Rasberry pi 2

Bsrz

Bsrz

Rising Star
Hey guys, need a very cheep home theater PC and thought about possibly using a raspberry pi 2.

Has anyone here used a raspberry pi? if so could you tell me what you think of it?

i was thinking of installing windows 7 / mac os x onto it if possible since the device its self is only £30 seems like a extremely cheep htpc.
If not any thoughts on using something like an apple TV as a home theater device?

I need the device to stream content from a NAS drive.

Thanks all.
 
SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
Bsrz said:
Hey guys, need a very cheep home theater PC and thought about possibly using a raspberry pi 2.

Has anyone here used a raspberry pi? if so could you tell me what you think of it?

i was thinking of installing windows 7 / mac os x onto it if possible since the device its self is only £30 seems like a extremely cheep htpc.
If not any thoughts on using something like an apple TV as a home theater device?

I need the device to stream content from a NAS drive.

Thanks all.
Click to expand...

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but currently, I think you're unable to run mac osx or windows on a pi2, YET at least.

Microsoft have said they'll make a free copy of windows 10 available for it, but that won't be until the end of the year at least and it'll be a vastly stripped down version.

Currently, the OS compatibility is mostly linux based:

Arch Linux ARM
Angstrom Linux
Debian ARM
Pidora, a Fedora Remix
Gentoo
IPFire
Meego MER + XBMC
OpenELEC + XBMC
PiBang
Nard SDK (Embedded systems)
QtonPi
Risc OS
Raspbian
Raspbmc
Slackware ARM
SliTaz
 
Bsrz

Bsrz

Rising Star
SpyderTracks said:
Forgive me if I'm wrong, but currently, I think you're unable to run mac osx or windows on a pi2, YET at least.

Microsoft have said they'll make a free copy of windows 10 available for it, but that won't be until the end of the year at least and it'll be a vastly stripped down version.

Currently, the OS compatibility is mostly linux based:

Arch Linux ARM
Angstrom Linux
Debian ARM
Pidora, a Fedora Remix
Gentoo
IPFire
Meego MER + XBMC
OpenELEC + XBMC
PiBang
Nard SDK (Embedded systems)
QtonPi
Risc OS
Raspbian
Raspbmc
Slackware ARM
SliTaz
Click to expand...

ah thats a shame :(

might have to look into the apple tv / amazon fire device instead.
or find a very cheep pc.
 
W

Wozza63

Biblical Poster
Like mentioned above, Windows and Mac are not available on the Pi. Mac will never be available and a version of Windows 10 has been planned for the Raspberry Pi 2, however it won't be a full version and will be similar to Windows RT used on some tablets. The main reason for the incompatibility is the architecture of the CPU. Windows and Mac is run on x86 while the Raspberry Pi uses the ARM architecture, used in most phones and tablets. ARM processors are generally very low powered and have a much smaller instruction set that would perform poorly on a much more complex OS like Windows or Mac.
 
mishra

mishra

Rising Star
Yes you can buy Raspberry Pi, install XBMC (or Plex) on it, mount you network share full of movies/music/photos and then hook it up to your TV using HDMI. No need for Windows at all...

Then you can control it using your smartphone app in order to play content on your TV. I was using it like that... but since I've set-up a dedicated device (HP N54L) to be NAS and home theatre in one I am not using it anymore (it's now Internet radio - again controlled from smartphone).

Setup can be a bit fiddly, especially if you are not familiar with Linux... but there are like hundreds of guides on-line so with a bit of research anyone can do it really.
 
M

mdwh

Enthusiast
There are various devices that will play local content via DLNA (which imo has the advantage of being cross-platform/manufacturer, and is what things like Plex and XBMC support AFAIK; Windows also natively supports sharing media via DLNA). Roku devices being one example. I use DLNA for watching local content, though via an LG smart TV. Things like Chromecast, Fire TV, Apple TV afaik all use their own proprietary methods, and may or may not be a solution depending on what you want to do. Chromecast and the Fire TV stick have the advantage of being very cheap.

Other options for cheap Windows computers would be cheap 8" tablets - these tend to be cheaper because the licence is free. Linux is another option, as people have said.
 
GeorgeHillier

GeorgeHillier

Prolific Poster
You can't run Windows or Mac OS on them, but you can still use them as a media center, software like XBMC and plex run on them (you'll have to double check about plex).

They will be making windows 10 work on the raspberry pi later on.

I think the amazon fire and apple tv don't have a huge amount of storage, they're more streaming devices for renting films off their stores, so if you were going to use it like that then i'd suggest you get a chrome cast and use your phone, it works really well and is pretty cheap
 
SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
GeorgeHillier said:
You can't run Windows or Mac OS on them, but you can still use them as a media center, software like XBMC and plex run on them (you'll have to double check about plex).

They will be making windows 10 work on the raspberry pi later on.

I think the amazon fire and apple tv don't have a huge amount of storage, they're more streaming devices for renting films off their stores, so if you were going to use it like that then i'd suggest you get a chrome cast and use your phone, it works really well and is pretty cheap
Click to expand...

+1 for the chrome cast, they're very good and cheap.
 
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