Raspberry Pi! anyone?

I just got my long awaited Raspberry Pi, super small and cheap computer, from element14 at S$48. The Pi equipped with everything you will need for typical computer, USB, Ethernet port, HDMI, SD card slot and audio output.

List of additional hardware:

• HDMI - to - DVI cable : because my monitor not support HDMI :(
• USB with external powered hub : I plan to use WiFi- USB device later which power supply from USB alone is not enought.
• SDHC (hi-speed SD card) class 6 : from information I can find, the Pi only support SD or SDHC card, not micro-SC card with adapter, with class 4 or more (speed issue I guess?).

This three item cost me about S$82, hope I can learn a lot from it. Let's try ...

First, prepare your SD card

I used the "Easy way" from this link which in short include just two step. First, download Win32DiskImager which is a tool to copy your image file (will get to this in step 2) into your SD card. Step two, download image file, the Debain "squeeze" is recommended one.

Two, connect your hardware

Next obvious step is to connect a required hardware - keyboard, mouse, screen and SD card (you prepared in the first step). For power port, I use my phone charger which luckily a micro USB and provide 1A maximum. Power from USB port alone is not enough for the Pi because its need 700mA while USB 2.0 can provide 0.5A maximum.

Last step, hold your breadth and power it up

When you plugged power cord in you will see a red and green LED onbord the Pi start to blink and (hopefully) your screen flushing with output like this,

And after awhile, it will ask you to input login name (default: pi) and password (default: raspberry). When that's done, you are ready to go! use command "startx" to launch an X window system and you got this

Hoorey! you just got yourself a brand new tool to learn lots of new things!