[lug] Testers for Raspberry Pi distro: PiBox

[Michael J. Hammel]

I've been working on a custom embedded Linux distribution, PiBox, for
the Raspberry Pi for a couple of years now.  This weekend I made a
stable release that is suitable for its initial target audience - people
who want to use it in non-connected environments like travel trailers
while you're camping.

Essentially its a core platform with opkg add-ons that turn it into a
media server/player with a consumer oriented UI - something akin to a
Roku but not nearly so feature rich (yet).  It's main purpose at the
moment is to watch videos (using a hardware accelerated player).  Media
Server exports the video files over smb to Media Players allowing the
latter to be distributed and not require a USB hub.  Later I'll add
other media playback features and some home automation support.  The
release notes describe upcoming development plans.

I use this with a cheap LED pico projector to play movies on the side of
my camper (which has an attached tent/room so as not to annoy other
campers).  I hope to add bluetooth audio sometime this year to get rid
of the audio cable to our headphones.

It has very specific networking requirements:  you should get one of
these:
https://www.modmypi.com/raspberry-pi-accessories/networking/wireless-usb-1n-nano-adaptor-802.11N-wifi-dongle

It's an RTL5370 dongle.  I've found that driver to be the most stable in
the 3.10 and later kernels.  

Note that this is not Debian + XBMC.  It's all custom: the UI, the apps,
the rootfs, even the toolchain (well, a custom build at least).  I've
developing an app library layer that will make it easier for app
developers to interact with a wifi connected Android app.

If anyone is interested in testing (or helping in development) give me a
holler.  You can start by reading the 0.10.0 release notes:
http://redmine.graphics-muse.org/news/16

Anyway, just thought I'd ask.
Thanks!
-- 
Michael J. Hammel <mjhammel at graphics-muse.org>