This isn't even a link to an article. It's a link to a category on Lifehacker, which then links through to an article, which then links through to another article at: http://www.jeremymorgan.com/tutorials/raspberry-pi/how-to-ra...
Set Up a Raspberry Pi as a Personal Web Server
11–20 of 24 posts
Re: Set Up a Raspberry Pi as a Personal Web Server
#12I live in the US. Is there any way to get my hands on one (or more) of these in a reasonable amount of time. The site seems to indicate that after you place your order you will have to wait months before you actually get it :(
Re: Set Up a Raspberry Pi as a Personal Web Server
#13I live in the US. Is there any way to get my hands on one (or more) of these in a reasonable amount of time. The site seems to indicate that after you place your order you will have to wait months before you actually get it :(
I finally got mine in the mail yesterday. I ordered it 9 months ago from RS Electronics. I've heard from other hackers here that they ordered theirs from other companies and had much faster turnaround time.
By the time I got mine, my interest had significantly waned.
Re: Set Up a Raspberry Pi as a Personal Web Server
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
But it does matter if you're using a Pi or an old laptop. I mean, those two are just radically different, but even for fairly comparable platforms you often end up having to do adjust procedures, you can't just blindly follow a how-to. For a newbie, those subtle adjustments are often the difference between wifi working and not working. An experienced user will figure it out, but it can take forever. The RPi isn't the…
I'm not sure it matters more that you're using a Pi than it would matter which old laptop you're using. And, when it's as low-level as simply making something work, rather than particularly optimising it (when the fact that it's a Pi or a 2003 T61 or a whatever do matter), I think that treating it as a slow Debian machine and finding a generic howto (or, better, a few generic howtos) is much more appropriate than ins…
You didn't really add any arguments -- why doesn't it matter, why is it not imortant? I think specific how-tos are useful, regardless of whether it's about making things work or making them fast, because there are often countless things that could conceivably go wrong, and a specific how-to can be as succinct as possible for a given set of circumstances.
If I just want to mess around with a platform, I might not care about that, and I might prefer to read a dozen more abstract how-tos and guides to get in-depth knowledge about a topic. But usually, I don't want to be troubleshooting (or optimising) Wifi USB hardware, and it absolutely does matter whether you're using a RPi or an old laptop, in fact it matters whether you're using a Rev. A or a Rev B RPi. A generic guide to installing node.js on the RPi would have been much less straightforward than the specific one I had available.
And the difference is way more pronounced when you're trying to get intrepid newbies interested in your platform.
Re: Set Up a Raspberry Pi as a Personal Web Server
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure it matters more that you're using a Pi than it would matter which old laptop you're using. And, when it's as low-level as simply making something work, rather than particularly optimising it (when the fact that it's a Pi or a 2003 T61 or a whatever do matter), I think that treating it as a slow Debian machine and finding a generic howto (or, better, a few generic howtos) is much more appropriate than ins…
You didn't really add any arguments -- why doesn't it matter, why is it not imortant? I think specific how-tos are useful, regardless of whether it's about making things work or making them fast, because there are often countless things that could conceivably go wrong, and a specific how-to can be as succinct as possible for a given set of circumstances. If I just want to mess around with a platform, I might not care…
The newbies are the reason. They need to know what the word is they need to search for, or they may not realize the full power they have for them, which is putatively the point of the RPis.
Personally I am also perturbed in that it contributes to the growing culture of seeing devices as something other than general-purpose computing machines, and I really fear the political implications of a growing misconception about the nature of these computers. What bothers me even more than these RPi tutorials are "Pedestrian Computer Application X Run On A Mobile Phone! Wowzers!" stories, some of which even make it onto HN (though not so much lately). Yes, you got your general purpose computer to run a program. This shouldn't be surprising, this should be the expected outcome, the news should be that you find yourself unable to run whatever program you like on these general-purpose computing devices.
RPis are computers. Cell phones are computers. The cheapest, crappiest feature phone currently being sold has specs that blow every computer I owned before 1990 out of the water. This is important for as many people as possible to understand, lest we blunder into walled gardens for no good reason.
Re: Set Up a Raspberry Pi as a Personal Web Server
#16I'm really beginning to dislike all these "Set up the Raspberry Pi as a X" tutorials. I think they contribute to the idea that there's something weird and peculiar about the Pi, and give the impression that if you want a tutorial to do something on the Pi you need a "For the Pi" tutorial. Couldn't we instead have a "Install Raspbian" (or whatever) tutorial and then try to push the idea that at the end of that you hav…
But it does matter if you're using a Pi or an old laptop. I mean, those two are just radically different, but even for fairly comparable platforms you often end up having to do adjust procedures, you can't just blindly follow a how-to. For a newbie, those subtle adjustments are often the difference between wifi working and not working. An experienced user will figure it out, but it can take forever. The RPi isn't the…
can you suggest some alternatives to the pi?
Re: Set Up a Raspberry Pi as a Personal Web Server
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
But it does matter if you're using a Pi or an old laptop. I mean, those two are just radically different, but even for fairly comparable platforms you often end up having to do adjust procedures, you can't just blindly follow a how-to. For a newbie, those subtle adjustments are often the difference between wifi working and not working. An experienced user will figure it out, but it can take forever. The RPi isn't the…
can you suggest some alternatives to the pi?
The new Cubieboard recently hit HN: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4696965
Here's a list of other alternatives (caveat emptor): http://www.redferret.net/?p=33596
Re: Set Up a Raspberry Pi as a Personal Web Server
#18I live in the US. Is there any way to get my hands on one (or more) of these in a reasonable amount of time. The site seems to indicate that after you place your order you will have to wait months before you actually get it :(
I ordered mine from Element14 and got it after almost a month. If you are willing to pay a little more you can also find them on Amazon and Ebay.
Re: Set Up a Raspberry Pi as a Personal Web Server
#19What I think would be nice was to setup RPi as a open Wireless network with a captive portal that you could carry with you.
Re: Set Up a Raspberry Pi as a Personal Web Server
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure it matters more that you're using a Pi than it would matter which old laptop you're using. And, when it's as low-level as simply making something work, rather than particularly optimising it (when the fact that it's a Pi or a 2003 T61 or a whatever do matter), I think that treating it as a slow Debian machine and finding a generic howto (or, better, a few generic howtos) is much more appropriate than ins…
You didn't really add any arguments -- why doesn't it matter, why is it not imortant? I think specific how-tos are useful, regardless of whether it's about making things work or making them fast, because there are often countless things that could conceivably go wrong, and a specific how-to can be as succinct as possible for a given set of circumstances. If I just want to mess around with a platform, I might not care…
Well, it's not important because the difference, generally, between the Pi and a random computer is similar to that which can be expected between any other two random computers.
The thing with the newbies I get - they want to google "web server raspberry pi" and get a really quick and easy step-by-step, but I'd really like them to at some point get the idea that this is a general purpose programmable computer like their laptop, PC, phone, whatever, and that they should expect it to be able to do basically anything.
I get the benefit of the specific howto, but I've not yet found enough pi-specific problems to make me think that's more important than getting the idea that it's a proper computer and not just some cut-down thing that can only do a good enough impression of one to run a web server and python or whatever.