Reason to buy Raspberry?

[Tamulmol]

Hi! I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask about Raspberry PI but if I post this on Raspberry forum they might not have an Arduino and won't be able to answer my question. :-)

What can Raspberry PI do that an Arduino+Laptop computer can't? Are raspberry pi just a computer with io pins? Raspberry is also bigger than a laptop if you add keyboard and monitor. Any reason why would you also buy a Raspberry?

[Paul__B]

I bought a Raspberry Pi because it uses less than 7 watts.  Possibly half that.

My intention was to commit it as a web server.  Well, to be honest, I haven't yet, but ...

The purpose of the Raspberry was to provide inexpensive hacking material for neophyte geeks (of the teenage or pre-teen variety).  It's not bad at all.  I'm not typing on it now (and it is rather slow but then - so is Windoze so I'm not using that either), but as it happens the 24 inch monitor in front of me I scored for $10 at a garage sale.  I wouldn't pay more than $1 for a keyboard or mouse at a garage sale (unless of course it was a Dell SK-8135) and there are plenty of network cables floating around so basically, a Pi is a pretty good basis for a starter personal possession.  The only difficult part is actually finding a good power supply with a micro USB connector.

And it goes well with Arduinox; the IDE runs on it so Arduino+Pi is a really neat little development system.  Given the warnings about the fragility of the IO on the Pi - and the difficulty of hardware bashing on a real OS, it is an excellent combination.

I cannot use a laptop without a real mouse, a proper sized keyboard and a monitor (so I have each of these in each place to which I move the laptop/ netbook), you just might but I think it is specious to suggest that having to use these with the Pi is somehow more cumbersome.

[AWOL]

OT:

(unless of course it was a Dell SK-8135)

I'm curious - what would you pay for one of those (it's just that I've got a cupboard full of 'em...)

[Paul__B]

I'm curious - what would you pay for one of those (it's just that I've got a cupboard full of 'em...)

$2 of course!

Can't go overboard about these things!

You are lucky then, they are ace keyboards - all the keys in the correct places (not fussing about Prt Scrn, Scrlk and Pause), smallest footprint possible and the most useful "Space Cadet" keys, notably instant mute, volume control (knob), calc and some navigation keys I haven't developed the habit of using as yet.

My keyboard crate (wherever I have put it) contains mostly older ones such as "Gateway".  I am aware that the going price for a SK-8135 on eBay is about $5 or so.  I wouldn't go quite that far (unless I suppose, they were genuinely new and unused).

[arusr]

I bought a Raspberry Pi because it uses less than 7 watts.  Possibly half that.

My intention was to commit it as a web server.  Well, to be honest, I haven't yet, but ...

@Paul__B,
How are you planning to interface the RPi to the Arduino?  I've seen a couple examples of how it can be done, but I've had trouble implementing it myself.

I've looked at LowPowerLab's Raspberry Pi tutorial.  Felix uses serial(uart) to communicate between the Pi and the Arduino. He even shows you how to set up a SSL encrypted authentication scheme.  Very nice.  The tutorial even uses websockets, but all the node.js is beyond me right now.  Haven't had time to figure it out.

[Paul__B]

How are you planning to interface the RPi to the Arduino?  I've seen a couple examples of how it can be done, but I've had trouble implementing it myself.

Well, I was presuming it to be dead easy - the Arduino plugs into a USB port just as it does on a PC/ laptop.  I think.  You avoid worrying about protection and level translation on the Pi hardware interface, though there are some nice buffer projects around.

You need a powered hub with a 2(+) amp power supply; arguably you can plug the Pi power itself into the hub; you lose one port doing so but you still have a total of four (or more).

[Grumpy_Mike]

The Pi is not real time it is Linux.
There is nothing you can do with a Pi that you can't do with an arduino and laptop. But there is plenty you can do with an arduino and laptop that you can't do with a Pi.
However it is much cheaper than a laptop and Arduino.

[tsunamy_boy]

Well the difference is that you have all together in just once peace. And also if you want to create something that needs processing, you are not going to attach your computer to that i believe.

[Tamulmol]

The Pi is not real time it is Linux.
There is nothing you can do with a Pi that you can't do with an arduino and laptop. But there is plenty you can do with an arduino and laptop that you can't do with a Pi.
However it is much cheaper than a laptop and Arduino.

I wish you answered sooner lol. Since its cheap I bought it, im curious what it is.  Now i can answer my question, its just a cheap computer,  i read somewhere thats its good for learning computer language, but only for people who doesnt have laptop or pc.
Who doesnt have computer nowadays lol.  Im into arduino so im also not interested in rasp gpio.

You can attach it to a project but i heared its not also designed to be turned on forever.  I dont hate it but I dont need it
A complete PI is also bigger than my macbook air.  

I bought a book " programming rasp pi, getting started with python" , I found out that i dont even need A PI for the book lol.

[Grumpy_Mike]

Who doesnt have computer nowadays lol.

True but I bet you only have one.

Personally I exhibit at quite a few Maker Fairs during the year. Typically I show three or four projects on my stand. If they all needed a laptop then I would have to have a lot of computers. The Pi allows me to have several projects displayed at the same time.
Also if you have a project like monitoring something, like the passage of birds in a nesting box with automatic picture taking then you can leave a Pi to it and still have your Laptop.
You can do image processing type projects without sacrificing your main computer to the task.
The other thing you can do is to run the non Linux RISC OS operating system, used in the Acorn computers of the 90's, it knocks the socks of Linux for speed.

I have four Raspberry Pis at the moment.

[Tamulmol]

Yah price is the major factor if you dont need to buy separate  keyboard,mouse, monitor, cables  for every project.