Has anyone built anything using a linux-based Raspberry Pi? All the project ideas I've seen written up are not very practical. Most of the things people are building as a kit project can be purchased brand new for a comparable price (motion alerts, etc). I'd like to get some hands-on experience with one just to satisfy my curiosity, but still looking for something useful to do with it.
I would like to have my laptop (used as desktop on external monitor) at least 32 CPU cores... ;-) really! Currently it has only 4x2500 MHz
Raspi would have much more success if the damn thing only had 2+ NICs built in, for such useful projects like personal router/firewall/proxy etc... The engineers of it can't think further, they are slaves of the multimedia, graphics and games commerce cr*p...
Raspberry Pi does all of its USB and network communications over a single USB 2.0 link. Which means all of the USB ports and the 100Mbit Ethernet interface are forced to share a single, half-duplex 480MBit USB link over a hub. The Raspberry Pi is not meant to be a be all end all answer to problems. It is meant to be approachable, low cost hobbyist machine. Why people demand that it has 2+ NIC, ton of RAM, a very powerful processor, AND sell for $25 is beyond me. Hell, they have one selling for 5 bucks. So you can have 20 devices at your home. And never think about the cost.
I finally found an RPi project idea that is both practical and more cost effective than buying a comparable commercial product. It's an internet bandwidth monitor that logs your speed every n hour(s) for periodic review. This project is documented in the link below and I have a couple mods in mind. I just ordered my Pi and a bunch of accessories and I'm looking forward to receiving this microcomputer for kids of all ages. http://blog.scphillips.com/posts/2015/05/monitoring-broadband-speed-with-loggly
check out the self driving remote control car https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/self-driving-car/ All the code is on github, looks like an "easy" project to replicate and get started with.
Looks like an ideal father/son project! These DIY Raspberry Pi projects are a great distraction when it's raining outside and you're stuck in the house and have gotten bored with your GPS-guided laser drone prototype.