Raspberry Pi in easy steps

Mike McGrath

• Publisher: In Easy Steps Limited
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781840785814
• eBook ISBN: 9781840786903

The Raspberry Pi is a cheap, basic, programmable credit-card sized computer that plugs into your TV and a keyboard. Over five million Raspberry Pi 's have been sold worldwide, so far! Raspberry Pi in easy steps starts with the basic components you'll need, setting up the system and logging into the console. Then step-by-step it covers; exploring the desktop, the Taskbar, customization, the filesystem and browsing the internet; commanding the system, applications, web pages, reading and writing text, finding files, adding users, changing permissions, and employing the shell; animating with Scratch, enabling complete beginners to create computer programs visually without writing any code; programming with Python a high-level (human-readable) programming language; producing games Raspberry Pi ships with a selection of Python games for you to try; developing windowed apps with Tkinter; driving header pins how to control electrical input and output on the Raspberry Pi header from Python scripts, including lighting a lamp, adding more buttons and controlling projects.Use Raspberry Pi in easy steps to have fun going back to basics and creating your own applications.Source code files from the examples featured in this book are available to download free from the In Easy Steps website.

1

Getting started

Welcome to the exciting world of the Raspberry Pi. This chapter demonstrates how to establish a fully-functional computer system.

Introducing Raspberry Pi

Gathering the components

Setting up the SD card

Configuring the system

Logging into the console

Starting the desktop

Automating the login

Summary

Introducing Raspberry Pi

The Raspberry Pi is an inexpensive computer built on a single printed-circuit board. It was developed in the UK by the Raspberry Pi Foundation to encourage the teaching of basic computer science in schools and to put the fun back into learning about computing. The Foundation recognized that the school ICT curriculum had changed, placing emphasis on the use of applications, such as Word and Excel, or to writing web pages. Additionally, they noticed that the home PC and games console had replaced the Amigas, BBC Micros, Spectrum ZX and Commodore 64 machines that people of an earlier generation learned to program on. Nowadays, young people have become merely passive users of computers who the Foundation considers could benefit from knowing how computers work and how to program them – so they created the cheap, accessible Raspberry Pi computer.

Discover more about Raspberry Pi online at www.raspberrypi.org

In order to keep the price low the Raspberry Pi has some innovative design features:

•At its heart is an ARM processor that has System-on-Chip (SoC) architecture to integrate several traditionally separate components onto a single chip. The processor runs at 700 mhz – but can be tweaked to run at a faster speed. Typically, ARM processors have previously been used mainly in cellphones

•Unlike traditional computer design the Raspberry Pi does not have a hard drive but instead employs an SD card to contain the operating system and to store the files you create. The operating system can be one of several specially-optimized variants of the Linux operating system

•The Raspberry Pi model B has a total memory of just 512 MB – which is small compared to that of today’s traditional computers. Even with this limitation, surprisingly good performance is achieved as neither the processor nor the operating system are “memory hungry”. This in turn allows programs running on the Raspberry Pi to use very low amounts of memory

•Most noticeably, the Raspberry Pi is supplied without a case so it can be easily built into another device, such as a monitor, and its components can be easily identified

The choice of Linux distributions optimized for the Raspberry Pi is described here.

The Raspberry Pi is shown below, together with a table describing ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• 1 Getting started
• 2 Exploring the desktop
• 3 Commanding the system
• 4 Animating with Scratch
• 5 Programming with Python
• 6 Importing modules
• 7 Producing games
• 8 Developing windowed apps
• 9 Driving header pins
• Back Cover