How to build your own mini-PC

The Raspberry Pi is extremely small, consumes almost no electricity and is extremely affordable at 35 euros. We tell you how to set up the mini-PC and extract the maximum. From "PC Magazine" author Tim Kaufmann

The MiniPC Raspberry Pi can do much: time he is a NAS, sometimes an IP surveillance camera or a media center with XBMC. We'll tell you where the differences between the various models are and what hardware you need for your own system. A whole PC for 35 Euro - no wonder that invites experimentation and tinkering. Hardly a day goes by that does not create a new, cool project, based on a Raspberry Pi. But what makes this piece of hardware really so useful? The Raspberry Pi is a little something like squaring the circle. He is extremely small, consumes almost no electricity is affordable at 35 € and yet so powerful that a graphical desktop including Office software runs on it. Leisurely, yes, but it runs. The heart of the Raspberry Pi is an ARM-based CPU. This means that Windows will not run on it. Instead, Linux is used as operating system. But this is less of a problem than you might think now. Because the hardware is fixed, there are virtually no problems with drivers and other things that might make it difficult to start. You can concentrate on your (maybe) first steps with the still foreign operating system, therefore. In addition, around the Raspberry Pi is a lively community is created that gives advice and assistance. In the gallery, we are in cooperation with the "PC Magazine" show, you know what Raspberry Pi Models are and what accessories you absolutely need.

Power Supply

Essential Accessories: The Raspberry Pi requires a 5V power supply with Micro-USB port. Theoretically, ranging from many mobile phone power supplies. But many of them deliver their power not from stable, which can lead to quite puzzling failure of the Raspberry Pi. Good experiences we have had with this power supply for about 10 euros.

Essential Accessories: SD-Card. If you for Raspberry Pi B + grab (he has 4 instead of 2 USB ports), you have to rely on a microSD card. Although theoretically enough a 4-gigabyte card. We advise you to at least 8 or better still 16 GB. Price makes it almost from nothing. The larger cards but keep longer because they contain more memory cells.

Housing

Essential Accessories: duty is a plastic housing into which you plug the Raspberry Pi. It protects the electronics from static electricity, among other things. An HDMI cable and a keyboard you need at least during installation. In addition, it is another PC (Windows, Mac or Linux) that has a card reader.

USB hard drive

What else do you donate a small PC to hardware depends on the application. Do you want to store larger amounts of data, a USB hard disk is recommended. This requires either a separate power supply or you have using a USB hub that has a power supply, connect to the Raspberry Pi.

Camera

for around 30 euros you get a camera module for the Raspberry Pi, either as a night vision camera and optional with camera housing.

WLAN & Bluetooth

A very popular accessory for the Raspberry Pi are also Wi-Fi adapter and Bluetooth adapters that are connected to the USB port (about 10 euros per).

Cooler

If you want to overclock the CPU of his Raspberry Pi, should also attach the heat sink available (about 2 euros).

UPS

In general: There is almost nothing that does not exist for the Raspberry Pi as an accessory. Even uninterruptible power supply (UPS) is available for some months. This is useful for example when used as a car PC.