Why yet another Raspberry Pi blog?
There's tons of excellent blogs, YouTube videos, websites and other stuff out there, on absolutely everything you can do with a Raspi. Written by people who are light years ahead of me in programming, networking, Linux wizardry, electronics etcetera. So what am I trying to accomplish here? What value could I possibly add to that tremendous intelligence that is already freely available?
Here's what.
If you're like me, you have become interested in just playing with these wonderful little things and want to know how they work, and what you could do with them. They are a solution looking for a problem. So you are looking around your house, thinking: "What on earth could I possibly automate around here?" So you contemplate building a surveillance camera system. Or a smart energy meter. Or a weather station. Or automating your aquarium. Whatever. In my case, i thought I'd start with adding some cheap temperature and humidity sensors, and if that works, I could relay-switch a wall fan to blow some fresh night air into my tropically hot house (I live in southeast Asia).
If you are like me, then you've got a reasonable knowledge of Windows computing, have done some hobby programming in various but now obsolete languages, know how to set up a basic home Internet router and have some basic knowledge of electronics. But you have never dared to touch Linux before, which happens to be the most common Operating System for the Raspies. And you have no idea of Python, which is the most common language for writing code for the Pi. And you have never set up any programming environment either. 'SSH-ing into the Pi' sounds mysterious to you. And on and on.
If you are like me, then you browsed YouTube up and down and watched those absolutely stunning videos of Raspberry-powered robots balancing themselves on only two wheels. You thought, damn, that's probably way too advanced for my limited time and talents, but I'd like get started doing SOMETHING - but more than just blinking an LED. And then you order a Raspi or two, they arrive and immediately, many many hours of frustrated troubleshooting, canvassing the internet for solutions and endless trial and error cycles start.
Why? Because nothing ever works as advertised. Yes the Raspberries work fine. However, they are very susceptible to everyday glitches. Your program may work fine, but your program and/or the Raspberry will seize up when there is a glitch in the WiFi connection. Or in the power supply. Or in the sensor. Or your IDE suddenly refuses to talk to the Raspi. Or or or. Smart people have found solutions to pretty much every single problem i have encounterd along the way, and I have modified the settings of my Pis following recommendations that worked. Issue is: that meant hundreds of hours searching, trying, failing and repeating over.
This blog is an attempt to offer "all the stuff that works", in one place. I have benefitted tremendously from hundreds of hours of experimenting of other people, who were then kind enough to write it up, too. Especially the genius folks on stackexchange.com. So I guess I'll be trying to help saving some time for you now, wishing to give back to the community. I'll be describing in as much detail as I can how to set up, debug and troubleshoot your Raspberry infrastructure.
Apart from saving your time for better use, I'd also be delighted if I could encourage everyone, especially the very young among us, to try their hand on this most stunning invention called 'Raspberry Pi'. Like it or not, IoT seems to be the Next-Big-Thing, and if you can master them before the other gender starts distracting you, you've got a marketable skill set from the get-go.
So get started, e.g. by looking at the Raspberry network setup in my house. Enjoy! :-)
Here's what.
If you're like me, you have become interested in just playing with these wonderful little things and want to know how they work, and what you could do with them. They are a solution looking for a problem. So you are looking around your house, thinking: "What on earth could I possibly automate around here?" So you contemplate building a surveillance camera system. Or a smart energy meter. Or a weather station. Or automating your aquarium. Whatever. In my case, i thought I'd start with adding some cheap temperature and humidity sensors, and if that works, I could relay-switch a wall fan to blow some fresh night air into my tropically hot house (I live in southeast Asia).
If you are like me, then you've got a reasonable knowledge of Windows computing, have done some hobby programming in various but now obsolete languages, know how to set up a basic home Internet router and have some basic knowledge of electronics. But you have never dared to touch Linux before, which happens to be the most common Operating System for the Raspies. And you have no idea of Python, which is the most common language for writing code for the Pi. And you have never set up any programming environment either. 'SSH-ing into the Pi' sounds mysterious to you. And on and on.
If you are like me, then you browsed YouTube up and down and watched those absolutely stunning videos of Raspberry-powered robots balancing themselves on only two wheels. You thought, damn, that's probably way too advanced for my limited time and talents, but I'd like get started doing SOMETHING - but more than just blinking an LED. And then you order a Raspi or two, they arrive and immediately, many many hours of frustrated troubleshooting, canvassing the internet for solutions and endless trial and error cycles start.
Why? Because nothing ever works as advertised. Yes the Raspberries work fine. However, they are very susceptible to everyday glitches. Your program may work fine, but your program and/or the Raspberry will seize up when there is a glitch in the WiFi connection. Or in the power supply. Or in the sensor. Or your IDE suddenly refuses to talk to the Raspi. Or or or. Smart people have found solutions to pretty much every single problem i have encounterd along the way, and I have modified the settings of my Pis following recommendations that worked. Issue is: that meant hundreds of hours searching, trying, failing and repeating over.
This blog is an attempt to offer "all the stuff that works", in one place. I have benefitted tremendously from hundreds of hours of experimenting of other people, who were then kind enough to write it up, too. Especially the genius folks on stackexchange.com. So I guess I'll be trying to help saving some time for you now, wishing to give back to the community. I'll be describing in as much detail as I can how to set up, debug and troubleshoot your Raspberry infrastructure.
Apart from saving your time for better use, I'd also be delighted if I could encourage everyone, especially the very young among us, to try their hand on this most stunning invention called 'Raspberry Pi'. Like it or not, IoT seems to be the Next-Big-Thing, and if you can master them before the other gender starts distracting you, you've got a marketable skill set from the get-go.
So get started, e.g. by looking at the Raspberry network setup in my house. Enjoy! :-)
Comments
Post a Comment