E-Book description:
It’s easy to understand why people were skep-tical of the Raspberry Pi when it was first an-nounced. A credit card-sized computer for $35 seemed like a pipe dream. Which is why, when it started shipping, the Raspberry Pi created a frenzy of excitement. Demand outstripped supply for months and the waitlists for these mini com-puters were very long. Besides the price, what is it about the Raspberry Pi that tests the patience of this hardware-hungry mass of people? Before we get into everything that makes the Raspberry Pi so great, let’s talk about its intended audience.
Eben Upton and his colleagues at the University of Cambridge noticed that today’s students applying to study computer science don’t have the skills that they did in the 1990′s. They attribute this to—among other factors—the “rise of the home PC and games console to replace the Amigas, BBC Micros, Spectrum ZX and Commodore 64 machines that people of an earlier gen- eration learned to program on.” Since the computer has become important for every member of the household, it may also discourage younger mem-bers from tinkering around and possibly putting such a critical tool out of commission for the family. But recently mobile phone and tablet processors have become less expensive while getting more powerful, clearing the path for the Raspberry Pi’s leap into the world of ultra-cheap-yet-serviceable computer boards. As the founder of Linux, Linus Torvalds, said in an interview with BBC News, Raspberry Pi makes it possible to “afford failure.”
E-Book Author:
Matt Richardson and Shawn Wallace
E-Book Table of Contents:
Preface …….. vii
1/Getting Up and Running …….. 1
A Tour of the Boards …….. 2
The Proper Peripherals ……. 6
The Case …….. 8
Flash the SD Card …….. 10
Booting Up …….. 11
Configuring Your P i…….. 12
Shutting Down …….. 15
Troubleshooting …….. 15
Going Further …….. 16
2/Getting Around Linux on the Raspberry Pi …….. 17
Using the Command Line …….. 20
Files and the Filesystem …….. 20
More Linux Commands …….. 24
Processes ……… 26
Sudo and Permissions …….. 26
The Network …….. 28
/etc ……… 29
Setting the Date and Time …….. 30
Installing New Software …….. 30
Going Further ……… . 31
3/Python On The Pi …….. . 33
Hello Python ………. 34
A Bit More Python …….. 36
Objects and Modules …….. 38
Even More Modules …….. 41
Troubleshooting Errors …….. 42
