the newest being the raspberry pi 4, which has various RAM configurations. These Pis are pretty powerful for their size and plenty capable since they can run linux. There are pre-packaged kits that one may buy when purchasing a Pi but if one wanted to go barebones on a Pi build, users will need at the minimum a:

1. microSD card - this is where the OS lives.
2. a microSD card reader - on a working computer to setup the SD card
3. A power adapter - Depends on model raspberry pi but either USB-C or micro-usb. A cellphone charger will do in a pinch most of the time
4. A raspberry Pi

What model of Pi do I need?

This depends entirely on the work load a user will demand from the raspberry pi. If the goal is to simply learn and experiment, picking up the previous generation pi, the raspberry pi 3B, might be the best option as they can be had on eBay for very little. On the other hand, if a user will be placing a demanding workload on the computer, the raspberry pi 4 model B may be the winner. It starts at $35 and has RAM variants of 2gb, 4gb, or 8gb.

Basic Setup

Most of the time, I recommend using the Rasbian OS that is made specifically for the Pi. It's a custom flavor of linux for our Pi created by the creators of Raspberry Pi themselves. The easiest way to do so is to use their tool called Raspberry Pi Imager

1. Download and install the imager
2. Select Raspian Os
3. Choose your SD card
4. Write!

There are a couple more things to do before booting up the Pi for the first time.
If you would like to run the machine headless or access it via SSH, we need to configure it first. It's painless though.

1. Navigate to your SC card in either your browser or from the command line.
2. Enter the /boot directory
3. Create a file named 'ssh' - DO NOT PUT A FILE EXTENSION
Configure WIFI:
1. Create or edit the file 'wpa_supplicant.conf' in the /boot directory
2. The network portion of this file at the end should read: ``` network={ ssid="myNetworkName" psk="myNetworkPassword" } ``` Replace the SSID and PSK strings with your network information.

Now the Pi should be configured and ready to go. Decide on a project, and you're off to the races.

What Can I Do With This Thing?

This little computer is so low power and versatile you could have it powered on and running all the time without even knowing it. Yet it is powerful enough to do some incredibly cool tasks. I'd suggest exploring a couple of the following options:

• Install NodeJS and Host Your Own Web Apps
• Install PiHole, a popular network wide ad blocker.
• Host a Media Server like Plex, Emby, or Jellyfin
• Use NextCloud to setup a personal home cloud service
• Install RetroPi instead and use it to emulate your odl game consoles. Who needs an NES Classic?
• Create a secondary Git repository
• Use it as learning opportunity for children, it's cheap enough and not dangerous.