Free E-Book – Raspberry Pi User Guide

Description of this Free E-Book:

This book explores a number of things you can do with your Raspberry Pi, from controlling hardware with Python, to using it as a media centre, or building games in Scratch. The beauty of the Raspberry Pi is that it’s just a very tiny general-purpose computer (which may be a little slower than you’re used to for some desktop applications, but much better at some other stuff than a regular PC), so you can do anything you could do on a regular computer with it. In addition, the Raspberry Pi has powerful multimedia and 3D graphics capabilities, so it has the potential to be used as a games platform, and we very much hope to see people starting to write games for it.
We think physical computing—building systems using sensors, motors, lights and microcontrollers—is something that gets overlooked in favor of pure software projects in a lot of instances, and it’s a shame, because physical computing is massive fun. To the extent that there’s any children’s computing movement at the moment, it’s a physical computing movement. The LOGO turtles that represented physical computing when we were kids are now fighting robots, quad copters or parent-sensing bedroom doors, and we love it. However, the lack of General Purpose Input/output (GPIO) on home PCs is a real handicap for many
people getting started with robotics projects. The Raspberry Pi exposes GPIO so you can get to work straight away.
I keep being surprised by ideas the community comes up with which wouldn’t have crossed my mind in a thousand years: the Australian school meteor-tracking project; the Britton Scouts in the UK and their robot, which is controlled via an electroencephalography headset (the world’s first robot controlled by Scouting brain waves); the family who are building a robot vacuum cleaner. And I’m real space cadet, so reading about the people sending Raspberry Pies into near-earth orbit on rockets and balloons gives me Goosebumps.
Success for us would be another 1,000 people every year taking up Computer Science at the university level in the UK. That would not only be beneficial for the country, the software and hardware industries, and the economy; but it would be even more beneficial for every one of those 1,000 people, who, I hope, discover that there’s a whole world of possibilities and a great deal of fun to be had out there. Building a robot when you’re a kid can take you to places you never imagined—I know because it
happened to me!

—Eben Upton

Author:

Eben Upton is a founder and trustee of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, and serves as its Executive Director. He is responsible for the overall software and hardware architecture of the Raspberry Pi, and for the Foundation’s relationships with its key suppliers and customers. In an earlier life, he founded two successful mobile games and middleware companies, Idea works 3d Ltd. And Pod fun Ltd., and held the post of Director of Studies for Computer Science at St John’s College, Cambridge. He holds a BA, a PhD and an MBA from the University of Cambridge.

Download Link for Free E-Book:

 

Raspberry Pi Users Guide Free E-Book

Table of Content:

Introduction

Programming is fun !

A bit of history

So what can you do with the Raspberry Pi?

Part I: Connecting the Board

Chapter  1: Meet the Raspberry Pi

ARM vs. x86

Windows vs. Linux

Getting Started with the Raspberry Pi

Connecting a Display

Connecting Audio

Connecting a Keyboard and Mouse

Flashing the SD Card

Connecting External Storage

Connecting the Network

Connecting Power

Chapter 2: Linux System Administration

Linux: An Overview

Linux Basics

Introducing Debian

Using External Storage Devices

Creating a New User Account

File System Layout

Logical Layout

Physical Layout

Installing and Uninstalling Software

Finding Software

Installing Software

Uninstalling Software

Upgrading Software

Chapter 3: Troubleshooting

Keyboard and Mouse Diagnostics

Power Diagnostics

Display Diagnostics

Boot Diagnostics

Network Diagnostics

The Emergency Kernel

Chapter 4: Network Configuration

Wired Networking

Wireless Networking

Chapter 5: Partition Management

Creating a New Partition

Resizing Existing Partitions

Automatic Resizing

Manual Resizing

Moving to a Bigger SD Card

Imaging from Linux

Imaging from OS X

Imaging from Windows

Chapter 6: Configuring the Raspberry Pi

Hardware Settings—config.txt

Modifying the Display

Boot Options

Overclocking the Raspberry Pi

Disabling L2 Cache

Enabling Test Mode

Memory Partitioning—start.elf

Software Settings—cmdline.txt

Part II: Using the Pi as a Media Centre, Productivity Machine and Web Server

Chapter 7: The Pi as a Home Theatre PC

Playing Music at the Console

Dedicated HTPC with Rasbmc

Streaming Internet Media

Streaming Local Network Media

Configuring Rasbmc

Chapter 8: The Pi as a Productivity Machine

Using Cloud-Based Apps

Using OpenOffice.org

Image Editing with The Gimp

Chapter 9: The Pi as a Web Server

Installing a LAMP Stack

Installing WordPress

Part III: Programming and Hacking

Chapter  10: An Introduction to Scratch

Introducing Scratch

Example  1: Hello World

Example 2: Animation and Sound

Example 3: A Simple Game

Robotics and Sensors

Sensing with the PicoBoard

Robotics with LEGO

Further Reading

Chapter  11: An Introduction to Python

Introducing Python

Example  1: Hello World

Example 2: Comments, Inputs, Variables and Loops

Example 3: Gaming with pygame

Example 4: Python and Networking

Further Reading

Chapter  12: Hardware Hacking

Electronic Equipment

Reading Resistor Colour Codes

Sourcing Components

Online Sources

Offline Sources

Hobby Specialists

The GPIO Port

UART Serial Bus

I²C Bus

SPI Bus

Using the GPIO Port in Python

Installing the GPIO Python Library

GPIO Output: Flashing an LED

GPIO Input: Reading a Button

Moving Up From the Breadboard

A Brief Guide to Soldering

Chapter  13: Add-on Boards

Ciseco Slice of Pi

Adafruit Prototyping Pi Plate

Fen Logic Gertboard

Part IV: Appendixes

Appendix A: Python Recipes

Appendix B: HDMI Display Modes