Yes, another platform, another project. My Raspberry Pi has been floating around for a couple, three months now. I have been playing around with it, futzing with the OS installing and uninstalling things, all while trying to find a home for it. At first I thought I would use it with Domtiz and monitor various things around the house. After jotting some ideas down on paper the idea just kind of died on the vine.
There are a couple of retro gaming distros out there. They look fun, but not sure I want to dedicate this board to another console/computer/gaming system in the house. I downloaded xxx and have it on a SD card so I can pull it out and have some fun, but was still looking for its home, its purpose.
Recently we got cable back. We had tossed Time Warner save the internet connection and didn’t look back at not having cable. Between not watching as much and Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon there wasn’t much reason to have it back. Then Spectrum bought TW and gave us a deal we couldn’t much pass up. In the process we have a new cable box and a Tivo that won’t much work with it anymore. Oh well. Then I had a spark of an idea, why not use it for a media center! That’s the ticket.
I went out and started to do my homework on which distro will be best suited for my needs. I figured there has to be more than one of them out there with the popularity for the Raspberry; and there is. After a couple of days of reading and checking them out, I have decided on OSMC. It seems one of the easier ones to setup and use. So I have downloaded it and have it ready on a card.
During this process, I have given up (temporarily) on getting the Sain Smart 7” LCD on working with the Pi. It is a sharp screen, it worked for a few minutes once, then I changed a setting, nutz! I broke down and bought a cheap, $3.99 HDMI to VGA convertors. It will work as I setup the rig and test it out. Once done I will move it out to the family room with the big screen.
For now the convertor works wonderful with my $2.00 monitor find. It might be a bit old and 4:3 not 16:9, but it is clear and works nicely. I am glad to have a spare monitor for the bench. To test it out I made it a third monitor on my Mac. How many do I really need?
This is a project that is going to blow out in scope as well. I have the goal of finishing up the audio amp I have on my bench and hooking it up to 2 bookshelf speakers that have been laying around for a while. It should make a nice little media center for the basement family room.
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