The Raspberry Pi is not only suitable as an experimentation platform, but also to serve all kinds of handy things in your home network that usually would require a server. This is mainly due to its very low power consumption, but also because it is very small and can be hidden in a lot of places. For such a small and inexpensive system it is actually quite powerful and can help you making your life a little bit easier. And coincidentally, Raspbian is the default recommended OS