I was just wondering if someone could use a Pi as a low cost web surfer.
Would a Pi work to use a TV as a monitor?
I was thinking that living in an area where there is no Internet access or in homes that can't afford Internet access could use a phone to tether to the Pi and use the TV as a monitor to do Facebook and web surfing.
I'm not sure why you would need to use an rPi in place of a computer just because you are using a phone as your Internet connection, but sure, why not?
I tried using an early rPi model B and it was not a very good platform for a browser because it was so slow and had such limited memory. You might think web surfing would not require much from a computer, but the early rPi was a bit too lame. I have heard of others using the faster 2 and the 3 is a quad core. One of those two would be much better than the original that I have.
Normally, if you already have the hdmi cable connected and the Pi understands your TV's hdmi info which is almost always, you won't need any of this. But to be absolutely sure, you need:
# Usually the next one does the trick but this to make sure # that you can manually set any mode you like # Why the large number and not just 0/1, I have no idea hdmi_ignore_edid=0xa5000080
# The main "force hdmi" setting hdmi_force_hotplug=1
# Now that you forced it and ignored auto settings, you need to specify # an HDMI mode to use. 1 for TV modes with sound, 2 for computer monitor # modes without sound, see the two long lists of modes in link above hdmi_group=1
# 16 for 1080p 60 Hz (probably good in NTSC countries) # 31 for 1080p 50 Hz (probably good in PAL countries) hdmi_mode=31
You also need to do this for headless Pis to which you want to connect with VNC, to avoid a standard 640x480 desktop.
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