Over 3 years the Raspberry Pi has gotten more and more popular. In my home country even the Prime Minister attended the project launch.

In light of that event I thought I’d write about the Pi a bit AND of course because my new Raspberry Pi 2 arrived last week.

First things first. The Pi is just the body of your project. You also need hands and maybe legs to make it function. You can buy a starter kit or combine your own - like I did. The Pi needs power, network connection (wireless dongle or cable), SD-card for the OS, keyboard (optional is the mouse, if you wanna use a desktop) and a screen for you to see what’s going on during the initial setup. Most of those things you probably have at home lying around or you can borrow them (monitor, mouse, keyboard) from other devices, while you set your Pi up for the first time. So you don’t need that much to keep it running just power and the SD-card with software, everything else depends solely on what the Pi is set up to do. Tip As a powersource you can use any mini-usb smartphone charger, but make sure it is not some cheap chinese remake, because the powerflow needs to be stable. Safe bet is just to buy a 5V charger.

Seconds step

Pick an OS. There are a lot options. The official ones promoted by Pi Foundation and the self-made ones. You can have a lot of versions of linux and even lightweight Windows running on it (NOT recommended). I went with one lightweight and self-made one called DietPi.

Third step

What would you like the Pi to do for you. I set mine up as a home FTPserver, Adblocker and VPN. Here you will find all the soft that is ready to run on DietPi. You can install what you want but I definitely recommend the Pi-hole project by Jacob Salmela. That AdTrap is awesome, because it blocks the ads before they get sent to your client: that means it will save you bandwidth. It also has a great Web Interface., which you can acces on any of the other devices on your network. Also check out Jacobs other Pi-projects on hes blog, they are all worth to do.

Alternative projects

There are tons of fun stuff that you can do with your Pi. Just google “Raspberry Pi projects”. Here are some of my favorites:

Twitter account for a pet. Help your pet share their thought with the world.

Pi PirateBox. A fun project combining your hardware and software skills.

Pi KittyCam. Here are some pics.

Pi Retro Game console Bonus: A cool case for your new RetroPi.