User:)biyibiyibiyi(/Prototyping 03

Setting up Raspian

Motivation

During the last Special Issue we all set up Raspberry pi as server, running on Diet-pi. The web server was apache2. I wanted to set up Raspian for several reasons. Sheer curiosity to see the pi's ability other than being a server, such as being a wifi-hotspot (used in Bibilotecha.info project), using pi camera for home smart agents such as surveillance and automated helpers (pet feeding, plant watering, etc).

Aside from these sporadic interests, I would continue using my pi as server. Before I wiped out Diet-pi, I tried to configure apache2's fancyindex module, so that I can make a web gallery to showcase the projects I (and xpub) did. The try out was not successful. Fancyindexing appear to only apply to specific directories and not sub-directories. Anyway! It was fun to edit the configuration file, to notice it's similarity to other markdown languages.

As I noticed the Special Issue 08 mini site is running on Nginx, I wanted to install Nginx and try again. So I decided to wipe out the Diet-pi system as I felt frustrated with Apache2 configuration.

Process

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  setting up Raspian using screen in studio.

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  Playing with VNC

I discovered that Raspian's interface is quite revealing about its file structure. The folders start with root / and sub directories had designated purposes for storing specific file types. Browsing on Raspberry pi online development community I found a thread that explained the file system division. http://shumeipai.nxez.com/2018/01/05/directory-introduction-in-raspbian.html I glanced to basics of the naming protocol, i.e. /bin for binary file, /dev for drives (which reminded me that as we played with the dot matrix printer the driver file was stored in this folder) /mnt for mounting. Memorizing the structure and naming of the protocol is not necessary but it's good to have an impression in mind. As in the future if I develop projects, I will be navigating inside the folders, and I would want to know why I am placing certain files inside var/www but not in /bin.

So I thought in general Raspian is a transparent learning, prototyping tool.

Potential leads

I looked up some hack documentations on making Raspberry Pi a device for machine learning, in particular learning image data, such as recognizing faces. I would want to explore potentials using machine learning and pi camera.