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).
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 ...
Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month, and much more.
O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
Julian F.
Head of Cybersecurity
I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
Addison B.
Field Engineer
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
Amir M.
Data Platform Tech Lead
I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
