Raspberry Pi Desktop

Intro

What's not to love on a Raspberry Pi? It's a mini computer with enough ports to be a laptop and enough I/O pins for many projects. The way I see it, the only drawback is that there are only two solutions to actually work with the Pi; to :

1. Plug it in your home network and connect remotely via SSH or VNC.

2. Plug in it a monitor, a mouse and a keyboard and use it as a regular desktop or laptop computer.

The first option is only viable after installing the operating system and setting up the SSH server. Furthermore, it does not allow troubleshooting in case the SSH service is not running for some reason. (There is a way/hack to connect and access the Pi from localhost on a Windows machine but I don't consider it a permanent solution)

The second option requires either an HDMI monitor (or TV) or some other monitor + the corresponding adapter. On top of that, if you try to attach a USB mouse and a USB keyboard, you'll find that you're out of USB ports and the WiFi dongle is now useless. Back to dragging the whole setup close to the router or digging up that 50 ft Ethernet cable from the basement.

For those reasons, and since I don't have a spare monitor and MS/KB, I decided to come up with a dedicated setup for my Pi. The cheapest solution is to buy a used monitor and plug it in, but I came across some spare parts at work which turned this into a little project.

Hardware

• Raspberry Pi Model B

• Spare monitor panel from Dell laptop

• Controller for the panel w/ speakers

• Power supply for the controller     

• Wireless MS+KB combo

• WiFi dongle for the Pi

• A nice base for putting it all together

Extras: 

• USB Hub

• Single Power Supply for the entire setup

Roadmap

This turned out to be more expensive and troublesome than I thought, but it provided some insight as to were the Raspberry Pi stands as a project right now. A few notes on the hardware chosen:

Monitor Controller:    They vary from $20 to $50 on ebay. The seller usually asks you to check with them before ordering the wrong controller.

PSU for Controller:    It is sold separately from the controller. A generic 12V/3A power supply will do the trick.

Wireless MS/KB    :    Most of them 'appear' to work until they don't... Check here first. I used a USB keyboard with 2 USB ports instead.

WiFi USB Dongle   :    Not the strongest point of RPi. I ended up using an old one I had, as opposed to the one bundled with the RPi I purchased.

USB Hub           :    Powered USB hubs are nice but I found that a regular 4-port from Walmart was able to carry my KB, MS and WiFi needs, leaving 1 RPi USB port free.

Being an Ubuntu user, I had the expectation that most common accessories should work right away on the Pi with Raspbian as well. That is true for USB devices; I tried several KB and MS as well as an old webcam. Unfortunately the wireless KB/MS I purchased wasn't in the list of fully supported hardware. All things considered though, it's still a great little project platform.

Final Result