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Raspberry Pi Cookbook, 2nd Edition
book

Raspberry Pi Cookbook, 2nd Edition

by Simon Monk
June 2016
Beginner to intermediate content levelBeginner to intermediate
508 pages
9h 40m
English
O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Content preview from Raspberry Pi Cookbook, 2nd Edition

Chapter 4. Software

4.0 Introduction

This chapter contains a number of recipes for using ready-made software on the Raspberry Pi.

Some of the recipes in this chapter are concerned with converting the Raspberry Pi into a single-use appliance, while others use specific pieces of software on a Raspberry Pi.

4.1 Making a Media Center

Problem

You want to convert your Raspberry Pi into a super-duper media center.

Solution

To use your Raspberry Pi as a media center, you should definitely go for the superior performance of the Raspberry Pi 3 or 2 Model B, as video playing is very processor-intensive. 

You can set up your Raspberry Pi as a media center during the NOOBS installation process (Recipe 1.5). Instead of selecting Raspbian as the distribution to install, select either OpenELEC_Pi1 if you have a Raspberry Pi 1 or OpenELEC_Pi2 if you have a Raspberry Pi 2.

OpenELEC is a distribution that optimizes your Raspberry Pi as a media center. It incudes the Kodi media center software, which is based on the XBMC open source project that was originally developed to convert Xbox game consoles into media centers. The code has since been ported to many platforms including the Raspberry Pi (Figure 4-1).

F0401
Figure 4-1. Raspberry Pi as a media center

Raspberry Pi is perfectly capable of playing full HD video as well as streamed music, MP3 files, and Internet radio.

Discussion

Kodi is a powerful ...

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Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9781491939093Errata Page