My experience so far and should I continue?

[LittleNooby]

Hi,

I've been using raspberry pi for more than 2 years now. My main uses were HTPC, crash test environment/sandbox (I mean I played with system code) and more generally learning environment (Unix, system x32, network, security, ...).
I'm not sure I will continue to use it, it depends on your answers and my question is the following : Will the options I consider solve my problems or at least some of them ? Have you better ideas?

Here is what I'm happy about :

• Noise
• Kodi/XBMC
• Power consumption
• Price
• Versatility

Here is what I'm not happy about :

• configuration is time consuming (unlike classical desktop/lap top PC)
• display resolution ! I don't know how it can even be a problem (my display resolution is 1920x1080 but Pi won't get it and will at one point or the other display beyond the screen. I thought it would be plug & play)
• Not user proof about the SD cards (easy to remove power cord and corrupt SD card. I blame both user (me) and PI, I'd like me to be less stupid and PI to protect SD more)
• reactivity
• only one narrow BUS for USB and ethernet, meaning you can't download and read USB device at the same time
• Cables, I can't manage them cleanly (it uses devices I cant afford to give exclusivity to it, so I must often unplug / replug. It prevents me to fix them with nylon links)
• Fluidity of some applications (reading a music should not suffer from artefacts)

Here is what I think I can improve with my behaviour :

• Configuration with scripting but it will costs me time to set it up
• Corrupted SD cards : I'll change my set up and be really careful to shutdown properly

Here are the options I consider :

• Moving my raspberry pi to a strip I never shutdown and my external drive to router so its noise won't bother me anymore
• Replacing Raspberry Pi B Rev2 By Raspberry 2
• SD cards with performance suited to my usage (will now privilege access time over up/download speed)

Here are options I cannot consider :

• Move raspberry to another room as it contains plaintext passwords

A big thank you if you took the time to read me and even more if you take the time to think of an answer,

LittleNooby


Edit 1 : more details to answer davidcoton questions.

[davidcoton]

Answers inserted in italics

Here is what I'm not happy about :

• configuration is time consuming
  Is that any different on any other comparable system?
• display resolution ! I don't know how it can even be a problem (I mean it, I don't understand)
  I don't know either, what is the problem? What do you want that you can't get?
  
• Not user proof about the SD cards
  What environment do you have that causes a problem?
  Ultimately any system where "users" have physical access is at risk.
• reactivity
  Try the 2B.
• only one narrow BUS for USB and ethernet, meaning you can't download and read USB device at the same time
  That is a limitation of the Pi that is unlikely to change in the near future. (With a lot of luck, RPF will surprise us and change something.)
  There is a trade off of cost against features and performance. The 2B is a big step forward in performance.
• Cables, I can't manage them cleanly
  Again, what specifically is the issue? Is it any different on any other comparable system?
• Fluidity of some applications (reading a music should not suffer from artefacts)
  Try the 2B.

Here is what I think I can improve with my behaviour :

• Configuration with scripting but it will costs me time to set it up
• Corrupted SD cards : I'll change my set up and be really careful to shutdown properly

Here are the options I consider :

• Moving my raspberry pi to a strip I never shutdown and my external drive to router so its noise won't bother me anymore
• Replacing Raspberry Pi B Rev2 By Raspberry 2
• SD cards with performance suited to my usage (will now privilege access time over up/download speed)

Here are options I cannot consider :

• Move raspberry to another room as it contains plaintext passwords

A big thank you if you took the time to read me and even more if you take the time to think of an answer,

LittleNooby

[LittleNooby]

First, davidcoton, thank you for the constructive answer. At that point, you've convinced me raspberry pi 2 will solve/improve the following issue :

• reactivity
• fluidity

For the BUS problem, I'm surprised, I thought I've read something about RPI 2 using a larger one. I'll do some more research about that. Especially that I now decided to connect my external drive to router rather than directly to the PI and will thus access it through ethernet. The drive saturates any PI interface anyway.

Is that any different on any other comparable system?
I guess not but it's still an issue I'd like to adress.

I don't know either, what is the problem? What do you want that you can't get?
I edited post #1

What environment do you have that causes a problem?
Ultimately any system where "users" have physical access is at risk.
I edited post #1

Again, what specifically is the issue? Is it any different on any other comparable system?
It is not specific to the system, but if you have a solution, I'd take it.

[W. H. Heydt]

I'll take a shot at some of this....

• configuration is time consuming (unlike classical desktop/lap top PC)
• display resolution ! I don't know how it can even be a problem (my display resolution is 1920x1080 but Pi won't get it and will at one point or the other display beyond the screen. I thought it would be plug & play)
• Not user proof about the SD cards (easy to remove power cord and corrupt SD card. I blame both user (me) and PI, I'd like me to be less stupid and PI to protect SD more)
• reactivity
• only one narrow BUS for USB and ethernet, meaning you can't download and read USB device at the same time
• Cables, I can't manage them cleanly (it uses devices I cant afford to give exclusivity to it, so I must often unplug / replug. It prevents me to fix them with nylon links)
• Fluidity of some applications (reading a music should not suffer from artefacts)

Config time is config time. I've been using Pis since I could first get my hands on them in the first half of 2012. With raspi-config, I can set up a Pi faster than I can load an OS onto a conventional system. One thing you can do (if you find yourself configuring systems often and to the same set up) is get it the way you like it, then take an image backup. When you need to set up a new SD card, start from your configured image. This is also at least a partial solution to a corrupted SD card.

I have no problems getting a Pi to support 1920x1080. Last week I found a cheap ($13) 24in 1920x1200 monitor. To test it, I hooked it up to a Pi. It came up at full resolution without doing anything to the Pi. I did have issues getting Pi to run at proper native monitor resolution very early on, but at that time, I was running a Pi through a minimal HDMI to VGA converter. Since I switched to either using a good VGA converter, or using DVI monitors, I haven't had any issues with this.

I would say that no computer is "user proof". At least with a Pi, you don't have reformat an HDD and load the OS from scratch. That said, if you are seeing repeated SD corruption, beaides finding a better quality source for SD cards (I stick mostly with San Disk), you can load your root system to a USB stick, an HDD, or an SSD, any and all of which should be rather less susceptible to media corruption issues.

Both the BCM 2835 (Pi1) and BCM2836 (Pi2) have a single USB 2 interface. The Model B series Pis have an external LAN chip that takes that bus and gives 2 or 4 USB 2 ports and an Ethernet port. Everything still has to go to and from the SoC on the single bus, though.

Here's one way to manage the cables. Surely you can afford a few inexpensive cables. Spend some money and get a KVM switch. Connect the Pi and whatever device you want to share devices (keyboard, mouse, monitor) to the KVM switch. If you only have a single wired internet connection, get a data switch as well. (5 port switches are pretty cheap and a 10/100 switch should do just fine.) Another alternative is to run the Pi "headless" and ssh into it. There are ways to share nearly any kind of device you might want to have that can connect to either a Pi or some other computer (note that I'm not including devices connected to the GPIO pins, which aren't likely to be usable with a conventional PC).

Here is what I think I can improve with my behaviour :

• Configuration with scripting but it will costs me time to set it up
• Corrupted SD cards : I'll change my set up and be really careful to shutdown properly

Write off the time to learning a suitable scripting language (say, bash or sh) *really* well.

Here are the options I consider :

• Moving my raspberry pi to a strip I never shutdown and my external drive to router so its noise won't bother me anymore
• Replacing Raspberry Pi B Rev2 By Raspberry 2
• SD cards with performance suited to my usage (will now privilege access time over up/download speed)

I not only keep Pis on their own power connections, but they are on UPS's as well. The only time I need to shut them down is in a prolonged power outage. Switching to a Pi2B will make a world of difference. Each of the 4 cores on the BCM2836 is a good bit faster that the core on the BCM2835, and the 2836 has four of them.

Here are options I cannot consider :

• Move raspberry to another room as it contains plaintext passwords

I wouldn't be quite so quick to rule that out. Files on Linux systems can be encrypted.

[LittleNooby]

Thank you W. H. Heydt, I can only imagine the time you took to formulate that answer.

I think I can now apply a suitable solution for each of my problem except maybe for one :

I now found how to trigger my resolution problem : I connect my PI to my display, I correctly set it up (overscan, calibration, ...). I quit Kodi, I disconnect the display, connect it to my laptop and switch it back to my raspberry pi. The picture will now go beyong the screen (tipically, in Kodi, time and close button are half beyond the screen).

For system encryption, I get the idea but I don't understand how you can protect the system against someone with physical access and have an autonomous system. People with physical access to my Pi aren't hackers but a passer by is still an option while a security failure is not.

Again, thanks for the useful information, I'll post results in a month.

[jamesh]

I'm not sure what you mean by plaintext passwords. The standard login for a Linux device has encrypted passwords. Physical access to the Pi shouldn't not mean it overly insecure (any more than physical access to any computing device makes it insecure)

[LittleNooby]

Plaintext passwords : Well, I use Pi to automatically send email, wake up network devices, share data via samba, up&download torrent, etc... So if you inspect files onto my SD card, you can find login/password for emails, devices, samba users, µtorrent and associated sites, etc...
I understand you can encrypt these files but as Pi needs the key to decrypt them, it's as secure as not encrypting them, isn't it?

Anyway, I don't need to move RPI out of my room and as security is a critical point, I prefere not to experiment for the time being.

[dom]

I now found how to trigger my resolution problem : I connect my PI to my display, I correctly set it up (overscan, calibration, ...). I quit Kodi, I disconnect the display, connect it to my laptop and switch it back to my raspberry pi. The picture will now go beyong the screen (tipically, in Kodi, time and close button are half beyond the screen).

You should fix this on the display, not on the Pi. You want to disable overscan. Check the display menu options (it may be called "just scan", "screen fit", "HD size", "full pixel", "unscaled", "dot by dot", "native" or "1:1").
Undo any calibration in kodi.

[jamesh]

Plaintext passwords : Well, I use Pi to automatically send email, wake up network devices, share data via samba, up&download torrent, etc... So if you inspect files onto my SD card, you can find login/password for emails, devices, samba users, µtorrent and associated sites, etc...
I understand you can encrypt these files but as Pi needs the key to decrypt them, it's as secure as not encrypting them, isn't it?

Anyway, I don't need to move RPI out of my room and as security is a critical point, I prefere not to experiment for the time being.

Surely this is a problem with any device to which someone has physical access (and the username password to actually log in), not the Pi in particular?

[LittleNooby]

Surely this is a problem with any device to which someone has physical access (and the username password to actually log in), not the Pi in particular?

I do agree with that statement. I was reacting to :

I'll take a shot at some of this....

Here are options I cannot consider :

• Move raspberry to another room as it contains plaintext passwords

I wouldn't be quite so quick to rule that out. Files on Linux systems can be encrypted.