Category: Raspberry Pi

Link: Alternative way to flash your Raspberry Pi OS

Did you ever want to flash your root partition straight to USB stick/HDD/SDD instead of first dd-ing it onto SD Card and then coping it again onto another media?

I got bored of the double work that is provided by RPi geeks. Yeah, it’s fine if you’re a total beginner (though one might get lost pretty easily) and want to use only the SD Card. But what if you know how to deal with Raspberry Pi already and perform the card setup mechanically, coping the root partition to a USB stick before you run the system? There is an easy way to do it, less time consuming and faster. It involves using loop-mounting partitions from a disk image.

Full article here:
Alternative way to flash your Raspberry Pi OS (The Unwritten Words)

Link: Raspberry Pi Watchdog Timer

Soon I’m going for holidays and leave my Pi on its own. Thus, I made some precautions in case it froze (though after almost a month with it, I never had such a problem, but never say never). I’ve found a great tool, that would reboot my machine after it suddenly froze for any reason. This would soothe my nerves in case I wasn’t able to access my device and was wondering what might have happened (I’m not afraid the power might fail; not unless there was a nuclear war or a nasty sun burst that would destroy all electrical equipment – than we would be doomed and there would be no reason to worry about a small Pi).

…..

A watchdog timer is commonly found on embedded systems and is used to detect when the system is hung up on a task. Watchdog timer is basically a countdown timer counting  from some initial value down to zero. When zero is reached, the watchdog understands that the system has hung up and resets it automatically.

Thankfully, the Raspberry Pi’s BCM2835 SoC has a hardware-based watchdog timer on board. It is specially useful if you have a Raspberry Pi in a remote location (or a headless Pi) and the operating system hangs and there’s no one around to reboot it. How to enable the watchdog timer?

Full article here:
Raspberry Pi Watchdog Timer (The Unwritten Words)

Links: A Raspberry Pi controlled mini CNC Laser engraver

[notice]NEVER look into a laser that is capable of engraving materials – you could be instantly blinded!  If you actually have to be told that, then you probably shouldn’t be allowed to use anything remotely dangerous.  DO NOT attempt to build anything like this unless you are willing to take full personal responsibility for any damages.  We WILL NOT be liable if you stupidly choose to build something like this and manage to damage your eyesight, or any other part of your body! And if you do choose to attempt to build something such as this, we strongly recommend mounting it inside an opaque protective enclosure, so that children or animals cannot come into the direct or reflected path of the laser beam.[/notice]

This looks like a fun but potentially VERY dangerous project – we wish the sites linked below had included some common-sense safety warnings for potential builders.  Please be conscious of friends and family members (especially the young ones) that might not fully appreciate the danger.  If there are drunk people around, hide this thing, preferably under lock and key!

I recently made a mini CNC laser engraver using two DVD drives salvaged from old computers and <$10 extra parts bought on eBay. The controller of the CNC machine is a Raspberry Pi, a $35 credit card size computer. The engraver turns out to be pretty successful. So I am sharing it with everyone.

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Full article here:
A Raspberry Pi controlled mini CNC Laser engraver (fun of DIY)

Additional coverage:
Raspi Mini Laser Engraver (Hack A Day)
Raspberry Pi Laser Engraver Created Using Two Old DVD Drives (video) (Geeky Gadgets)
Home-made CNC laser engraver (Raspberry Pi – this article actually does include a warning!)

Unbricking a Router With a Raspberry Pi using JTAG (links)

This is a tale of how someone remembered that he had a non-functional router, in this case an older Linksys WRT54G, and…

… decided he would have a go at repairing this ancient router. There was only one problem: the most popular utility for programming the router through the JTAG header required a PC parallel port.

Unfortunately, parallel ports are becoming as hard to find as floppy disk drives these days, but did that deter him? No way, he simply added Raspberry Pi support to the debricking utility, and used the Raspberry Pi’s GPIO pins to do the job.  Unfortunately, in the end he was unsuccessful, but only because he physically damaged the circuity on the router while attempting to upgrade the RAM – had he not attempted the hardware modification, this likely would have worked.  So, although we make no guarantees, if you have a bricked router, read the articles linked below and maybe you can bring it back to life.

Unbricking a Router With a Raspi (Hack A Day)
Debrick WRT54GL using Raspberry Pi (JTAG bit banging) (Oxblog)

Link: FM Stream: broadcasting local radio to the internet

The Raspberry Pi is being used increasingly in professional products and industrial applications, and this one from Artica and partners is one of most impressive yet. I can’t better their own description of FM Stream as “a beautiful, low cost, carrier grade rack of FM tuners, IP/Internet encoders and broadcasters, using nothing but RaspberryPis, Arduinos, clever electronics, neat mechanics, a shiny aluminium case and lots of passion.”

FM Stream — shiny AND useful

Full article here:
FM Stream: broadcasting local radio to the internet (Raspberry Pi)

Link: DSVR (Domain-Specific VPN Router)

[notice]This software may not be legal to use in some countries or localities, or for certain uses.  We are not lawyers, so we cannot advise you on this.[/notice]

From the README.md file:

PURPOSE

If you’re using a VPN service today, you may have found the following limitations:

1) All or nothing. Either ALL traffic goes down the VPN or none – unable to be selective.
2) Only one VPN at a time. Cannot selectively route certain sites down one VPN, and others down another VPN.
3) Unless you’ve configured your VPN at the router level, it’s likely that only a single device can use your VPN at one time.

This project serves to address each of the above – see the FEATURES section.

Please review my blog post here http://darranboyd.wordpress.com/2013/07/05/selective-vpn-routing-solution-dsvr/

Note that this software runs on a Raspberry Pi. Full text and download links:
DSVR (Domain-Specific VPN Router) (GitHub)

If for some reason you don’t want to run this on a Raspberry Pi, but would instead prefer to do something similar using a DD-WRT based router, the same author covered that topic a couple of years ago:
StrongVPN PPTP on DD-WRT – Source based routing (improved) (Darran Boyd)

Link: 4 AirPlay Receivers That Are Cheaper Than Apple TV

Apple users looking at an integrated media solution simply can’t look past AirPlay. By incorporating AirPlay, you build a bridge between your media rig and any of your Apple devices. Show off holiday pictures from your iPhone on your TV, play Spotify audio from your computer on your surround system, or perhaps even mirror your desktop on the television screen. All of it wireless. With AirPlay, your media rig is extended with all of the juicy features and applications of iOS and Mac OS X

To enjoy the benefits of AirPlay, you’ll need an AirPlay receiver, and the Apple TV is by and far the most popular one. Built as a veritable entertainment box, the Apple TV isn’t cheap (it’s a bit under the 100 mark). It’s tempting to look for alternatives; AirPlay receivers that are cheaper than the Apple TV. We’ve laid out four options.

Full article here:
4 AirPlay Receivers That Are Cheaper Than Apple TV (MakeUseOf)

Link: How To Take Screenshots On The Raspberry Pi

While putting together some future articles I wanted to take some screen shots within LXDE, the Pi’s default graphical interface.

I considered taking them on my PC using a remote desktop connection to the Pi but I thought it might be easier to just take them directly on the Pi as I used it.

Full article here:
How To Take Screenshots On The Raspberry Pi (Raspberry Pi Spy)

Link: Back up your Raspberry Pi to your Google drive

Being able to back up data to the cloud is very useful. It means that even if your Raspberry Pi dies or your SD card gets corrupted, your data is still safe. It also means that you can access your data from any where in the world.

If you have a Google drive account, you can use the grive program to sync a folder on your Pi with your Google drive.

Full article here:
Back up your Pi to your Google drive (Raspberry Web Server)