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There is a need for economical and easily usable devices that can help to teach people of different ages the use of different programs on a computer. The Raspberry Pi has made this possible by being versatile enough to be plugged into any computer and use with the keyboard and mouse.
This is one of the best ways to teach basic programming in Scratch and Python. These small-sized computers are used a lot for encouraging the teaching of computer science in schools. In this article, we will find some interesting ways in which Raspberry Pi can be used to complete various projects.
1. Installing an Operating System to Your Raspberry Pi
Every computer needs an operating system to work with. Your Raspberry Pi also needs an operating system. The Ubuntu Server is an ideal OS for your device as it comes with various features that can easily be integrated into the Raspberry Pi.
As you don’t need a GUI to operate the Raspberry Pi, Ubuntu Server completes the requirement perfectly as it is a basic version of the Ubuntu Desktop without the GUI. The Ubuntu server is enabled for the 64-bit build.
2. Enabling A Reaction For An Action
There are so many situations that will arise as you work on your computer. You will need your computer to react in a particular way if such situations arise. How do you make your computer react to such situations? It is for this purpose that the IFTTT service is available.
It is based on the web and can be used on your Raspberry Pi. IFTTT stands for “If That Then That”. With this service, you can make your computer react in a particular way for one particular set of actions.
3. Sync Your Files With Google Drive
This is very useful when you need to ensure that your files are available to you even if something happens to your computer. When you are using Raspberry Pi the best tool for uploading your important files to Google Drive, is the GDrive.
In fact, GDrive can be configured for most of the operating systems and not just for Raspberry Pi. It is very simple to use and avoids losing your files.
4. Making It Easy To Process Math and Data
If you are regularly working with math it is best to have powerful software that will help you with the job. Mathematica is a wonderful software that helps you work with data and math without any trouble. Mathematica is sold for a price.
But it is available free with Raspberry Pi that has a Raspbian operating system. Mathematica works only if you have Raspbian OS with a desktop.
5. Improve Security With Docker
Docker is a technology that allows you to separate the application from the infrastructure. This means that any software launched with Docker cannot access anything else unless it is permitted. This will improve the security of your system.
It is a very powerful tool that allows you to deliver software in a container to any device very quickly. Docker needs minimum computing power.
6. Knowing The Purpose Of The Pins
For someone using a regular computer, the pins may not even be seen. But when you use the Raspberry Pi pins play an important role and it is better to know the purpose of these GPIO pins so that you can connect them to the right device or component.
The GPIO or General Purpose Input Output pins are placed so that you can connect various components to the Raspberry Pi. But you must know what these pins must be used for. Pinout helps you know the purpose of the pins.
7. Use Computer Vision Applications With Ease
Computer vision applications help you to perform a variety of functions similar to what our eyes do. You can use these applications to identify a face. You can also use them to analyze the movements of a person in a video. Such applications are very useful.
But to make them work on Raspberry Pi you will need to install various programming functions. OpenCV is an excellent tool for this and it helps you to learn computer vision easily on your Raspberry Pi.
8. View The Best Content With Your Raspberry Pi
Netflix is probably the most popular application to view content today. There are a variety of shows that can interest people with any taste. But it is not easy viewing Netflix programs using your Raspberry Pi.
You can use the Kodi media player for viewing Netflix. You can use the OSMC plugin for installing Kodi in your Raspberry Pi.
9. Respond To DNS Requests Faster On Raspberry Pi
A DNS server is what makes complicated IP addresses easy for humans to remember by matching them with domain names. It also helps computers to recognize domain names using the IP addresses.
Once you have installed a DNS server on your Raspberry Pi, it will be easy to remember the domain names that you have once used and processed the request faster.
10. Install The Perfect Database Software
Your Raspberry Pi will need a database software that is both secure and easy to use. InfluxDB is excellent software for this purpose. It is a system that will imprint a timestamp on every data point.
This means that every event will have a time marked on it. InfluxDB also improves security as it needs a lot of steps to delete data. You can also configure authentication for your data using this tool.
11. View Your Time-Stamped Data With Ease
You will need software to view your time-based data on the Raspberry Pi. The best metrics analytics software for this purpose is Grafana. It can be used for various time-based activities like monitoring your system temperature.
You can also use it to keep track of the weather in a day. Grafana goes best with InfluxDB. Grafana is a very fast tool for visualizing data with a timestamp.
12. Check Your Security With Penetration Testing
If you want to do penetration testing on your Raspberry Pi or do some computer forensics, then the best tool for this is the Kali Linux. It is a Linux distribution bundle with a lot of tools that will let you do ethical hacking.
You can do penetration testing with Kali Linux to check whether your applications and network are well protected against attacks.
13. Get A Better Desktop Environment
While Ubuntu uses the Unity Desktop Environment, the Ubuntu Mate uses the Mate DE. The main advantage is that it is much easier to use and is constantly being updated. You may want to use Ubuntu Mate instead of Raspbian for your Raspberry Pi.
Raspbian is based on Debian which will give you only the time-tested applications. But Ubuntu Mate will give you access to the most modern and latest applications that you can get through Ubuntu. You can download Mate from the web and install it. It now supports only Raspberry Pi versions 2, 3 and 3B+.
14. Track Changes Efficiently On Your Raspberry Pi
You must track changes made to any code while developing software. It helps in coordination between the various developers. A Git repository helps you track the changes not just in the software code but also in the various files in your system. But you will need a web interface to use the Git repository and manage it.
The web interface for Raspberry Pi should use very little of its memory. Gogs is the best Git web interface that will work well with Raspberry Pi. It is also similar to the interface of GitHub which makes it easy to use for those used to that interface.
15. Enjoy Media Content With The Best Player
VLC is probably the best media player for playing most of your media content. It is something that everyone is familiar with and is easy to use. VLC is the best open-source media player that is available free for almost all the devices. You can play media content of any format using VLC including content from the internet.
It is very easy to download and install the media player on a Raspbian OS. VLC installation package has all the coding libraries that you need and avoids the need to look for other codecs.
16. Install Android On Your Raspberry Pi
Android is a popular OS that you may want to install on your Raspberry Pi. There are many advantages to using Android. You must use an Android distribution to set up the OS in your Raspberry Pi and have it running successfully.
One of the best distributions that you can use is EmteriaOS. EmteriaOS can be used only after purchasing a license. Without purchasing the license, you may be forced to use it with the watermark. You will also have to limit your uptime to 8 hours.
17. Get the Benefits of BitTorrent with an Easy Interface
There is hardly anyone who doesn’t use BitTorrent to share or send files. But to gain access to BitTorrent you will need a torrent client on your computer. There are many popular torrent clients for computers.
Deluge is a popular client that you can install on the Raspberry Pi. It is easy to install the client and configure the interface. You can also use Deluge as a service on your Raspberry Pi.
18. Make Life Colorful With LED Strips
You can use and control LED strips using Raspberry Pi. The best-LED strip to connect to the Raspberry Pi is the API102 RGB strips. This is because it uses the SPI data protocol. There are only the clock line and data line for this protocol.
Another advantage is that this strip is not very time-sensitive. Raspberry Pi doesn’t follow strict critical timing and this makes the API102 the most suitable LED strip.
19. Listen To The Best Music
Connecting a speaker to Spotify will help you listen to the music of almost all genres. You can use Raspberry Pi to connect the speakers to the application.
You can use the software program Raspotify to make your Raspberry Pi a Spotify connect the device and enjoy music very economically.
20. Manage Content Using WordPress
You can easily use WordPress on your Raspberry Pi and use it as a development server. All you need to do is to set up Apache, PHP and MYSQL servers on the computer.
You must keep ready your root password for MYSQL
