Getting going with Rpi

So if you're eagle eyed you may have noticed my previous post! I've had a few little bits of time tinkering with my raspberry pi....In brief here are the ups and downs...

I managed to get it working with this small 4.5" (diagonal) monitor, they're really cheap (this one 16quid) and are sold as car reversing monitors on ebay. It has a composite input and is listed as working with 12 volts...interestingly though when I got it out of the box it had a sticker on the back saying 9-35 volts..I've had it hooked up to a regulated 9v supply and it runs perfectly. I've even had it running of a standard 9v PP3 battery...so there's portable possibilities too!

I found it difficult to set up the screen and resolution for this screen but here are the links that gave me all the info I needed (HINT YOU CAN USE NEGATIVE NUMBERS with overscan_left= instruction in config.txt...if you get to do any display hacking you'll know what I mean)...heres the links

useful wiki page about accessing, editing and using config.txt
a useful post on rpi forum

I also struggled in getting sound started via the analogue output...running this command worked for me...

sudo modprobe snd_bcm2835

which i got from this thread

I've tried to install numerous bits of audio software and I've not managed to get ANY of them working!! Which is a dissapointment...closet one was milkytracker which got to booting and the gui coming up but some sound driver issues stopped it from working! ...but I know I/it will get there..heck there are new OS's coming out for the pi left right and centre so the game changes all the time!!

Next on the list are to try the new beta debian image "wheezy" and maybe for fun have a look at archlinux.I've also been reading and watching videos about using the GPIO pins...reckon I'm going to try some little experiments in trying to get it to control some bits of BLARP!
I also have a tiny wired keyboard and integrated touchpad on order from shengzen so I can hook it up to my tiny Rpi and Tiny screen and pretend I'm a giant!