The Raspberry Pi.  a small cheap computer - very exciting, all over the news, massive waiting lists, etc etc.

And I've finally got my hands on one.  Ok, so it actually arrived several weeks ago, but I've only just found enough spare time to do anything with it. 

I don't need another 'plain' linux machine, and haven't yet had any genius ideas for other cool projects, so it's currently sat next to my tv/stereo, running raspbmc and acting as a media centre.

rainbow pi!

This has led to more spending and general preparation - as well as the pi, cables, SD card, power supply etc, I've also bought a case for it (which obviously had to be the pibow, because hello, it's a RAINBOW! ), powerline adapters so I don't have to move the router or faff about with wifi adapters, and a network hard drive.  Which I vaguely wanted for backup purposes anyway.

So far, so good - although xmbc's user interface is a little bit horrible and annoying at times.  Loving the android app though - there's a lot of geek novelty value in using my phone to control music being streamed to my stereo from a hard drive in a different room

known issues/fiddling so far, for the sake of documenting stuff:

• had to edit ntp.conf with router IP so it would actually get the time/date
• doesn't fit on my tv screen.  possibly my cheap telly's fault, but shrinking by 10% in settings seems to sort it.
• TV refuses to see any hdmi input if I switch things on in the 'wrong' order.  Again probably the telly's fault...

Now, I just need to figure out how to put it on "shuffle everything" mode... and then start poking about with videos as well as music.

tags: gadgets geeky linux Raspberry Pi